Professor Richard Gilbertson, a fellow at St John’s, has been selected as the next Master of Gonville & Caius College. He will take over on October 1 2025, with Professor Pippa Rogerson having announced her intention to resign earlier this year.

The announcement was made yesterday (27/06) on Instagram, the College’s website, and Caius’ student intranet. The news came on the same day as Caius’ general admission undergraduate students graduated at Senate House.

At a meeting on Wednesday (26/06), the Fellows expressed their intention to pre-elect Professor Gilbertson, but the official election will not take place until May. It is expected that, following this pre-election, the official election will result in an almost unanimous decision from the fellows.

The College described the decision as “an appointment warmly welcomed by Fellows, students and staff”.

Professor Gilbertson is currently the Head of Department of Oncology at the University and Director of CRUK Cambridge Centre. He previously studied medicine at Newcastle University, and has since led a successful career in paediatric research. In 2022 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society.

The decision to select a medic has been praised on social media. In 2023, almost 10% of the total number of Cambridge medical students matriculated to Gonville & Caius. The College is home to a higher proportion of medics than any other at Cambridge.

In the announcement, Gilbertson was quoted saying that he was “both delighted and humbled to be joining the College as Master next year.”

“The future holds many opportunities and challenges for the College and I look forward to working with the entire Caius community to build on the achievements of my predecessors,” he continued.

“I have been struck by the commitment, brilliance and warmth of the students, Fellows and staff I have met already and I am excited to be joining such a diverse community as together we continue the College’s legacy of impactful, academic excellence,” Gilbertson concluded.

The President of the College, Peter Robinson, described the selection process as “highly competitive”.

Professor Gilbertson will be the 44th Master of the College. He will take over from Professor Pippa Rogerson, who was elected as the first female Master of the College in 2018.

In a previous interview, Professor Rogerson told Varsity that one of the leading factors in her decision to step back was the commencement of the College’s development work on Rose Crescent, which she expected would be a 10 year project. She expressed that a single Master overseeing this would benefit the project, compared to her stepping back amid this work.