Q&A with Professor Gillian Rose
Read our interview with 2025 Victoria Medal recipient, Professor Gillian Rose.
Professor Gillian Rose is the 2025 recipient of the Victoria Medal for conspicuous merit in research in geography.
What did you want to be, or where did you want to work, when you were a teenager?
"It’s a long time ago now! But I remember at various times wanting to be a painting conservationist, scuppered by my lack of science skills, and a theatre set designer or maybe an artist, scuppered by realising how much I loved reading and writing stuff.
"As it turned out, thinking about how visual images are so important to how geographies are understood became a major part of my work."
What role do you do now and how would you describe your work?
"I’m the Statutory Professor of Human Geography at the University of Oxford, and my work feels very demanding but also, thankfully, very varied. Every day is different, and I get to work with lots of fantastic, creative, generous colleagues (including students). It’s been the same in the four universities I’ve worked at."
How did you get into this field of work?
"Honestly, it was because academic work is the only thing I tried, and it turned out that I was good at it. I was good at schoolwork, loved my first and second degree, and was lucky enough to then get a permanent job that looked like it offered more of the same."
What has been the highlight of your career, regardless of how big or small, so far?
"Finally persuading my daughter to read a chapter in my best-selling book on visual methods when she was doing her undergraduate dissertation, and her telling me, in the most amazed tone of voice, that, actually, it had been quite helpful… and being awarded the Victoria Medal by the Society."
What projects are you working on right now?
"The main one is a book manuscript in preparation which looks at how big tech visualises life in digitally-mediated cities. It’s the first research book I’ve written from scratch since my first ever book over thirty years ago. The pair feel like bookends, one near the beginning and the other towards the end of my career."
What are you looking forward to in the future?
"I want to get that book published and talk about it with other geographers, I want to teach an undergraduate option on the cultural geographies of digital technologies for three or four years, and then I want to retire.
"Like many people, I don’t think I ever quite recovered from the demands of the pandemic, and I have stayed more tired than I would like."
Do you have any advice for someone wanting to go into your field?
"Be kind and help others. Stay curious and open-minded. Enjoy writing and try to do it elegantly. Use AI if you have to but don’t rely on it."
What legacy do you hope you’ll leave?
"I hope my writing and teaching will have enabled my readers and students to see things in new ways, ways that excite or provoke them into doing things a little differently."
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