Mr. Robert Bermudez

Robert BermudezMr. Bermudez, a national of Trinidad and Tobago, has been an entrepreneur for over 40 years. He has led the growth of his family-owned business, to a regional business throughout the Caribbean and Latin America and has enjoyed a distinguished career in business, serving as either Chairman or Board Director for several other corporate bodies in Trinidad and Tobago and the Caribbean.

His vision for the University outlines a keen sense of the mission, effectiveness, relevance and interdependence of academia and the economy. His professional experience as a Caribbean-wide entrepreneur with business acumen garnered from across the region suggests that he will continue the distinguished tradition of Chancellorship that this University has maintained throughout its history.


Professor Sir Hilary Beckles

VC Sir Hilary BecklesProfessor Sir Hilary Beckles is the Vice Chancellor of the University of the West Indies. Before assuming this office on May 1, 2015, he served the university as Pro-Vice Chancellor and Principal of its Cave Hill Campus in Barbados for thirteen years (2002-15). He has had a distinguished career within the university becoming at age 36 its youngest scholar to be promoted to a personal chair. As professor of Economic and Social history, he won the first Vice Chancellor's Award for excellence in the field of research. He is a distinguished university administrator, internationally reputed historian, an expert thinker and strategist in higher education.

Sir Hilary has had global recognition for his academic achievements and leadership expertise. He serves on many United Nations committees and Advisory panels. He is a founding member of Secretary-General Ban Ki Moon's Science Advisory Board on sustainable development, and has been an advisor to UNESCO's Cities for Peace Global Program. He has served as an advisor to the UN World Culture Report, and is the Vice President of UNESCO's Slave Route Project. He is also an Editor of the 9th volume of UNESCO's General History of Africa Series which he conceptualized around the Global Africa framework.

Sir Hilary received his higher education in the United Kingdom and graduated in 1976 with a BA (Hons) Degree in Economic and Social History from Hull University, and a PhD from the same university in 1980. He has lectured extensively in Europe, the Americas, Africa and Asia, and has published over 100 peer reviewed essays and 14 scholarly books and monographs on subjects ranging from Atlantic and Caribbean History, gender relations in the Caribbean, sport development and popular culture. These include: Centering Woman: Gender Discourses in Caribbean Slave Societies (Randle Publishers,1999); The History of Barbados (Cambridge University Press, 2006); Natural Rebels: A Social History of Enslaved Black Women in the Caribbean (Rutgers University Press, 1989; Britain's Black Debt: Reparations for Slavery and Native Genocide in the Caribbean (UWI Press); and The Development of West Indies Cricket: volume 1: The Age of Nationalism; and Volume 2: The Age of Globalization (Pluto Press, 1999).

Sir Hilary has received numerous awards for his contribution: including the degree of Honorary Doctor of Letters from Brock University in Canada, the University of Glasgow in Scotland, his alma mater Hull University in England, and the Kwame Nkrumah University for Science and Technology in Ghana. In 2015 he was honored by the Borough of Brooklyn, New York, for "extraordinary achievement, outstanding leadership, and contribution to the community". He received in 2015 the Second Global Community Healer Award for humanitarian work from the Community Healer Network, Washington DC, following the legendary Maya Angelou. In 2007 he was Commander Knight of St. Andrew (KA), the higher national honor of his country, "in recognition of his distinguished service in the fields of Education, Sports and the Arts".

Sir Hilary also serves in multiple roles in the Caribbean private sector, and is a long serving director of Sagicor Financial Corporation - the largest, international financial services conglomerate in the region. He is also a director of British telecom giant Cable and Wireless. He is Chairman of The University of the West Indies Press, and served as a director of the West Indies Cricket Board, and was a director of West Indies Cricket World Cup Inc. He is founder and director of the CLR James Centre for Cricket Research, and was founder director of the Sagicor West Indies Cricket Academy. He is Vice President of the Commonwealth Advisory Body of Sport and Development which advises Sport Ministers on the planning of the Commonwealth Games. Sir Hilary is Chairman of the Caribbean Commission on Reparations, and is a member of United Nations Development Program Advisory Panel of the Caribbean Human Development Report.

Finally, Sir Hilary is an accomplished playwright with six of his staged works receiving popular acclaim.


Professor R Clive Landis, PhD

Professor R Clive Landis, PhDProfessor R Clive Landis, who joined The UWI in 2004, has served as Deputy Principal of the Campus from 2015-2019; as University Pro Vice-Chancellor for Undergraduate Studies from 2019-2021 and Chair of the UWI Zika Task Force in 2016. He is also currently Chair of the UWI COVID-19 Task Force, having assumed the role since February 2020. Professor Landis assumed the Principalship of the Cave Hill Campus for a period of five years with effect from August 01, 2021.

Nearly two decades ago when Professor Landis began his service at The UWI, after relocating from Imperial College London, he took up a post as Senior Lecturer in the George Alleyne Chronic Disease Research Centre (GA-CDRC) at Cave Hill. In 2009, he was promoted to the rank of Professor in Cardiovascular Research and was appointed Director of the GA-CDRC in 2013.

Professor Landis has published over 150 scientific papers and conference presentations, the majority arising from research conducted at the Edmund Cohen Vascular Research Laboratory that he founded as an annex at the GA-CDRC.

His research has focused on the role of inflammation during wound healing, vascular disease, and recovery post-surgery. A more recent interest has been viral and public health research: established viruses such as HIV as well as emerging viruses such as ZIKV and SARS-CoV-2.

Professor Landis’ interest in HIV has revolved around the Immunology PhD programme that he founded at Cave Hill as well as a sixteen-year collaboration with the public HIV laboratory. He has published joint scientific papers with the Ministry of Health and Wellness and accepted appointment as Honorary Director of the government HIV laboratory from 2011–2018. During this time, he led the laboratory through accreditation cycles with the College of American Pathologists. He has also helped expand Regional laboratory capacity as Chairman of the Caribbean Cytometry & Analytical Society.

As Chair of the COVID-19 Task Force, Professor Landis has published policy papers and technical reports analyzing the comparative effectiveness of the pandemic response by CARICOM. He has pledged to continue his chairmanship of the Task Force until the pandemic is declared over by the World Health Organization.

Together with his experience as a senior university administrator, Professor Landis brings an imbued sense of the importance to place students at the centre of all the University does, along with a distinguished track record of teaching, research, and outreach.

A dual citizen of the UK and Barbados, Professor Landis grew up in Switzerland, and is a fluent German speaker. He is married to Julie Landis, and has three children: Matthew, Christopher and Nicholas.


Professor Densil A. Williams

Professor Densil A. WilliamsDensil A. Williams is a renowned academic in the field of Business and Management. He is a Professor of International Business, former Principal of the UWI Five Islands Campus, and also the former Pro-Vice Chancellor, Industry/Academic Partnerships and Planning at the UWI. Before joining the UWI in 2007, he served in the private sector as a Business Analyst in Strategy and Transformation at one of Jamaica’s largest multinational corporations. He is the youngest person to be promoted to the rank of Professor at the UWI, Mona Campus, and also the first person in the history of the Business and Management Department to be promoted to Professor.

Professor Williams has led several transformational initiatives in administrative processes, research and innovation, and teaching and learning while at UWI. For example, he spearheaded the establishment of the first Bloomberg Finance Lab in a business school in the Caribbean. The lab went on to win an award for innovation in 2018. In addition, he led a comprehensive revision of the MBA and MSc curricula to make them more applicable to the modern workplace. The various initiatives led to the school achieving great improvements in its financial performance and an increased public profile. He also spearheaded the conceptualization and build-out of a master plan for the expansion of the physical plant at the Five Islands Campus in Antigua and Barbuda and partnered with the Government of Antigua and Barbuda to raise US$80million to finance the execution of the master plan.

He has an impressive academic resume. He obtained a BSc degree with first-class honours in Economics and Management Studies and an MSc in International Business from UWI. In 2006, he received a PhD in International Business and Strategy from Manchester Business School, University of Manchester. He was a Jamaica Government Exhibition Scholar, a Jamaica Flour Mills Scholar, a Lome IV Scholar, and a Commonwealth Scholar. He was also awarded the prize for the most outstanding researcher in the Faculty of Social Sciences at the UWI, Mona Campus in 2013 and 2015. He is the author of five (5) books and over 70 referred research articles in academic journals and conferences.

Professor Williams has built a career in business and academia for over 22 years. He has held a remarkable record of public service, research, and scholarly work while serving on a number of boards of state entities, private sector organizations, and committees, as well as regional and international editorial boards.


Professor Justin Robinson

Professor Justin RobinsonProfessor Robinson is a national of St. Vincent and the Grenadines. A UWI Alumnus with a BSc in Management Studies (First Class Honours) from the Cave Hill Campus, he has an MSc in Finance and Econometrics from Florida International University, and obtained his PhD in Finance from the University of Manchester, UK. He is a Professor of Corporate Finance and has published over 50 refereed publications in a number of regional and international journals.

In more than 20 years with The UWI, Professor Robinson has served as Head, Department of Management Studies, Cave Hill Campus; Executive Director, Sagicor Cave Hill School of Business & Management; Dean, Faculty of Social Sciences; and Pro Vice-Chancellor, Board for Undergraduate Studies. He was also a member of the working group for the establishment of the Five Islands Campus in 2018.

Professor Robinson is actively engaged in public service and serves as a Director of the Central Bank of Barbados, Member of the Fiscal Responsibility Mechanism, St. Vincent & the Grenadines, Director, Jamaica Money Market Brokers International, and Director West India Biscuit Company. He also serves as Chair of the Ratings Committee of CARICRIS (the Caribbean’s sole credit rating agency), and First Vice President of the Barbados Museum and Historical Society. He has been a Director of the Central Bank of Barbados since 2008 and a financial adviser to the Barbados Credit Union League since 2009.


Dr Francis Severin

Dr Francis Severin is the Interim Principal of the Open Campus effective August 1, 2021.

Dr Severin, a national of Dominica, has had a long and distinguished career with The UWI. He was previously the Deputy Principal of the Open Campus, a position he has held from August 1, 2020.

Prior to being the Deputy Principal, he served as Director of Open Campus Country Sites (OCCS) from October 2013, having acted for long intervals in that post prior to that date. He served The UWI part-time as local Tutor in The UWI Distance Education (UWIDEC) Programme, School of Continuing Studies (SCS), in Dominica from 1994 to 1998, facilitating the courses: Introduction to Caribbean History for Law and Social Sciences and Introduction to Sociology of the Caribbean.

On January 1, 1999, he was appointed to his first full-time role in The UWI as Programme Officer in the Office of Administration and Special Initiatives (OASIs), headed by Pro Vice-Chancellor Professor Marlene Hamilton, who was the Mona Campus’s first female Deputy Principal and first woman ever to be appointed as PVC at The UWI. OASIs was a Centre Unit in the Vice Chancellery, headquartered then on the Mona Campus in Kingston, Jamaica.

In August 2005, Dr Severin returned to Dominica to take up the post of Resident Tutor and Head, School of Continuing Studies. While in that post he participated in the historical transition from the former entities that comprised the Board for Non-Campus Countries and Distance Education (NCC’s & DE) to the Open Campus.

Dr Severin graduated from The UWI Cave Hill Campus in 1991 with a Bachelor’s degree in History and Social Studies with Education. He went on to complete his postgraduate studies at The UWI Mona Campus: in 1998 with the MSc in Sociology specializing in Social Policy and Administration, followed by a PhD in Education, in 2006.

Dr Severin has served on numerous Campus and University boards and committees, including: University Council; University Appointments Committee; Board for Undergraduate Studies (BUS); Board for Graduate Studies and Research (BGSR); Finance and General Purposes Committee (F&GPC); Open Campus Academic Board; Senate Committee on Ordinances and Regulations (SCOR); Campus Evaluations & Promotions Committee (EPC); Campus Appointments Committee (CAC); University and Campus ICT Steering Committees; University Executive Management Team; and the University Senate and Library Evaluations and Promotions Committee.

Dr. Severin was the Chair of the Committee of Deans in academic year 2019-2020 and has been the Open Campus’ Public Orator since 2010.


Professor Rose-Marie Belle Antoine

Professor Rose-Marie Belle Antoine is the Pro Vice-Chancellor and Campus Principal and chaired Professor of Labour Law and Offshore Financial Law. UWI, St. Augustine. She is the former Dean of the Faculty of Law and PVC, Graduate Studies and Research. An Oxford and Cambridge Scholar, she holds a doctorate in law from Oxford, LLM from Cambridge, LLB from the UWI and certificates in international human rights from the IIHR in Strasbourg. Antoine is an attorney, award winning scholar and author, international consultant, temporary Court of Appeal judge and activist. In 2014, she was elected President of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, OAS, Washington, was the OAS Rapporteur for Indigenous Peoples, Head of the OAS Economic, Social and Cultural Rights Unit and Rapporteur for Persons of African Descent and Discrimination. She was CARICOM Chair on HIV, Migration and Chair of the CARICOM Regional Commission on Marijuana. She is the President of the Family Planning Association, a Cambridge Fellow, a member of Trinidad & Tobago’s Industrial Relations Advisory Committee, an Honorary Fellow of the International Society for Trust Practitioners (STEP), the only Caribbean person and a Trustee of the London IPPF Board.

Antoine made history by winning the regional Vice Chancellor’s Award of Excellence twice, in 2006 for Research and in 2013 for Public Service. In 2018 she was honoured by UWI Cave Hill Campus as an ‘’Outstanding Alumnus’. She has published 15 books and numerous scholarly articles, with her work being described by international reviewers as “original”, “insightful and amazing”. PVC Antoine was honoured as an Eminent Jurist- Pioneering Caribbean Woman by the Caribbean Court of Justice in 2021.

Antoine has served as Consultant to all of the governments in the Caribbean, UK, Venezuela, USA and Canada, the judiciary, NGOs and international organizations, including the EU, OAS, IADB, World Bank, CDB, CARICOM, UNDP, OECS, UNICEF, ILO, UNIFEM, CAREC, PANCAP, UNAIDS, UNDCP, and ECLAC, drafting legislation and authoring influential Policy Reports on several varied issues prioritizing Caribbean legal development, including Climate Justice, Anti-Discrimination, indigenous peoples, HIV, Education, Narcotics, Labour Law, Human Rights, Free Movement, Financial Law, Health, Gender, Money-Laundering, Anti-Corruption, the Judiciary, Public Service, Police, Juvenile Justice and Human Trafficking. This transformational work references the CARICOM Labour Law Report, the catalyst for labour law reform and non-discrimination legislation in the region, the Report of the CARICOM Regional Commission on Marijuana, CSME legal reform, the TCI legislative reform project credited with returning the TCI to self-governance and more recently, her CARICOM Report on Marijuana, the blueprint for regional law reform.

Due to this path-breaking scholarship, activism and consultancy work, she is described by governments, international sources and others as the “foremost labour law expert in Labour Law in the region,” the “leading” authority in the region in International Financial Law and HIV law and a ‘’change agent’’. Antoine remains committed to development within the framework of human rights. She enjoys painting, gardening and is a trained classical singer.