Samuel Lieu - Biography#

Educated in Hong Kong and the UK, Samuel Nan Chiang Lieu won an exhibition in History to Emmanuel College Cambridge in 1969 and was awarded the Herbert Boys Prize for Byzantine Studies by the College in 1972. He began his PhD work in London and Oxford (awarded 1981) and was a Junior Research Fellow at Wolfson College Oxford (1974-76). From 1976 to 1986 he was successively Lecturer, Senior Lecturer, Reader and Professor (Personal Chair) at Warwick University (1972-95). He was appointed Director of the Centre of East Roman Studies at Warwick (1992-Jan. 1996) and also became Director of the UNESCO-sponsored Corpus Fontium Manichaeorum project - a project which he still leads. In 1996 he was appointed to a research-focused Chair in Ancient History at Macquarie University, Sydney, Australia, in succession to Prof. Edwin Judge and became Director of the prestigious Ancient History Documentary Centre at the same university and was elected Fellow of the Australian Academy (Hum.) in 1998. In 2010 he was given the title of Distinguished Professor by Macquarie University and the Australian Research Council awarded him a DORA (Discovery Outstanding Research Award (DORA) = a three year (Jan. 2013- Jan. 2015) full-salary research professorship). He became Emeritus Professor in 2015.

In 2017 he was elected President of the International Union of Academies - one of the most senior appointments for an emeritus professor in the humanities. Founded in 1919, the UAI is the oldest Academic-Union which is still thriving and most national academies (such as the British Academy) are members. His presidency will end in November, 2021 but he will continue to help lead the Union as an Honorary Professor. He is also an Executive member of International Council for Philosophy and Human Sciences (CIPSH) in 2020. He was elected Fellow of the British Academy in July, 2021.