Alexander Skinner
Executive Director
Alexander (‘Sandy’) Skinner is a historian of Late Antiquity. He holds the posts of Research Director and Executive Director at the VCLA. In this capacity, he sits on the Board of Directors, chairs the Business Committee and leads on operational matters.
His current research focuses on the provincial aristocracies of the Roman Empire in the fourth and fifth centuries, in relation both to imperial power and wider society — on which he is writing a book. Publications include articles in Past and Present and the Journal of Roman Studies, and various contributions on late Roman topics to the Oxford Dictionary of Late Antiquity (2018), edited by Oliver Nicholson.
Sandy is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, a Freeman of the Worshipful Company of Educators in the City of London, and Associate Fellow of the Higher Education Academy. He was an Honorary Research Fellow in the School of History, Archaeology and Religion at Cardiff University from 2011 to 2020, participating in the ‘Sons of Constantine’ project and the Centre for Late Antique Religion and Culture. From 2013 to 2015, he was also a Lecturer in Roman History at the University of Birmingham, where he participated in the UK Research Excellence Framework 2014.
Sandy was born in London in 1975. He has long connections with Radnorshire and Shropshire, and has spent considerable time in South-East Europe, particularly Romania. He was a Scholar of Christ Church, Oxford, where he read Ancient and Modern History and received a Double First. He was subsequently a Fulbright Scholar at Yale University and a winner of the Norman Hepburn Baynes Prize from the federal University of London, where he received his PhD in History after studying at University College London. During that time, he taught at Yale, UCL, St Mary’s University College, Royal Holloway, and Roehampton University. He also spent eight years working outside academic life – in charity, commerce and the public sector.