Professor Sir Nigel Thrift is the Executive Director of Schwarzman Scholars. Dr. Thrift is one of the world’s leading human geographers and previously served as Vice-Chancellor and President of the University of Warwick and as Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Research at the University of Oxford. Dr. Thrift is a Fellow of the British Academy. During his career, he has received many academic awards including the Scottish Geographical Society Gold Medal, the Royal Geographical Society Victoria Medal, and Distinguished Scholarship Honors from the Association of American Geographers, as well as honorary degrees form Bristol and Monash Universities. He was knighted in 2015 for services to higher education.