Professor Brady led the University from 2015 to 2022 and is the latest Vice-Chancellor to be captured for posterity at the end of their tenure.
The portrait, taken by photographer Jessica Augarde, is now on permanent display in the Wills Memorial Building’s Great Hall.
It was in the Great Hall on Friday [17 February] that Professor Brady was joined by current Vice-Chancellor and President, Professor Evelyn Welch, and around 20 other well-wishers as the photo portrait was officially unveiled.
Speaking after the event, Professor Brady said: “It’s been fantastic to return to the University of Bristol today, to once again thank the many colleagues who make this institution so special.
“Bristol is a magnificent University and it is humbling to see this portrait next to those of my predecessors.”
Professor Welch said: “Professor Brady led the University with passion and rigour during a time of great change in the higher education sector.
“Like all Vice-Chancellors before him, Professor Brady was instrumental in shaping Bristol’s world-leading research portfolio and education offer.”
The Vice-Chancellor is the academic lead and chief executive of the University of Bristol. They lead with the help of University’s Board of Trustees, Court and Senate. The University of Bristol also has a Chancellor – currently Sir Paul Nurse – who acts at the ceremonial head of the institution.
Professor Brady studied medicine at University College Dublin (UCD) before an academic career at Harvard Medical School, the University of Toronto and UCD. In 2004 he became UCD’s youngest ever President and in 2015 became Bristol’s 13th Vice-Chancellor and President.
Professor Brady stepped down as Vice-Chancellor and President in July 2022 and since August 2022 has been President of Imperial College.
Jack Boyer OBE, Chair of the University's Board of Trustees, who also attended the portrait unveiling, said: “Professor Brady was an outstanding leader during his six years with us. Despite external challenges he continued to build the University as a global leader in education and research.”
In September 2022, Professor Welch became both the University’s 14th Vice-Chancellor and its first female Vice-Chancellor.
Visitors to the University of Bristol’s Great Hall can see portraits of other former Vice-Chancellors, including the University’s first, Professor Conwy Lloyd Morgan, who led the institution’s transition from a college to a university in 1909.
In 2018, to mark 100 years since women won the right to vote in the UK, Jessica Augarde photographed 10 women from the University of Bristol holding pictures of pioneering women from the University’s history. These hang alongside the Vice-Chancellor portraits in the Great Hall.