Bernadine took up the role of President of the College in January 2021. She spent her teenage years acting at Greenwich Young People’s Theatre. In the 1980s, together with fellow alumni Paulette Randall and Patricia St. Hilaire, she founded the theatre company ‘Theatre of Black Women’. Bernadine has gone on to become an award-winning writer (joint winner of the Booker Prize in 2019 for the novel Girl, Woman, Other). Her published novels include Mr Loverman (2003) and The Emperor’s Babes (2001). She is the author of eight books of verse fiction and fiction that explore the aspects of the African Diaspora.