Mistress of Girton College 1976–83

Brenda Edith Ryman came up to Girton 1941–43 to read Natural Sciences.
While she was a student, she gained two blues for swimming. She
qualified for her BA degree under wartime regulations, and went to work
in an industrial laboratory for two years, after which she moved to the
University of Birmingham, where she was awarded her PhD in 1948. This
was an eventful year as she also married Harry Barkley and accepted a
lectureship at the Royal Free Hospital School of Medicine, where she
stayed for 24 years (as Senior Lecturer then Reader). As well as her
research on the therapeutic applications of liposomes, she pursued an
active concern with many aspects of scientific education. In 1972, she
was appointed to the Chair of Biochemistry at Charing Cross Hospital
Medical School where she built up the department to have an
international reputation for excellence in research and teaching. Four
years later, she became Mistress of Girton, while retaining her Chair
and living in London. Being head of a large Department and of a
Cambridge College was extremely demanding and there were some
constraints on the time she could spend in College and in University
affairs. However, her dynamism meant she was never short of ideas and
she wanted College to be ‘self-critical yet confident’. She presided
over the change of Girton from a single-sex to a mixed College and was
convinced that this was the right move for the future. She remained
Mistress until her death. She is remembered by her colleagues as someone
who lived at least four lives in her sixty years – and lived them
largely simultaneously.