Career
After graduating with a degree in maths and computer science from Rand Afrikaans University, Brink undertook post-graduate study at Rhodes University and the University of Cambridge. He became Professor and Head of Mathematics and Applied Mathematics at the University of Cape Town in 1995, Pro-Vice-Chancellor (Research) at the University of Wollongong in 1999 and Rector and Vice-Chancellor of Stellenbosch University in 2002 before being appointed Vice-Chancellor of Newcastle University in 2007. In the 1980s Chris Brink was a Senior Research Fellow at the Australian National University.
He chaired the Student Policy Network (part of Universities United Kingdom) and the N8 Research Partnership, a group of eight research-intensive universities in the North of England.
Nationally he has served on the Board of the Equality Challenge Unit (including two years as a Company-Chair), the Board of the Quality Assurance Agency (and its Advisory Committee on Degree-Awarding Powers), and the Advisory Committee on Leadership, Governance and Management of the Higher Education Funding Council for England. Chris Brink developed the study of Boolean modules over relation algebras.
He focused on formal aspects of computer science with emphasis on program semantics and Popper"s concept of verisimilitude and on the universal-algebraic concept of power structures.
