Published by Student Direct: Mancunion


A NEUROSCIENCE professor at the University of Manchester has resigned after accusations of forging signatures on students’ exam papers.



A colleague claimed that Annmarie Surprenant, Professor of Neuroscience, had not marked 80 undergraduate exam papers properly and had forged the signature of the second marker. It was not the first time Surprenant’s marking had been criticised.



“No student has ever been inaccurately or unfairly graded by me,” Surprenant insisted to the Times Higher Education Supplement.

However, the University found issue and suspended her in August before asking her to appear before an internal disciplinary panel. The meeting never took place with her resignation handed in on 4th September.

Surprenant’s husband is Vice-President and Dean of the Faculty of Medical and Human Sciences at the University of Manchester, Alan North, and was controversially scheduled to be a member of the disciplinary panel.

A University of Manchester spokesman said: “The University has satisfied itself that no student has been advantaged or disadvantaged.”

This was the second time the scholar’s career has been the subject of investigation. In 1994, Professor Surprenant resigned from an academic post in the United States after admitting having misrepresented her qualifications to the US Government.