Neil MacGregor has been Director of the British Museum since August 2002, previously being Director of the National Gallery. He is Chair of the World Collections Programme and sits on the Board of the National Theatre and the International Advisory Board of the Hermitage Museum in St Petersburg. Neil has worked with radio and television to bring collections to the widest possible public.
Neil read languages at New College, Oxford, studied philosophy at the Ecole Normale Supérieure, and Law at the University of Edinburgh. He also studied 17th- and 19th-century art at the Courtauld Institute of Art, and was a lecturer in the History of Art and Architecture at the University of Reading. In 1981 he became Editor of the arts periodical - The Burlington Magazine.