PAMELA Sue Anderson, who has died aged 61, was a pioneer in the field of Feminist Philosophy in Religion and a much-loved teacher and friend.

Professor Anderson was an international figures whose work on correcting gender bias, both in philosophy and religion broke important new ground.

She had been a fellow of Regent's Park College since 2001 and Professor of Modern European Philosophy of Religion since 2014.

She was a prestigious author and among her most influential books were, A Feminist Philosophy of Religion (1997) and Revisioning Gender in Philosophy of Religion (2012).

Her later work explored vulnerability and how experiences such as critical illness or bereavement could be transformative in a positive way.

Her colleague and friend professor Adrian Moore said she was a 'conscientious and much-loved teacher' who supported and championed younger women.

Pamela Sue Anderson was born in Minnesota in 1955 to parents Yvonne and Doug, a professor of educational psychology at the University of Minnesota.

She was schooled in the mid-western US state and graduated from St Olaf College.

In 1979, shortly after her graduation, she moved to Britain to pursue a doctorate at Mansfield College, Oxford, living in a house in Holywell Street for the next 11 years.

She focussed on the French philosopher Paul Ricoeur, and a version of her doctoral thesis was eventually published in 1993 as her first book Ricoeur and Kant: Philosophy of the Will.

After her time at Oxford she worked for a year at the University of Delaware in the US and then moved to Durham, in the UK working at the University of Sunderland.

But she missed Oxford, where her heart was and her long-term partner Paul Hunt lived.

In 2001, she returned to the city as a fellow at Regent's Park College and published several more books over the next 15 years.

She received an honorary doctorate from Lund University in Sweden, for her work in feminist philosophy of religion in 2009.

At the time of her death she was working on a book on the French philosopher Michele Le Doeuff, which was to have included translations of some of her work.

When she discovered the cancer she had was terminal, she began planning her legacy to the academic world and to Oxford - and leaves behind a student-support fund - the Pamela Sue Anderson Studentship for the Encouragement of the Place of Women in Philosophy.

She died on March 12 after a two-year battle with cancer.

Predeceased by her long-term partner, Paul Hunt, she is survived by her parents, her brother Larin, and her two sisters Heidi and Laurie.