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Notable alumni

Since its founding, King’s has educated some of the world’s foremost thinkers, leaders and innovators, and welcomed exceptional academics as Faculty.

From early innovators such as Florence Nightingale, James Clerk Maxwell, and Sir Charles Lyell, through to Professor Maurice Wilkins, Rosalind Franklin, Sir James Black and Dame Cicely Saunders, we have a history of making advances that have shaped modern life.

Creative writers nurtured at King’s include John Keats, Thomas Hardy, WS Gilbert, and Virginia Woolf.

Great names from King's continue to change the world. Among our current notable alumni are:

Nobel Peace Laureate Archbishop Desmond Tutu
2013 Nobel Physics Laureate Peter Higgs, of Higgs Boson fame
Authors Hanif Kureishi CBE, Sir Michael Morpurgo OBE DL, Susan Hill CBE and Alain de Botton
Dame Katherine Grainger, five-times Olympic rowing gold medallist
Dina Asher-Smith, Olympic and European Championship sprint medallist
Farah Storr, editor-in-chief of Cosmopolitan magazine
Susan Gilchrist, CEO of Brunswick Group
Dev Pragad CEO of Newsweek Group
Sir Kier Starmer QC MP, Leader of the Labour Party
Margo Marrone, founder of the Organic Pharmacy.

Making a difference

780 NYH

13 January 2021

Alumni recognised in the 2021 New Year Honours List

There were 24 King’s alumni who featured in the 2021 New Year Honours List.

780 Peterson

26 November 2020

A life remembered – The Alexandros Petersen Scholarship

Dr Alexandros Petersen (War Studies, 2006) was a talented young academic and writer who made a…

Queens honours (Image credit Royal Communications)

19 October 2020

King's Alumni honoured in The Queen's birthday honours

There were 19 King’s alumni who featured in The Queen’s birthday honours in October 2020.

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11 October 2020

How a King's History student founded a school of historical thought in 1950s Africa

King's Alumni Dr Kenneth Dike has been referred to as ‘The Father of West African Historiography’