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Our global community of former students and alumni include many exceptional people who have made their mark on the world.

Six Nobel Prize Winners:

  • Sir Frederick Gowland Hopkins
  • Ronald Coase
  • Wole Soyinka
  • Derek Walcott
  • Rolph Payet and,
  • Nelson Mandela.

This list also includes academics (Asa Briggs, Kwasi Wiredu, Sir Geoffrey Elton); engineers (Sir Barnes Wallis); politicians (Dr Luisa Diogo, Gisela Stuart MP); and writers (H.G. Wells, Chinua Achebe, Malcolm Bradbury).

Today, our worldwide reputation continues to ensure our graduates are to be found in leading positions around the world.

Shyamala Devi Alagendra - graduated 1995

Shyamala Devi Alagendra - graduated 1995
Prosecution Trial Lawyer with the International Criminal Court in The Hague

Malaysia’s Shyamala Devi Alegandra is a Prosecution Trial Lawyer with the International Criminal Court in The Hague, a court set up following a proposal by another of our alumni ANR Robinson [link]. Alegandra is a member of a team prosecuting crimes against humanity, war crimes and genocide. She was only 19 years’ old when she achieve her Bachelor of Laws degree with Honours from the University of London International Programmes in 1995. At 25 she was sworn in as an International Prosecutor with the Special Panels for Serious Crimes in East Timor. Another high profile case she worked on was was the Charles Taylor trial, in which she served as a Prosecution Trial Lawyer heard before the Special Court for Sierra Leone.

“I have always wanted to be involved in any process, in any capacity, to do with justice for gross human rights violations…. The resilience of the victims and their unending quest for justice has both humbled and motivated me to strive to seek justice on their behalf.”

Wole Soyinka - graduated 1954

Wole Soyinka - graduated 1954
Nobel Prize for Literature

Wole Soyinka is a Nigerian writer who was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1986 - the first person of African descent to do so. Soyinka graduated from the University College Ibadan, Nigeria, in 1954 while it was in ‘special relation’ with the University of London. He then went on to study and live in the UK, where he wrote his early plays, before returning to his home country in 1960 to study African drama. He is considered one of Africa’s greatest contemporary writers, writing plays, poems and novels and memoirs. He has also been an outspoken critic of political regimes in Nigeria and of political tyranny worldwide.

Derek Walcott

Derek Walcott - graduated 1953
Nobel Prize for Literature

Our second graduate to win the Nobel Prize for Literature was the Honorable Derek Walcott, a Saint Lucian writer and visual artist. He is considered the foremost West Indian poet and dramatist working today and was the first Caribbean person to win the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1992. Walcott received a scholarship to study at the University College of the West Indies during the ‘special relations’ period, and graduated in 1953. His extensive bibliography includes the epic poem Omeros– a retelling of the Homeric legend in a Caribbean context – and White Egrets, for which he won the T. S. Eliot Prize for Poetry in 2011.

Sir Charles Kao - graduated 1956

Sir Charles Kao - graduated 1956
Nobel Prize for Physics

Chinese-born Sir Charles Kao was awarded half of the 2009 Nobel Prize in Physics for his groundbreaking use of fibre optics in telecommunications. He was awarded a PhD in Electrical Engineering from the University of London in 1965, after studying via distance learning while working at Standard Telecommunication Laboratories (STL) in England. It was here in 1966 that Sir Charles made a discovery that led to a breakthrough in fiber optics, which are the glass fibres that facilitate global broadband communication such as the Internet. Sir Charles spent much of his life in Hong Kong, founding the Department of Electrical Engineering at the Chinese University of Hong Kong and later serving as Vice-Chancellor.

Eleni Mavrou

Eleni Mavrou
Mayor of Nicosia

Eleni Mavrou is the Mayor of Nicosia, capital of Cyprus. She gained a BSc in Politics and International Relations from the University of London International Programmes while living in the UK. When she returned to Cyprus she entered politics, serving as a councillor on the Nicosia Municipal Council from 1986-96. In 2001, she was elected to Cyprus’s House of Representatives where she served as President of the House Committee on the Environment and a member of the House Committees on Internal Affairs and Human Rights. When Cyprus joined the European Union in 2004, she represented Cyprus at the European Parliament. She was elected Mayor of Nicosia in 2006.