A Polish Jew living in Leipzig at the outset of Nazism, Michaelis was granted asylum in Britain along with three of his siblings and commenced studying maths, physics and chemistry at Birkbeck. Being a German national, he wasn’t accepted for military service until a petition from the Master of Birkbeck proved successful, and he eventually served in the Royal Air Force.

Not much is known about him, but after the war he returned to Birkbeck, became a British citizen, and worked as a research laboratory supervisor during Rosalind Franklin’s time at Birkbeck. He would go on to secure a PhD.

Erica is VP of Chicago Neighborhood Initiatives Micro Finance Group at Citibank and studied International Business at Birkbeck.

She has over twenty years of experience in small business lending and credit underwriting and seeks to deliver solutions that empower entrepreneurs and serve as a model for other lenders to emulate. She is also passionate about identifying innovative financial resources for underserved entrepreneurs.

As part of the team at Citi, a global bank, and their Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) programme, she contributes to addressing society’s greatest challenges, including championing pay equity, addressing the racial wealth gap, increasing economic mobility and confronting the climate crisis.

Emma Rees was working as a hairdresser in Australia before she moved to London and took her bachelor’s degree to develop her entrepreneurial skills. While studying part-time at Birkbeck for a BA Management, she created one of the first on-demand digital platforms for beauty services. Although it didn’t work out long-term, she learned a lot from the process and with the help of two government grants, developed the skills to co-found and build Deployed, a project support infrastructure that improves project success rates.

Emma runs a team of 15 people and is grateful to be able to help elevate other women in the industry. She has spoken publicly on the barriers faced by women in tech and how these can be overcome. Emma’s experiences demonstrate the value of unique perspectives and greater diversity when it comes to innovation, and of continuing to learn throughout one’s life.

Emma is a recipient of the global Melinda Gates Female Founders award and continues to lead the way for women in tech.

The first female director of the University of Surrey Library, Elizabeth Esteve-Coll was raised in Darlington, the daughter of a bank clerk. She graduated from Birkbeck with a Bachelor’s degree in History and History of Art, going on to an illustrious career in the arts and academia.

She was Keeper and Chief Librarian of the National Art Library for two years, then director of London’s Victoria and Albert Museum for seven years from 1988, making her the first woman to head a British national arts collection. She went on to vice chancellor roles at two universities, the University of East Anglia and the University of Lincoln, before a multiple sclerosis diagnosis forced her decision to resign.

She was conferred a Dame Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (DBE) in 1995.

Justice Edwin Cameron is the Inspecting Judge of the South African Judicial Inspectorate for Correctional Services and was previously Justice of South Africa’s Constitutional Court.

Justice Cameron is an outstanding human rights lawyer who has made and continues to make a huge contribution to international jurisprudence and the protection of equality and human rights.

Edwin has provided regular support for Birkbeck’ ICPR prisons research since providing a foreword to a report and delivering the annual ICPR lecture: ‘Do prisons work? If not, do prisons inspectorates do more harm than good?’ (18 January 2022)

Openly gay since the early 1980s, he was the first and is still the only senior African official to state publicly that he is living with HIV/AIDS, and was hailed by Nelson Mandela as one of South Africa’s new heroes. Edwin has been a tireless campaigner for equality for LGBTQ people and people living with HIV/AIDS. He drafted the country’s Charter of Rights on AIDS and HIV, co-founded the AIDS Consortium (a national affiliation of non-governmental organizations), and founded and directed the AIDS Law Project. This, with other work, helped secure the express inclusion of sexual orientation in the South African Constitution.

Douglas Dakin was a British historian, academic and professor emeritus of Birkbeck. He was only 32 years old when war was declared and had just published Turgot and the Ancien Régime in France (1939), which reviewers had hailed as “one of the best studies of French eighteenth century history to come from England in many a moon”.

His research interests then moved to Greece, especially the revolution of 1821-29. When war was declared, Dakin had joined the Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve and then served in Egypt and Greece as a liaison officer to the Royal Hellenic Air Force. During the “Dekemvriana” or the 3^rd of December event, in which police fired into a crowd of ELAS (the Greek People’s Liberation Army) demonstrators in Syntagma Square, Athens, Dakin was arrested. However, his love of English democracy and his persuasive argumentative style resulted in him converting an ELAS colonel to support the British.

Dakin’s time in Greece, in which he was probably a British agent although he was later described as an “anarchist of the right”, led him to shift much of his intellectual interests after the war to modern Hellenic studies. It was a field in which he subsequently became a world-expert.

In 2011 Dickon Edwards commenced a part-time degree in English Literature at Birkbeck. He had already enjoyed a career in the music industry in the 1990s and had written the world’s longest-running online diary. But he was now a ‘classic Birkbeck student’, being around 40 years old and seeking the second chance to do a degree which had not been possible earlier in life.

Perhaps one reason for this was that he experienced dyslexia and dyspraxia, which had never been diagnosed until the Birkbeck Disability Office did this during Dickon’s first year. As a result of these diagnoses, Dickon received support which continued throughout his studies. Notwithstanding these challenges, Dickon’s commitment to study saw him through his BA degree with the prize for the best finalist.

He also received the Stephen Thomson Prize, awarded to students who had experienced adversity. In 2015 he proceeded to undertake the MA Contemporary Literature & Culture and was ultimately awarded the prize for the best finalist on this degree too.

Finally, Dickon completed a rare ‘treble’ of Birkbeck degrees in a decade by undertaking a PhD between 2017 and 2021. His thesis concerned Ronald Firbank and the Legacy of Camp Modernism. While researching the thesis, Dickon applied for government funding from the CHASE consortium, which Birkbeck had just joined, and he was given one of these immensely competitive awards to support him while he completed his studies. Indeed, Dickon was the first ever CHASE-funded Birkbeck student to complete the PhD. Dickon’s story reflects his own qualities of intelligence and scholarly dedication. But it is also a very Birkbeck story, an example of how the mission of the College could provide a platform to a gifted student who had faced adversity, and give them a second chance at the blessings of education.

Sir Derek Barton was a British chemist and is considered one of the greatest chemists of the twentieth century. In 1950 he was appointed Reader in Organic Chemistry at Birkbeck and in 1953, at the early age of 35, as Professor.

His studies revealed that organic molecules have a preferred three-dimensional form from which their chemical properties can be inferred. This research earned him the 1969 Nobel Prize for Chemistry, shared with Odd Hassel of Norway.

Barton’s scientific works in organic chemistry spanned 58 years and ranged over vast areas of the subject. He set himself a target to publish 1,000 research papers before the age of 80, and remarkably, but not surprisingly, achieved his goal.

Denis Healey was a British Labour politician and President of Birkbeck from 1993 to 1999, contributing significantly to the life of the College during that time.

Lord Healey was Secretary of State for Defence from 1964 to 1970 and Chancellor of the Exchequer from 1974 to 1979 under Prime Ministers Harold Wilson and James Callaghan. He became deputy party leader in opposition, under Michael Foot, in 1980. His keen intellectual brain and sharp wit marked him out as a giant of British post-war politics.

Lord Healey took up the honorary role of President of Birkbeck in 1993. Professor David Latchman, Master of Birkbeck, said: “He was a great friend and supporter of Birkbeck and passionately believed in the power of education to transform lives. He will be greatly missed.”

David Ruebain is a law professor and Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Culture, Equality and Inclusion at the University of Sussex. He is also an adviser to the football premier league on equalities, diversity and inclusion, the former director of legal policy at the equality and human rights commission and has been in the top 25 most influential disabled people in the UK.

In 2019, David joined Birkbeck as a Visiting Professor in the School of Law, continuing his interests in the intersection of law and policy, particularly relating to equality and human rights.

He has said: “issues are predominantly structural, by which I mean they are not only to do with behaviours, but are related to systemic arrangements, contexts and histories, which are often common across sectors.”