Professor Shaw was regarded as one of the world’s leading experts on phosphazenes, a group of cyclic and acyclic phosphorus-nitrogen compounds that he was responsible for naming. He had a distinguished international reputation, and over the course of his career was applauded for forging a vast array of international research collaborations with scholars in Bangladesh, Canada, France, Germany, India, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland, Turkey, the UK, and the U.S. For roughly two decades, Professor Shaw was also on the nomination panel for the Chemistry Nobel Prizes, with both of his successful nominees going on to receive the Nobel Prize. 

His first post at Birkbeck, as Assistant Lecturer started in 1953 and his eventual promotion from Lecturer directly to full Professor at Birkbeck was known for being the first such appointment in the University of London. 

Rob Martin was a Learning Development tutor and Disability Support Officer at Birkbeck. One of the students he supported, Ruth Ojadi, says: “When I began my studies at Birkbeck in 2015, I knew I’d experienced barriers to learning because of my disabilities but wasn’t necessarily aware of how my learning difficulties, disabilities and long-term health conditions affected me disproportionately. When I came to Birkbeck as a 29-year-old, not only did I know more about my various disabilities but also how my lived experiences had shaped me, making it far easier to verbalise them.  

“Birkbeck was the first university where Wellbeing and Disability Services made themselves known loud and proud from their Open Day through to the enrolment process. I knew where to go for support and that’s where I met Rob Martin. From the first meeting I had with Rob, I knew he was on the side of my success. I felt his passion as a Disability Support Officer and his best intentions for me as a student. Rob listened diligently and was able to identify and signpost the support that would best meet my needs.  

“From the recommendation of a Dyslexia assessment, SFE’s Disability Student Allowances and navigating the whole system within that. Rob was able to reassure me when it came to Needs Assessments as well as practical guidance of wait times for the processing of paper work which relieved much anxiety for me. I have Tourette’s Syndrome and this was a new experience for the university and teaching staff. Rob was a professional ally and took the time to suggest access recommendations that weren’t necessarily included on the Student Support Plan as well as helping me to reach out to teaching staff within my department (BSc Social Sciences) to discuss best practice and how they could support my learning experience.  

“Having Bipolar as well as the negative experiences from learning in the past meant that I had to repeat my 2nd year and took a year study break after that. My desire to return never wavered and neither did Rob’s belief that I indeed would. I’m truly grateful and feel lucky to have been a 1st year student in 2015/16 as Rob now works in a different capacity however, still within Birkbeck.” 

Richard Evans’ seminal work is his three-volume The Third Reich trilogy, documenting the rise and fall of Hitler’s regime in comprehensive detail. He was professor and head of department during his time at Birkbeck, before briefly stepping into the role of Acting Master during Tessa Blackstone’s appointment to Tony Blair’s government. He returned to Birkbeck in 2018 as Visiting Professor. 

Evans was educated at Oxford University, where he honed his historical acumen and became a proponent of social history as opposed to a follower of the “great man theory of history”. This led to his characteristic approach to social historical analysis focusing on modern German and European history, which transformed the study of the discipline during his lifetime. His interests have ranged from studies of German criminals, transferable diseases, capital punishment, the psychology of mobs, and witchcraft.  

Evans’ testimony was vital in Deborah Lipstadt’s defence against libel claims brought by David Irving who she said had falsified and mishandled historical evidence to exonerate Hitler. She was found innocent based on the evidence Evans brought to uphold her statements.  

A theological student at Birkbeck when the First World War was declared, Clements enlisted early in the University and Public Schools Brigade, which later merged into the Royal Fusiliers. Injured while on guard duty at Arras by a stray wire, he wrote poetry during his recuperation. He later published his poems in Salisbury Plain and Other Poems. His style was along more heroic and romantic lines than the more cynical war poets that are lauded today, such as Wilfred Owen and Siegfried Sassoon – though at the time it was more fashionable to revere great sacrifice on behalf of the “Motherland.” Having been recognised with the Military Cross for gallantry in 1918, Clements died five months later during the Battle of Amiens. 

Ramsay MacDonald was one of three founders of the British Labour party. Before going into politics, he studied for a scientific career at Birkbeck, but ill health interrupted his examinations and changed the course of his life. He remained a lifelong advocate of Birkbeck’s mission to educate working people.  

In 1894 he became a member of the Independent Labour Party and, later, Secretary of the Labour Representation Committee. When the Labour party formed, he was elected Labour MP for Leicester and became party leader. He took on the prime ministerial position after a vote of no confidence in the Conservative government in 1924 led King George V to call on MacDonald to form a minority government. This was short-lived but he again became prime minister five years later.  

He presided over some of the most turbulent years in British history, including the Great Depression and the rise of German Nazism. He was criticised for abandoning the Labour government to lead a National Government formed mostly of Conservatives in 1931 and for his pacifism in the face of the Hitler regime, but more recently scholars have praised his astute decision-making and socialist policies. 

Professor Philip Dewe was Professor of Organisational Behaviour in the Department of Organizational Psychology at Birkbeck. Having joined the College from Massey University in his native New Zealand in 2000, for 11 years Professor Dewe also gave outstanding service to Birkbeck as Vice-Master, stepping down from the role in summer 2014. 

Philip was a much-loved member of the Birkbeck community for many years.  He drove the Stratford project while also acting for many years as head of department for Organizational Psychology.  Despite his busy role, Philip made time for everyone, and greatly inspired those who knew or worked with him. 

Patrick Blackett was an accomplished British scientist who won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1948. He joined Birkbeck to head the physics department and to run his own laboratory.  

Although he was only at Birkbeck between 1933 and 1937 (when he left for a Chair at the University of Manchester), these were important years for him as a scientist and a leftist commentator. For Birkbeck, Blackett’s appointment would have been a major coup, especially since he brought with him a sizable grant from The Royal Society part of which was used to design an electromagnet. The largest magnet in the UK, “Josephine” weighed 11,000 kilos and was originally used to “study the energy spectrum of the cosmic rays”. It was so unwieldy that a wooden hut had to be constructed on the land set aside for building Malet Street.  

Along with J. D. Bernal, Aldous Huxley, and Leonard Woolf, Blackett organised the “For Intellectual Liberty” group, a popular front movement aiming to publicize the difficulties experienced by German Jews. He also established with Bernal the Academic Assistance Council, which continues today under its new name of Council for At-Risk Academics (CARA), aiming to assist academics fleeing tyrannical regimes. 

Birkbeck has been at the forefront of work to improve the quality of life for women with breast cancer through evidence-based research into the best ways to reduce anxiety and depression. 

Professor Nazanin Derakhshan led this work through Birkbeck’s Building Resilience in Breast Cancer (BRiC) Research Centre until recently, a centre she founded in 2015 after her own diagnosis of breast cancer. The Centre has helped many women who have been in direct contact with it to address some of the emotional challenges of breast cancer, and it has also reached thousands more indirectly through an ever-growing community of breast cancer survivors who have benefited from the Centre’s immensely influential research and continue to build their own mutually-supportive networks. 

Professor Hough is the former (and co-founding) Director of the Institute for Crime & Justice Policy Research (ICPR), which is based in the School of Law at Birkbeck. Professor Hough was instrumental in bringing the Institute from King’s College London to Birkbeck in 2010 and directed it for more than 20 years. Before moving to academia in 1994, he was a senior researcher in the Home Office for twenty years, co-designing the British Crime Survey in 1981. He was President of the British Society of Criminology from 2008 until 2011.  

Professor Hough’s research interests have been many and varied, from policing and public perceptions of crime and punishment, crime measurement and crime trends, and drug-related crime; to sentencing, the rehabilitation of offenders, desistance theory, restorative justice and procedural justice theory. He has around 300 publications.

Professor Hough worked with the Prison Reform Trust on the growth of imprisonment, on sentencing and sentencing guidelines, on children in custody and on the unfairness of the indeterminate sentence of Imprisonment for Public Protection.

Among his many achievements is fostering collaboration between British and other European criminologists.