Judith Mayhew Jonas was the first woman to hold a number of public roles in the United Kingdom such as a two-year term as Provost of King’s College, Cambridge and chair of the Royal Opera House. Born and educated in New Zealand, she moved to the UK as a lecturer in law at the University of Southampton, then King’s College London. She was appointed chair of governors at Birkbeck in 1999. She was Provost of King’s College, Cambridge from 2003 to 2005, the first woman to hold this post. She was also the first woman to chair the Royal Opera House.

She was closely involved in the running of the City of London from 1986. In that year she was elected to the City of London Corporation and chaired the Corporation’s Policy and Resources Committee from 1996–2003. From 2001 she was City and Business Advisor to Ken Livingstone, then Mayor of London. She was made a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire (DBE) in the 2002 Birthday Honours “for services to the City of London”. In 2004 she was made New Zealander of the Year in Britain. She was Global Award Winner at the New Zealand Women of Influence Awards in 2015.

Joseph Clinton Robertson was a Scottish patent agent, writer and periodical editor. He was born into a comfortable nonconformist family and was considered a political radical, prominent in the debates within the Mechanics’ Institute movement.

He was a tricky character, however: easily offended, undeterred by legal threats and bankruptcy courts, and with a proclivity for fraud and blackmail. He was also a talented editor and passionate about the empowerment of working men.

In 1823, in his mid-thirties, Robertson founded the popular Mechanics’ Magazine, printed by John Knight and Henry Lacey. In the Mechanics Magazine Robertson first proposed the London Mechanics’ Institution but he later became a long-term critic of the Institution.

Over the past two decades during his time at Birkbeck, Jonathan A. Smith has developed and established Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA), one of the leading experiential methodologies both in and beyond psychology. Originally introduced by Smith in the 1990s, IPA has become one of the most popular qualitative methods for basic and applied psychological research, influencing many associated disciplines across the social and health sciences. It is taught widely across the UK and is the methodology of choice for thousands of doctoral theses worldwide.

Smith was the lead author on the highly influential book about IPA, which remains a top-selling publication over a decade after it was first published. In July 2020, Smith was awarded an Honorary Fellowship of the British Psychological Society (BPS) in recognition of his pioneering role in establishing and enhancing the place of qualitative research in psychology.

Knighted for his services to physics in 2004, he is best known scientifically for his development of new techniques using neutrons to study the structure of liquids.

John Enderby earned a first-class honours degree in physics from Birkbeck College, University of London in 1957. He remained at Birkbeck to pursue a PhD in the properties of liquid metals, before embarking upon an academic career, working at the universities of Huddersfield, Sheffield and Leicester, and accepting a Chair at the University of Bristol in 1976, where he remained until he retired.

Between 1985 and 1988, he was seconded to Institut Laue-Langevin in Grenoble, France, a leading international centre for neutron science. As British director there, among other achievements, he assisted in the planning of the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility (ESRF). He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1985 and was an Honorary Fellow of the Institute of Physics. He was President of the IOP between October 2004 and September 2006 and had a long association with Institute of Physics Publishing (IOPP) in Bristol, where he served for many years as scientific advisor.

Lord Barnett was educated in Manchester and began his working life as an accountant. Elected as the Member of Parliament for Heywood and Royton in 1964, he served as Chief Secretary to the Treasury from 1974 to 1979 and worked closely with Dennis Healey in the Callaghan government. During this time he devised the system for allocating public spending to Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, which became known as the Barnett formula – something he always considered a ‘temporary fix’.

He was made a life peer in 1983 as Baron Barnett, of Heywood and Royton in Greater Manchester, and his public responsibilities included becoming a Trustee of the Victoria and Albert Museum and Vice-Chairman of the BBC. He was made a Fellow of Birkbeck in 1992 and a year later he became Chairman of the Birkbeck Appeal, running the College’s successful fundraising campaign from 1993 to 1996.

Joe Curl is a graduate of the law school, and a QC, one of the first graduates to achieve this honour. He studied at Birkbeck, obtained a first, trained to be a barrister, and is a star of the Chancery Bar.

Joe has also taught in the Law school, and supported both the school and its graduates in many ways. Joe makes it clear that Birkbeck can have a transformatory effect on people’s lives – he also happy to help others to follow the path he has taken. Others have said of him: “He is a scholar, a barrister and a gentleman.”

It was after seeing how parliamentary policies shape people’s lives during her time as a researcher and speechwriter in the House of Commons that Joanna Elson enrolled on Politics and Social Policy master’s at Birkbeck. She wanted to gain a deeper understanding of the history and potential of social change.

After graduating in 1992, Joanna worked for a financial services trade association. By working directly with the banks, she was able to expand their services, ensuring increased access to basic bank accounts for all that needed one, and actively fighting against the ‘poverty premium’. She later joined the Money Advice Trust whose vision is to help people tackle their debts. As CEO of the independent charity, this role allowed Joanna to increase her influence by helping consumers directly.

She was honoured with a CBE for her work with the Money Advice Trust and for services to people in debt in 2020.