100 Notable alumni of Newcastle University

Johanna Ropner is a British businesswoman who has been Lord Lieutenant of North Yorkshire since 2018.

Steven Kenneth Chapman CBE FRSE FRSC CChem is a British chemist and academic. He served as Vice-Chancellor of Edith Cowan University in Perth, Western Australia, between 2015 and 2024. Before that, he was Principal and Vice-Chancellor of Heriot-Watt University in Edinburgh.

Iain Smith is a Scottish Liberal Democrat politician. He was the Member of the Scottish Parliament (MSP) for the North East Fife constituency from 1999 until his defeat at 2011 election by the SNP's Rod Campbell.

Ross Donald King is a Professor of Machine Intelligence at Chalmers University of Technology.

Ben Murphy is a British pilot. He is a pilot of The Blades aerobatic team, and master class of the Red Bull Air Race World Championship. He is a former Commanding Officer of the Royal Air Force display team The Red Arrows

Alexander George Bateman is a computational biologist and Head of Protein Sequence Resources at the European Bioinformatics Institute, part of the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) in Cambridge, UK. He has led the development of the Pfam biological database and introduced the Rfam database of RNA families. He has also been involved in the use of Wikipedia for community-based annotation...

Stephen Craig West FRS FMedSci is one of the world's foremost experts working on DNA recombination and DNA repair. Stephen was trained as a biochemist and molecular biologist and specialises on research into chromosome instability and links to cancer. West obtained his BSc in 1974, and his PhD in 1977, both from Newcastle University. He is currently a Principal Group...

Tamara Louise Taylor is an English female rugby union player, who captained England in the 2015 Women's Six Nations Championship. She was the 2017 RPA Player of the Year when she was one of only three women who had made more than 100 appearances for her country. She is currently the fourth most capped England women's rugby union player of...

David Geoffrey Trubridge is a furniture designer based in Whakatu, New Zealand. He designs lighting and furniture, with a focus on sustainable materials.

Helen Scales is a British marine biologist, broadcaster, and writer.

Phillip Bennion is a British Liberal Democrat politician. He served as a Member of the European Parliament (MEP) for the West Midlands from 2012 to 2014, and then from 2019 to 2020.

Henry Hemming is an English non-fiction author. In 2017 it was announced that his book, M: Maxwell Knight, MI5's Greatest Spymaster, based on the life of Maxwell Knight, would be adapted for television by Mammoth Screen with screenwriter Matt Charman attached as lead writer.

Tim Head is a British artist. A painter, photographer and sculptor, he employs mixed media.

Mark Allan Isherwood is a Welsh Conservative Party politician, who has served as a Member of the Senedd (MS) for the North Wales region since 2003. Isherwood has previously held a number of Shadow Ministerial positions for the Welsh Conservatives since he was first elected, at various points holding portfolios for Finance, Social Justice, North Wales, Europe, Housing, Communities and...

Mark Burgess is an English independent researcher and writer, formerly professor at Oslo University College in Norway and creator of the CFEngine software and company, who is known for work in computer science in the field of policy-based configuration management.

Julie Carolyn Ward is a British politician who served as a Member of the European Parliament for the North West England region for the Labour Party from 2014 to 2020.

Dame Norma Redfearn DBE is a British Labour Party politician who served as Mayor of North Tyneside from 2013 to 2025.

Sir John Burn is a British professor of Clinical Genetics at Newcastle University and senior leader in England's National Health Service.

Charlotte Amy Serena Webster is a British broadcaster and campaigner. She was born in Sheffield, England, and has a degree in Language and Linguistics from Newcastle University. She started her career as a TV presenter for Real Madrid TV and then worked for various sports channels such as ESPN, Sky Sports, ITV4, and BoxNation. She has covered a wide range...

Jim Causley is a British folk singer, songwriter, and musician from Devon who specializes in the traditional songs and music of the West Country. Journalist Colin Irwin has called him "the finest singer of his generation".

James Edward Barker is a British composer, music producer and film producer. Many of his music works include an ethereal mixture of live sonic experimentation with grandiose classical motifs and alternative percussion.

Paul Smith is an English singer and songwriter. He is best known as the lead singer of indie rock band Maxïmo Park.

Fay Hield is a traditional English folk singer and a Professor of Music at the University of Sheffield.

Benjamin John Pimlott FBA was an historian of the post-war period in Britain. He made a substantial contribution to the literary genre of political biography. He has worked on political biographies about Hugh Dalton, Harold Wilson, and Queen Elizabeth II.

Richard Barrett is a British author, coach, and artist who writes about ego-soul dynamics, leadership, leadership development, values, consciousness, and cultural evolution in business and society. He founded the Barrett Values Centre in 1997 and is currently the managing director of the Barrett Academy for the Advancement of Human Values, which he founded in 2018.

Richard "Rich" Johnston is a British comics creator, columnist, and founder of the comics news site Bleeding Cool.

Lisa Harvey-Smith is a British-Australian astrophysicist, author, television presenter and Professor of Practice at the University of New South Wales. Harvey-Smith served as Australian Government’s Women in STEM Ambassador from 2018-2024, during which time she advised the Australian Government on gender equity in science, technology, engineering and mathematics and led national programs to advance equity and inclusion in STEM. Her...

Alex Tait is a retired English rugby union player, who played for Newcastle Falcons in the Premiership.

Michael James Benton is a British palaeontologist, and professor of vertebrate palaeontology in the School of Earth Sciences at the University of Bristol. His published work has mostly concentrated on the evolution of Triassic reptiles but he has also worked on extinction events and faunal changes in the fossil record.

Ruth Deborah Gates was the Director of the Hawaiʻi Institute of Marine Biology and the first woman to be President of the International Society for Reef Studies. Her research was dedicated to understanding coral reef ecosystems, specifically coral-algal symbiosis and the capacity for corals to acclimatize under future climate change conditions. Doctor Gates is most accredited with looking at coral...

Alexander James Amherst Burnett of Leys is a Scottish Conservative Party politician who has served as the Member of the Scottish Parliament (MSP) for the Aberdeenshire West constituency since 2016.

Nigel John Mills is a British politician and former chartered accountant who was the Member of Parliament (MP) for Amber Valley in Derbyshire from the 2010 general election until he lost his seat in the 2024 general election. A member of the Conservative Party, he has campaigned for the pro-Brexit, Eurosceptic Leave Means Leave group following the 2016 European Union...

Gordon Lyons is a Northern Irish unionist politician, serving as Minister for Communities since 2024. He has also served as Director of Elections for the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) since 2021. He was Minister for the Economy in the Northern Ireland Executive from 2021 to 2022, and has been a Member of the Northern Ireland Assembly (MLA) for East Antrim...

Dionissios "Dennis" Nikolaou Assanis is a Greek-American mechanical engineer, currently serving as the 6th chancellor of the University of California, Santa Barbara since September 2025.

Stephen Hepburn is a British politician, who was the Member of Parliament (MP) for Jarrow from 1997 to 2019. Hepburn was a member of the Labour Party until 7 October 2019, when he was suspended from the party following an accusation of sexual harassment. He then sat as an independent and was barred by the party from standing as a...

Andrew Jonathan Morrell is an English former professional footballer. A striker, Morrell played 359 games in the Football League for Wrexham, Coventry City, Blackpool and Bury, scoring 96 goals.

Paul Anthony Ashworth is an English football manager and former player.

Damien O'Kane is an Irish musician, born in Coleraine, County Londonderry. He lives in Yorkshire with his wife, the folk musician Kate Rusby, and their two daughters.

Peter Alexander Gibson is a British politician who served as the Member of Parliament (MP) for Darlington from the 2019 general election until losing his parliamentary seat in the 2024 general election. He is a member of the Conservative Party.

Danny Dorling FRSA FRGS FRSS FAcSS is a British social geographer. He is currently 1971 Professor of Geography (known as the Halford Mackinder Professor of Geography prior to February 2025) attached to St Peter's College at the University of Oxford; a post he has held since appointed in September 2013.

Sir Nigel Richard Shadbolt is Principal of Jesus College, Oxford, and Professorial Research Fellow in the Department of Computer Science, University of Oxford. He is chairman of the Open Data Institute which he co-founded with Tim Berners-Lee. He is also a visiting professor in the School of Electronics and Computer Science at the University of Southampton. Shadbolt is an interdisciplinary...

Stuart Hatton is an English pageant winner, model, and dancer. He was a former Mr. Gay World and for two consecutive years and Mr. Gay UK in 2013 and 2014. He was the first North East man to win the title of Mr. Gay UK.

Sir Milton Augustus Strieby Margai PC was a Sierra Leonean physician and politician who served as the country's head of government from 1954 until his death in 1964. He was titled chief minister from 1954 to 1960, and then prime minister from 1961 onwards. Margai studied medicine in England, and upon returning to his homeland became a prominent public health...

Caroline Elizabeth Johnson is a British Conservative Party politician and consultant paediatrician who has been the Member of Parliament (MP) for Sleaford and North Hykeham since 2016. She served as Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Mental Health and Public Health from September to October 2022. She has been Shadow Minister for Health and Social Care since July 2024.

John Roland Clifford Yorke is a British television producer, screenwriter, editor, and author who, as head of Channel 4 Drama (2003–2005), controller of BBC drama production (2006–2012) and managing director of Company Pictures (2013–2015), has commissioned or produced many award-winning television and radio programmes, including EastEnders, Wolf Hall, Shameless, Life on Mars, Father Brown, Spooks, and The Archers. Yorke also...

Elizabeth Grace Sugg, Baroness Sugg CBE is a British politician, life peer and political adviser. A member of the Conservative Party, she served as Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Overseas Territories and Sustainable Development between February and November 2020.

Sir Robert Goodwill, PC is a British Conservative Party politician and farmer who served as a Member of Parliament (MP) for Scarborough and Whitby from 2005 to 2024. He was previously a Member of the European Parliament (MEP) for Yorkshire and the Humber. Goodwill served in Theresa May's government as Minister of State at the Home Office, the Department for...

Paul Daniel Williams OBE is a British general practitioner (GP) and former Labour Party politician, who served as the Member of Parliament (MP) for Stockton South from 2017 to 2019, when he lost his seat to the Conservative candidate Matt Vickers in the 2019 general election. In May 2021, Williams stood as the Labour Party candidate in the 2021 Hartlepool...

Alan Frederick Plater CBE FRSL was an English playwright and screenwriter, who worked extensively in British television from the 1960s to the 2000s. He is best known for the sitcom Oh No It's Selwyn Froggitt and the comedy drama serials The Beiderbecke Trilogy. He also contributed to the BBC series Dalziel and Pascoe, and adapted Chris Mullin's novel A Very...

Lim Boon Heng is a Singaporean trade unionist and former politician. A former member of the governing People's Action Party (PAP), he was a Member of Parliament (MP) between 1980 and 2011, and had served in the Cabinet between 2001 and 2011. He served as Chairman of the People's Action Party between 2004 and 2011.

Paul "Wash" Westmoreland, previously known professionally as Wash West, is a British director who has worked in television, documentaries, and independent films. He frequently collaborated with his husband, writer-director Richard Glatzer. Together, they wrote and directed the 2014 film Still Alice, based on Lisa Genova's NYT best-selling book and starring Julianne Moore, Kristen Stewart, and Alec Baldwin. The film won...

Geoff Parling is an English rugby union coach and former player. He is the head coach of Leicester Tigers in Premiership Rugby.

Theodora Roosevelt Clarke is a British Conservative Party politician who was the Member of Parliament (MP) for Stafford from 2019 to 2024. Prior to her political career, she worked in the arts industry and founded the campaign group Coalition for Global Prosperity.

Sir Terence Farrell CBE FRIBA FRSA FCSD was a British architect and urban designer.

Rupert Bertram Mitford, 6th Baron Redesdale, Baron Mitford, is a British hereditary peer, politician and member of the prominent Mitford family.

Maya Forstater is a British tax expert and gender-critical activist. She was the claimant in Forstater v Centre for Global Development Europe. The case established that gender critical views are protected as a belief under the Equality Act 2010, while stating that the judgment does not permit misgendering transgender people with impunity. At a subsequent full merits hearing, the Employment...

Óscar López Águeda is a Spanish politician serving as minister for Digital Transformation and Civil Service of Spain since 2024.

Paul Michael Kennedy CBE FBA is a British historian specialising in the history of international relations, economic power and grand strategy. He is on the editorial board of numerous scholarly journals and writes for The New York Times, The Atlantic, and many foreign-language newspapers and magazines. His monthly column on current global issues is distributed worldwide by the Tribune Content...

Bruce Edward Babbitt is an American attorney and politician who served as the 47th United States secretary of the interior from 1993 to 2001 under President Bill Clinton. He previously served as the 16th governor of Arizona from 1978 to 1987 and was a candidate for President of the United States in the 1988 Democratic primaries.

Maximilian Arthur Fosh is an English YouTuber and comedian. As of January 2026, his YouTube channel has over 4.8 million subscribers.

Henry Smithson, best known by his stage name Riton, is an English electronic music DJ and producer from Newcastle upon Tyne.

Lewis Fry Richardson, FRS was an English mathematician, physicist, meteorologist, psychologist, and pacifist who pioneered modern mathematical techniques of weather forecasting, and the application of similar techniques to studying the causes of wars and how to prevent them.

Duncan Ian Watmore is an English professional footballer who plays as a forward for Rotherham United.

Rory David Best OBE is a Northern Irish former rugby union player who was the captain of the Ireland national team from 2016 to 2019. He played hooker for Ulster and was registered for Banbridge RFC. Best earned 124 caps for Ireland, making his debut in 2005 and retiring at the end of the 2019 Rugby World Cup, his fourth...

William George Armstrong, 1st Baron Armstrong, CB FRS was an English engineer and industrialist who founded the Armstrong Whitworth manufacturing concern on Tyneside. He was also an eminent scientist, inventor and philanthropist. In collaboration with the architect Richard Norman Shaw, he built Cragside in Northumberland, the first house in the world to be lit by hydroelectricity. He is regarded as...

Christopher Laurie Malthouse is a British Conservative Party politician and businessman who has served as Member of Parliament (MP) for North West Hampshire since 2015. He served as Secretary of State for Education from 6 September to 25 October 2022, and previously served as Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster from July to September 2022.

Pascal Canfin is a French politician of La République en marche (LREM) who has been serving as a Member of the European Parliament (MEP) since 2019. In the 2019 elections for the European Parliament, he was elected in the list of Renew Europe group and serves as chair of the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety Committee; following his initiative,...

Alexander John Gosse Downer is an Australian former politician and diplomat who served as the Minister for Foreign Affairs from 1996 to 2007, and was a member of parliament (MP) for the South Australian division of Mayo from 1984 to 2008.

Sean Scully RA is an Irish-born American-based artist working as a painter, printmaker, sculptor and photographer. His work is held in museum collections worldwide and he has twice been named a Turner Prize nominee. Moving from London to New York in 1975, Scully helped lead the transition from Minimalism to Emotional abstraction in painting, abandoning the reduced vocabulary of Minimalism...

Yasmin binti Ahmad was a Malaysian film director, writer and scriptwriter. She was the executive creative director at Leo Burnett Kuala Lumpur. Her television commercials and films are well known in Malaysia for being humorous and touching. Her work crossed cross-cultural barriers, particularly her ads for Petronas, the national oil and gas company. Her works have won multiple awards both...

Kathryn Adie CBE DL is an English journalist. She was Chief News Correspondent for BBC News between 1989 and 2003, during which time she reported from war zones around the world.

Chris Vance is an English actor. He is known for his starring roles in television, such as Jack Gallagher in the Fox series Mental, as James Whistler in Fox's series Prison Break (2007–2008), and for playing Frank Martin in TNT's Transporter: The Series. Vance has recurred on the television series Burn Notice, Dexter, Rizzoli & Isles, and Supergirl. He played...

Lisa Eva Nandy is a British Labour Party politician serving as Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport since 2024. She has served as the Member of Parliament (MP) for the Wigan constituency since 2010.

John Andrew Wilkinson, better known by the stage name Wilko Johnson, was an English guitarist, singer, songwriter and occasional actor. He was a member of the pub rock/rhythm and blues band Dr. Feelgood in the 1970s. Johnson was known for his distinctive guitar playing style, which he achieved by not using a plectrum but playing fingerstyle. This enabled him to...

Claire Victoria Williams OBE is a British former motorsport executive who was the deputy team principal of the Williams Formula One racing team from 2013 to 2020. She is one of only two women to have ever managed teams in Formula One. In 2023, she became a brand ambassador for WAE Technologies, an R&D off-shoot of the racing team.

Alastair Preston Reynolds is a Welsh science fiction author. He specialises in hard science fiction and space opera.

Timothy James Farron is a British politician who served as Leader of the Liberal Democrats from 2015 to 2017. He has been the Member of Parliament (MP) for Westmorland and Lonsdale since 2005 and is the Liberal Democrat spokesperson for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. Before entering politics, he worked in higher education.

Rowan Sebastian Atkinson CBE is an English actor, comedian and writer. He first gained success on the sketch comedy show Not the Nine O'Clock News (1979–1982), before going on to play the title roles in the sitcoms Blackadder (1983–1989) and Mr. Bean (1990–1995), and in the film series Johnny English (2003–present).

Princess Eugenie, Mrs Jack Brooksbank, is a member of the British royal family. She is the younger daughter of Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor and Sarah Ferguson, and a niece of King Charles III. At birth, Eugenie was sixth in the line of succession to the British throne and is 12th as of 2026.

Bryan Ferry is an English singer and musician. He became known as the frontman of the band Roxy Music and also launched a solo career.

Perrie Louise Edwards is an English singer. Her music career began when she auditioned for The X Factor UK, and joined the line up for Little Mix. Formed during the show's eighth series, Little Mix became the first group to win the competition, and together went on to release six studio albums and amassed nineteen UK top-ten singles, five of...

Hugh Richard Louis Grosvenor, 7th Duke of Westminster, DL, is a British aristocrat and inherited trust manager. He inherited his title and control of the Grosvenor Estate from his father in 2016, then worth an estimated £9 billion, making him one of the wealthiest men in Britain. In 2025, Bloomberg estimated that he had a net worth of approximately £9.56...

Esha Gupta is an Indian actress, model, and beauty pageant titleholder. She works in Hindi films. She was crowned Femina Miss India International 2007 and represented India at Miss International 2007. She made her acting debut with the crime thriller Jannat 2 (2012) receiving a Filmfare Award for Best Female Debut nomination.

Jade Amelia Thirlwall is an English singer. Her music career began at the age of 15, when she auditioned for The X Factor on three occasions before rising to prominence as a member of the girl group Little Mix. Formed during the show's eighth series, Little Mix became the first group to win the competition, and together went on to...

Mary Beatrice Midgley was a British philosopher. A senior lecturer in philosophy at Newcastle University, she was known for her work on science, ethics and animal rights. She wrote her first book, Beast and Man (1978), when she was in her late fifties, and went on to write over 15 more, including Animals and Why They Matter (1983), Wickedness (1984),...

Giles Anthony Fraser is an English Anglican priest, journalist, and broadcaster who has served as Vicar of St Anne's Church, Kew, since 2022. He is a regular contributor to Thought for the Day and The Guardian, a panellist on Moral Maze, and an assistant editor of UnHerd.

Philip Douglas Jones is a former director of the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) and a professor in the School of Environmental Sciences at the University of East Anglia (UEA) from 1998, having begun his career at the unit in 1976. He retired from these positions at the end of 2016, and was replaced as CRU director by Tim Osborn. Jones...

Christopher Williamson is a British politician who was the Member of Parliament (MP) for Derby North from 2010 to 2015 and again from 2017 to 2019. He was Shadow Minister for Communities and Local Government from October 2010 to October 2013. Williamson was previously a local councillor in Derby, representing the Normanton ward from 1991 until 2011 and serving twice...

Caroline Anne Cox, Baroness Cox, FRCS, FRCN is a cross-bench member of the British House of Lords. She is also the founder of an organisation called Humanitarian Aid Relief Trust (HART). Cox was created a Life Peer in 1982 and was a deputy speaker of the House of Lords from 1985 to 2005, as well as being a minister in...

Eric Owen Parry CBE RA is a British architect, designer, writer and educator. Parry is the founder and principal of Eric Parry Architects established in London in 1983. His built work includes the restoration and renewal of St Martin-in-the-Fields in London, the Holburne Museum in Bath, 50 New Bond Street, 23 Savile Row, One Eagle Place in Piccadilly, Aldermanbury Square...

Bella Hardy is an English contemporary folk musician, singer and songwriter from Edale, Derbyshire, England, who performs a combination of traditional and self-penned material. She was named Folk Singer of the Year at the 2014 BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards, having previously won the award for Best Original Song in 2012 for "The Herring Girl".

Barbro Carina Bergfeldt is a Swedish journalist, reporter, columnist and author. In March 2016 she became SVT's correspondent to Washington, D.C. until 2020 when she got her own talkshow with the same name as herself.

William David Butler-Adams OBE FRGS is the managing director of Brompton Bicycle Limited a manufacturer based in the United Kingdom and Brompton Bike Hire Limited a provider of bicycle-sharing systems.

Ali Mohamed Shein was the 7th President of Zanzibar, from 2010 to 2020. He was previously Vice President of Tanzania from 2001 to 2010. Shein is originally from the island of Pemba, and he is a member of the ruling Chama Cha Mapinduzi (CCM) party. He is a medical doctor by profession.

Anke Domscheit-Berg is a German politician and activist. She was a member of the Bundestag from 2017 to 2025. In 2017, she was elected on the party list of The Left, without being a party member. She joined the party in 2021 following her nomination to the top female position on the party election list in the state of Brandenburg....

Michael Kamau is a Kenyan civil servant who was nominated by President Uhuru Kenyatta as Cabinet Secretary for Transport and Infrastructure on 25 April 2013. He was suspended from the Cabinet on 28 March 2015 on allegations of corruption and charged in court with abuse of office on 4 June 2015. He was replaced by James Macharia in an acting...

Ablade Glover FGA FRSA CV is a Ghanaian painter and educator. He has exhibited widely, building an international reputation over several decades, as well as being regarded as a seminal figure on the West African art scene. His work is held in many prestigious private and public collections, which include the Imperial Palace of Japan, the UNESCO headquarters in Paris,...

David Tibet is an English musician, poet and songwriter. He is best known as the founder and sole constant member of the neofolk group Current 93, as well as for his contributions to the band Death in June.

Joyce Gwendolen Quin, Baroness Quin, PC, is a British Labour Party politician. She was a member of the European Parliament from 1979 to 1989, and served as the member of Parliament (MP) for Gateshead East and Washington West and for its predecessor Gateshead East from 1987 to 2005. Quin was appointed a life peer in 2006 and sat in the...