100 Notable alumni of University of Southampton

Monica Felton was a British writer, town planner, feminist and social activist, a member of the Labour Party.

Philip John Holmes is the Eugene Higgins Professor of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at Princeton University. As a member of the Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering department, he formerly served as the interim chair until May 2007.

Claire Tyler, Baroness Tyler of Enfield, FAcSS is a Liberal Democrat life peer in the House of Lords.

Stuart Godfrey Popham, CMG, KC is a British lawyer.

Nicholas J. Saunders is a British academic archaeologist and anthropologist. He was educated at the universities of Sheffield (BA Archaeology, 1979), Cambridge (MPhil Social Anthropology, 1981), and Southampton (PhD Archaeology, 1991). He has held teaching and research positions at the National Autonomous University of Mexico, the University of the West Indies, Dumbarton Oaks, Washington D.C., and at University College London,...

Jamie King is a British filmmaker, writer, and activist, best known for directing Steal This Film, a documentary that observes intellectual property in favour of P2P filesharing. He is also the founder of VODO, an online crossmedia distribution project for film, games, books, and music. Ted Hope described King as one of the "great free thinkers of Indie film." He...

Peter Burrows is a British retired Anglican bishop. He was the Bishop of Doncaster — the sole suffragan bishop in the Church of England Diocese of Sheffield — from 2012 until his 2019 retirement; from July 2016 until June 2017, he was also the acting Bishop of Sheffield.

Jonathan Dunnett Clark SCP is a retired Anglican bishop serving as the Bishop for the Falkland Islands. He was previously area Bishop of Croydon in the Church of England Diocese of Southwark, 2012–2022. An Anglo-Catholic, he was rector general of the Society of Catholic Priests from 2005 to 2008 and chair of Affirming Catholicism from 2008 to 2012

Clive Stafford Soley, Baron Soley is a British Labour Party politician. He served as a Member of Parliament (MP) from 1979 to 2005, and later as a Member of the House of Lords until 2023.

Peter Tertzakian is a Canadian economist and author. He is the deputy director of the ARC Energy Research Institute, a managing director of energy-focused private equity firm ARC Financial Corporation, and the creator of Energyphile, a multimedia project on energy. His books examine economic, environmental and geopolitical pressures on the transformation of the global energy sector.

Stephen Baysted is a British composer of film, television and video game music. He is Professor of Film, TV and Games Composition at the University of Chichester, and is known for composing music for racing simulator video games such as Need for Speed: Shift, Shift 2: Unleashed, and Project CARS 2. Baysted's games work has been nominated for a number...

Jonathan Nicholas Mark Potter is a former field hockey player who was a member of the gold-winning Great Britain squad at the 1988 Summer Olympics in Seoul. After his playing career he became the managing director of House of Suntory and Maison Courvoisier at Suntory Global Spirits.

Charles Wayne Rees was a British organic chemist.

Charles John Hay, MVO is a former High Commissioner of the United Kingdom to Malaysia, having been appointed in April 2019. He is the former British Ambassador to South Korea.

Dame Margaret Anne Brimble DNZM FRS is a New Zealand chemist. Her research has included investigations of shellfish toxins and means to treat brain injuries.

Air Marshal Sir Simon John Bollom, KBE, CB, FREng is a retired senior Royal Air Force (RAF) officer. He also served as chief executive officer of Defence Equipment and Support from 2018 to 2022.

Michael Arnold Perry was a Church of England clergyman and one of the leading British hymnodists of the 20th century. He was closely associated with Jubilate Hymns.

Robert Gerald van Cortlandt Vernon-Jackson CBE is a Liberal Democrat politician in Portsmouth, England, and is currently serving as Lord Mayor of Portsmouth. He was the leader of Portsmouth City Council between 2018 and 2023, and 2004–2014, and has served as a councillor for Milton Ward since 2003.

Richard Hodges, OBE, FSA is a British archaeologist and past president of the American University of Rome. A former professor and director of the Institute of World Archaeology at the University of East Anglia (1996–2007), Hodges is also the former Williams Director of the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology in Philadelphia (October 2007- 2012). His published research...

Jorge Manuel Pinto Rodríguez, is a Chilean historian. He is known in Chile for his study of the history of Araucanía, social history and demography. In 2012 he gained the Chilean National History Award.

Air Chief Marshal Sir Clive Robert Loader, KCB, OBE, ADC, FRAeS is a British politician and retired senior Royal Air Force officer. He was the Leicestershire Police and Crime Commissioner from 2012 until 2016. He served in the RAF from 1972 to 2009 and was the first Commander-in-Chief Air Command.

Sir Steven Murray Smith, FAcSS, FRSA, FLSW is an English international relations theorist and long serving university leader. He is the former Vice Chancellor of the University of Exeter and Professor of International Studies. He was appointed as the UK Government International Education Champion in June 2020, and reappointed by the new government in August 2024. He was appointed as...

Katherine Jane Willis, Baroness Willis of Summertown, CBE, FGS is a British biologist, academic and life peer, who studies the relationship between long-term ecosystem dynamics and environmental change. She is Professor of Biodiversity in the Department of Biology and Pro-Vice-Chancellor at the University of Oxford, and an adjunct professor in biology at the University of Bergen. In 2018 she was...

Elizabeth Jean Barker, Baroness Barker, is a Liberal Democrat member of the House of Lords.

David Llewellyn Snellgrove, FBA was a British Tibetologist noted for his pioneering work on Buddhism in Tibet as well as his many travelogues.

John Hurrell Crook was a British ethologist who filled a pivotal role in British primatology.

Iolanda Batallé is a Catalan writer and editor. She was the Director of Institut Ramon Llull between 2018 and 2021. She is now director of Ona Llibres since 2022.

Thomas A. Furness III is an American inventor, professor, and virtual reality pioneer based in Seattle, Washington. He is a Professor in the University of Washington Department of Industrial & Systems Engineering, and the founder of the Human Interface Technology Lab at the University of Washington and its sister labs at the University of Canterbury and University of Tasmania. Known...

Bhawani Shankar Chowdhry is a Pakistani electronics engineer and academic. He is a professor emeritus at the Mehran University of Engineering & Technology (MUET), Jamshoro, Sindh, and served as Dean of the School of Electrical, Electronics, and Computer Engineering from 2011 to 2018.

David Cracknell is a former journalist in the United Kingdom. Formerly political editor of The Sunday Times, he is head of a public relations firm, Big Tent Communications.

Diva Joan Amon is a marine biologist from Trinidad. She is currently a post-doctoral researcher in the Benioff Ocean Initiative at the University of California, Santa Barbara and a 2022 Pew Marine Fellow. Previously, she was a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions Research Fellow at the Natural History Museum, London.

Peter Geoffrey Richardson, is a British viola player and multi-instrumentalist best known for his work with Caravan, Murray Head and the Penguin Cafe Orchestra.

Timothy Martin Thornton is a retired British Anglican bishop. His final post was as Bishop at Lambeth, Bishop to the Forces, and Bishop for the Falkland Islands (2017–2021). He was previously the area Bishop of Sherborne from 2001 to 2008, the diocesan Bishop of Truro (2009–2017), and a Member of the House of Lords (2013–2017).

Ugbana Oyet is a Nigerian-born British chartered engineer and the current Serjeant-at-Arms of the House of Commons. Oyet is the first black Serjeant-at-Arms.

David John Hand OBE FBA is a British statistician. His research interests include multivariate statistics, classification methods, pattern recognition, computational statistics and the foundations of statistics. He has written technical books on statistics, data mining, finance, classification methods, and measuring wellbeing, as well as science popularisation books including The Improbability Principle: Why Coincidences, Miracles, and Rare Events Happen Every Day;...

Howard Darryl Leigh, Baron Leigh of Hurley is a British businessman, Conservative Party politician, and since September 2013 a member of the House of Lords. He is the Co-founder and Senior Partner of Cavendish Corporate Finance.

Kate Helen Craig-Wood was a British IT entrepreneur and the co-founder and managing director of Memset Dedicated Hosting. She received a number of awards for her work in business. Craig-Wood was a trans woman, and was known for promoting green IT, women in IT, and acceptance of trans people.

Henry Oryem Okello is a Ugandan lawyer and politician. He is the current State Minister for Foreign Affairs (International Affairs). He was appointed to that position in 2004. In the cabinet reshuffles of 1 June 2006, that of 16 February 2009, and that of 27 May 2011, he retained his cabinet post. He has previously served as State Minister for...

Philip Ian Mounstephen is a British Anglican bishop and missionary. He has been the Bishop of Winchester since 2023, having been Bishop of Truro from November 2018 until 2023. Mounstephen was previously the executive leader of the Church Mission Society (CMS); worked for the Church Pastoral Aid Society (CPAS); and served in parish ministry in the Diocese of Oxford, the...

Matthew Taylor CBE FAcSS is a British former political strategist and current chief executive of the NHS Confederation, having previously led the Royal Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce (RSA) in the United Kingdom between 2006 and 2021. In 2005, he was appointed by incumbent Prime Minister Tony Blair as head of the Number 10 Policy Unit....

Elizabeth Hawker is a British endurance athlete. Her career highlights include five wins at the Ultra-Trail du Mont-Blanc (UTMB), as well as the 2006 IAU 100 km World Championships. She is a former world record-holder at the 24 hour distance. She has also worked as an oceanographer and climate change researcher.

Stephen Michael Payne is a British naval architect. He has worked on the designs of approximately 40 passenger ships for the Carnival Corporation, including the Cunard ocean liner Queen Mary 2. He is an independent maritime consultant and is an educational advocate for engineering careers.

Daniel Catán Porteny was a Mexican composer, writer and professor known particularly for his operas and his contribution of the Spanish language to the international repertory.

David John Francis is a Sierra Leonean politician, academic and author, who served as Chief Minister of Sierra Leone from April 2018 to April 2021. He is the first person to hold the office of Chief Minister since it was abolished in 1978. He is widely seen as the most highly influential government official in Sierra Leone, after the president...

Sir James Gerald Douglas Howarth is a British Conservative Party politician. He was the Member of Parliament (MP) for Aldershot from 1997 until 2017, having been the MP for Cannock and Burntwood from 1983 to 1992.

John Yorke Denham FRSA is an English politician who served as Secretary of State for Innovation, Universities and Skills from 2007 to 2009 and Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government from 2009 to 2010. A member of the Labour Party, he was Member of Parliament (MP) for Southampton Itchen from 1992 to 2015.

Alan Patrick Vincent Whitehead, Baron Whitehead CBE is a British Labour Party politician who served as Member of Parliament (MP) for Southampton Test from 1997 to 2024. He served as Shadow Minister for Energy Security, previously Green New Deal and Energy, from 2015 to 2024. He served as a Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport, Local Government and the Regions...

Pavlos Kontides is a Cypriot sailor. He became the first Cypriot athlete ever to win an Olympic medal for his country, by winning the silver medal at the 2012 Summer Olympics in the Men's Laser class behind Tom Slingsby, then twelve years later in Paris getting another medal of the same color behind Australia's Matthew Wearn. He won the International...

Professor Dame Jane Elizabeth Francis, DCMG FRS is a British paleoclimatologist who is the Director of the British Antarctic Survey. She previously worked as Professor of Palaeoclimatology at the University of Leeds where she also was Dean of the Faculty of Environment. In 2002 she was the fourth woman to receive the Polar Medal for outstanding contribution to British polar...

John Richard Wilson is a British journalist and broadcaster.

Ian Grenville Cross GBS KC SC is a British barrister who was appointed Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) of Hong Kong on 15 October 1997, and held this post for over 12 years, until 21 October 2009. He was the first DPP to be appointed after the transfer of sovereignty over Hong Kong on 1 July 1997, and the appointment...

Kodwo Eshun is a British-Ghanaian writer, theorist and filmmaker. He is perhaps best known for his 1998 book More Brilliant than the Sun: Adventures in Sonic Fiction and his association with the art collective The Otolith Group, which he co-founded in 2002 with Anjalika Sagar.

Joe Stilgoe is an English singer, pianist and songwriter.

Lieutenant General Sir Robert Andrew Magowan, KCB, CBE is a senior Royal Marines officer who served as the Deputy Chief of the Defence Staff (Financial and Military Capability) (later renamed Deputy Chief the Defence Staff, Force Development) from May 2022 until August 2025. He previously served as Commandant General Royal Marines from 2016 to 2017 and again from 2021 to...

Dr. Jamilur Reza Choudhury was a Bangladeshi civil engineer, professor, researcher, and education advocate. He was an Adviser (Minister) to Caretaker Government of Bangladesh (April–June 1996). He was the first vice chancellor of BRAC University and former vice chancellor of University of Asia Pacific. He was also the president of Bangladesh Mathematical Olympiad Committee from 2003. He was awarded Ekushey...

Jasmine Leonora Guinness is an Irish designer and a fashion model active since 1994. She is a member of Anglo-Irish brewing Guinness family.

Majid Ghassemi is an Iranian banker, business magnate, and investor. Ghassemi originally established his reputation as the governor of Central Bank of the Islamic Republic of Iran, from 1986 to 1989.

Frederick William Lanchester, was an English polymath and engineer who made important contributions to automotive engineering and to aerodynamics, and co-invented the topic of operations research.

Vice Admiral Sir Jeremy Paul Kyd, KBE is a former senior officer in the Royal Navy. He has served as the Lieutenant Governor of Jersey since October 2022. He formerly served as Fleet Commander from March 2019 to September 2021.

Hu Chih-chiang, also known by his English name Jason Hu, is a Taiwanese diplomat and politician who was the mayor of Taichung from 2001 to 2004 when the city was a provincial city (2001–2010) and then a special municipality (2010–2014). A member of the Kuomintang (KMT), he served as Vice Chairman of the Kuomintang for two terms.

Larry Dean is a Scottish stand-up comedian. His comedy routines have earned him several awards, including Scottish Comedian of the Year.

Admiral Sir George Michael Zambellas, GCB, DSC, ADC, DL, FRAeS is a British retired Royal Navy officer. He served as First Sea Lord and Chief of the Naval Staff from April 2013 before handing over duties to Admiral Sir Philip Jones in April 2016.

Wu I-ding is a Taiwanese statistician and politician. She was a member of the Legislative Yuan from 2020 to 2024.

Laura Emily Bailey is an English model and photographer. She has modelled for brands such as Guess, L'Oreal, Jaguar, Jaeger, and Marks and Spencer, among others.

Chang Wen-ying is a Taiwanese politician.

Jeremy James Hardy was an English comedian. Born and raised in Hampshire, Hardy studied at the University of Southampton and began his stand-up career in the 1980s, going on to win the Perrier Comedy Award at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in 1988. He is best known for his appearances on radio panel shows such as the News Quiz and I'm...

Anna Margaret Michelle Calvi is an English singer-songwriter and guitarist. Her accolades include three Mercury Prize nominations, one Brit Award nomination, and a European Border Breakers Award. She has been noted by some critics as a virtuoso guitarist, as well as for her powerful, wide-ranging operatic contralto voice and sometimes androgynous stage appearance.

Kevin Clifford Ashman is an English quiz player. He is considered one of the greatest quizzers in the world, has been a professional quizzer since 2002 and he appeared on Eggheads from 2003 until 2023 and was the only Egghead to appear in every series of the show. He has won most of the top-level quiz tournaments in which he...

Jonathan B. Sopel is a British journalist, television presenter and podcaster. He was formerly BBC News's North America editor; chief political correspondent for the domestic news channel BBC News; a presenter on the Politics Show on BBC One and the BBC News channel; and from 2013 to 2014, the main presenter of Global on BBC World News. Since 2022, he...

Sir Conor Burns is a British politician who served as the Member of Parliament (MP) for Bournemouth West from 2010 to 2024. A member of the Conservative Party, he served as Minister of State for Trade Policy from 2019 to 2020 and again in 2022 and Minister of State for Northern Ireland from 2021 to 2022.

Antony Cyril Sutton was a British-American writer, researcher, economist, and professor.

Admiral Sir Antony David Radakin, GBE, KCB is a retired senior Royal Navy officer who served as Chief of the Defence Staff, the professional head of the British Armed Forces, from November 2021 to September 2025. Radakin was previously the First Sea Lord, the professional head of the Naval Service from June 2019 to November 2021. He was Chief of...

Brian Peter George Eno is an English musician, songwriter, record producer, visual artist, sound designer, author and political activist. He is best known for his pioneering contributions to ambient music and electronica, and for producing, recording, and writing works in rock and pop music. A self-described "non-musician", Eno has helped introduce unconventional concepts and approaches to contemporary music. He has...

John Vivian Drummond Nettles is an English actor and author. He is best known for his starring roles as detectives in the crime drama television series Bergerac (1981–1991) in the title role, and Midsomer Murders (1997–2011) as Detective Chief Inspector Tom Barnaby. He has also narrated several television series.

Adrian Martin Newey is a British engineer, aerodynamicist, automotive designer, and motorsport executive. Since 2026, Newey has served as Team Principal, technical director and co-owner of Aston Martin in Formula One; he previously served as technical director of Leyton House and McLaren, chief designer of March and Williams, and chief technical officer of Red Bull Racing. Widely regarded as one...

Rima Elizabeth Horton is an English former academic and Labour Party politician. She was a member of the Kensington and Chelsea London Borough Council from 1986 to 2006, and worked as a senior lecturer at Kingston University.

Christopher Gary Packham CBE is an English naturalist, nature photographer, television presenter and author, best known for his television work including the CBBC children's nature series The Really Wild Show from 1986 to 1995. He has also presented the BBC nature series Springwatch, including Autumnwatch and Winterwatch, since 2009.

Stella Tennant was a British model and designer who rose to fame in the early 1990s and had a career that spanned almost 30 years.

Steven John Baker is a British former politician who served as Minister of State for Northern Ireland from 2022 to 2024 and as Minister of State in the Cabinet Office from February to July 2024, having previously served as Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union from 2017 to 2018. A member of the Conservative Party, he was...

Stephen Baxter is an English hard science fiction author. He has degrees in mathematics and engineering.

George Samuel Knatchbull Young, Baron Young of Cookham, CH, PC, known as Sir George Young, 6th Baronet from 1960 to 2015, is a British Conservative Party politician who served as a Member of Parliament (MP) from 1974 to 2015, having represented Ealing Acton from 1974 to 1997 and North West Hampshire from 1997. He has served in Cabinet on three...

Dame Wendy Hall DBE FRS FREng MAE FIET is a British computer scientist. She is Regius Professor of Computer Science at the University of Southampton.

Darren William Naish is a British vertebrate palaeontologist, author and science communicator.

Andrea Byrne is an English journalist and presenter, currently working for ITV Cymru Wales, where she presents Wales at Six and Wales This Week.

Justine Greening is an English former politician who was the Secretary of State for Education from 2016 to 2018. Prior to that, she was Economic Secretary to the Treasury from 2010 to 2011, Secretary of State for Transport from 2011 to 2012 and Secretary of State for International Development from 2012 to 2016. A member of the Conservative Party, she...

Claire Fuller is an English novelist and short story writer.

Richard George Whittle is a British actor. Whittle first came to prominence as a model for Reebok in the early 2000s. He is known in the United Kingdom for his role as Calvin Valentine in the soap opera Hollyoaks. In 2009, he finished second in the BBC reality competition Strictly Come Dancing. In 2012, Whittle crossed over to American television...

Jonathan Cook, born circa 1965, is a British writer and a freelance journalist formerly based in Nazareth, Israel, who writes about the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. He writes a regular column for The National of Abu Dhabi and Middle East Eye.

Anna Rhiannon McMorrin is a Welsh politician serving as the Member of Parliament (MP) for Cardiff North since 2017. A member of Welsh Labour, she serves as Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Wales since 2025.

John Ballantyne Inverdale is a British broadcaster who works for both the BBC and ITV.

Hubert Girault is a Swiss chemist and is Emeritus Professor at the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (1992-2022). He was the director of the Laboratoire d'Electrochimie Physique et Analytique, with expertise in electrochemistry at soft interfaces, Lab-on-a-Chip techniques, bio-analytical chemistry and mass-spectrometry, artificial water splitting, CO2 reduction, and redox flow batteries.

Sergi Miquel i Valentí is a Spanish politician from Catalonia and former Member of the Congress of Deputies of Spain.

William George Hunt TD FCA served as Windsor Herald of Arms in Ordinary at the College of Arms in London from 1999 to 2017.

Srđa Trifković is a Serbian-American publicist, politician and historian. He is currently a foreign affairs editor for the paleoconservative magazine Chronicles, and a politics professor at the University of Banja Luka in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Gloria Dorothy Hooper, Baroness Hooper, CMG, DSG, FRSA, FRGS is a British lawyer and a Conservative life peer in the House of Lords.

Robert Haydn Davies was minister of trade and industry of South Africa from 2009 to 2019.

Aishatu Dahiru AhmedListen, popularly known as Aisha Binani, is a Nigerian politician and entrepreneur who was the senator for Adamawa Central from 2019 to 2023. On 30 March 2020, she was appointed Gimbiyar Adamawa by the Adamawa Emirate Council.

Mostefa Bouchachi is an Algerian lawyer and politician.

Neil Gunther is a computer information systems researcher best known internationally for developing the open-source performance modeling software Pretty Damn Quick and developing the Guerrilla approach to computer capacity planning and performance analysis. He has also been cited for his contributions to the theory of large transients in computer systems and packet networks, and his universal law of computational scalability.