Equality, Diversity & Inclusion

Trinity Term 2025

Award-winning journalist and broadcaster Samira Ahmed presents the BBC’s flagship arts show, Front Row, on Radio 4, where she regularly interviews leading writers, actors and directors. Meanwhile on BBC One, her Newswatch programme scrutinises the corporation’s journalism and editorial decision making on behalf of viewers and listeners. Samira’s documentaries include Art of Persia (BBC Four) – the first major Western documentary series shot in Iran for 40 years – as well as films exploring the intersection of popular culture, science, politics, and social change.

In 2020, Samira was named British Broadcasting Press Guild audio presenter of the year, the same year in which she won a landmark sex discrimination employment tribunal against the BBC for equal pay on Newswatch. Before joining the BBC, Samira was a news anchor and correspondent for Channel 4 News, where she won the Stonewall Broadcast of the Year award for her film about the so-called ‘corrective’ rape of lesbian women in South Africa.

Samira is a trustee of the Centre for Women’s Justice and on the advisory board of the National Science and Media Museum in Bradford. She is an honorary fellow of Oxford’s St Edmund Hall and holds honorary doctorates in law and arts from the University of East Anglia, City – University of London, Kingston University and the University of Winchester.

Hilary Term 2022

The Right Hon. The Baroness Amos was Director of SOAS University of London until 2020, when she became the first woman Master of University College, Oxford and the first black head of an Oxford college.

Baroness Amos previously served as Undersecretary General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator at the UN and held senior roles in government and the public sector. She has been a Labour Life Peer since 1997, and served in the Cabinet from 2003 to 2007 as Secretary of State for International Development and subsequently as Leader of the House of Lords and Lord President of the Council. Before joining the House of Lords she worked in local government and as Chief Executive of the Equal Opportunities Commission, and was an adviser to the Mandela Government on leadership and change management issues. She was UK High Commissioner to Australia before joining the UN in 2010.

Baroness Amos was made a Companion of Honour in the Queen’s Birthday Honours list in 2016 for her services to the United Nations and emergency relief in conflict areas.

Trinity Term 2024

Michael Cashman, The Lord Cashman CBE, is an actor, politician and LGBT+ rights activist. Born and raised in the East End of London, Michael had a highly successful career as an actor, singer, writer and director, including three years on Eastenders where his character had the first gay kiss in a British soap. He was a founder of LGBT+ rights charity Stonewall and its inaugural Chair, as well as the Labour Party’s LGBT Global Envoy (2014-16).

Lord Cashman was an elected member of the Labour Party National Executive for 12 years, serving as Vice Chair and Chair. He served as Member of the European Parliament for the West Midlands between 1999 and 2014, the same year in which he was raised to the Peerage, taking the title Baron Cashman of Limehouse. In 2022 he was awarded an honorary doctorate from the University of York in recognition of his work for the LGBTQ+ equality and human rights.

Hilary Term 2024

An Honorary Fellow, Russell grew up in south Wales and came to Worcester in 1981 to read English. He is the current showrunner for the BBC series Doctor Who, having also led the show’s revival in 2005. He is also known for Nolly (ITV, 2023), It’s a Sin (Channel 4, 2021) and Years and Years (BBC, 2019).

Hilary Term 2023

Evan Davis is the presenter of PM, the news and current affairs programme that airs on BBC Radio 4, as well as weekly business discussion programme the Bottom Line. Before taking up that role in November 2018, he was the main presenter of BBC2’s Newsnight and previously worked on Radio 4’s Today programme. He is also well-known as the presenter of the BBC2 business reality show Dragons Den. Prior to the Today programme he was the Economics Editor of the BBC, the most senior economics reporter in the corporation.

Before joining the BBC in 1993, Davis was an economist at the Institute for Fiscal Studies, and at the London Business School. He has written numerous papers, articles and newspaper and magazine columns as well as the book, Public Spending (published by Penguin in 1998). He is also a co-author of the Penguin Dictionary of Economics and the New Penguin Dictionary of Business. His latest book is called Post Truth: Why we have reached Peak Bullshit and what we can do about it. In 2017, he was the Television and Radio Industries Club (TRIC) News Presenter of the Year. In 2015, he was Attitude magazine’s Man of the Year.

Hilary Term 2024

Professor Matt Cook is a social and cultural historian specialising in LGBT and queer history. His books include London and the Culture of Homosexuality (2003), A Gay History of Britain (lead author; 2007), Queer Domesticities (2014), Queer Beyond London (with Alison Oram; 2022) and Writing Queer History (2024). Matt joined Oxford’s Faculty of History and Mansfield College as the inaugural Jonathan Cooper Professor of the History of Sexuality in October 2023. He previously spent 18 years at Birkbeck, University of London, latterly as Professor of Modern History and Head of the Department of History, Classics and Archaeology.

Michaelmas Term 2023

The Rt Hon. The Baroness Harman was the Labour MP for Camberwell & Peckham until 2024. Serving since 1982, she was the longest-ever continuously serving female Member of Parliament. During her parliamentary career she twice served as Leader of the Opposition, held a number of cabinet and shadow cabinet positions, and was the first ever Minister for Women. She chaired the House of Commons Privileges Committee and the Joint Committee on Human Rights.

Hilary Term 2025

Mishal Husain has hosted BBC Radio 4’s flagship Today programme for 11 years, and also fronted BBC One’s recent UK general election debates. Educated at New Hall, Cambridge, she joined the BBC as a junior producer in 1998 and has since worked as a journalist on many of the corporation’s biggest current affairs programmes. She joined the Today programme as its first Muslim presenter in 2013 and was voted Broadcaster of the Year at the London Press Club Awards in 2015. In November 2024, Husain announced she would be leaving the BBC in the new year to move to Bloomberg, where she will host a new interview series and be editor-at-large of its Weekend Edition. In 2024, she published a memoir, Broken Threads: My Family From Empire to Independence.

Trinity Term 2024

Bridget Kendall MBE has spent over 40 years as a BBC journalist, joining as a graduate trainee in 1983. She was BBC Moscow correspondent from 1989 to 1994, covering the final years of the Soviet Union and the first years of post-Soviet Russia. She was BBC Washington correspondent from 1994 to 1998 during the Clinton Presidency. From 1998 to 2016 she held the senior role of BBC Diplomatic correspondent, reporting on major global trends and crises, and analysing their impact on Britain and the world.

Kendall was the first woman elected Master of Peterhouse, Cambridge in 2016. She was appointed a Deputy Vice-Chancellor of the University of Cambridge in 2020, the same year in which she was made an Honorary Fellow of the British Academy. She is also an Honorary Fellow of St Antony’s College, Oxford and Lady Margaret Hall. Her awards include the James Cameron Award for distinguished journalism, a Bronze Sony Reporter of the Year award, a special award for International Reporting from the Political Studies Association and an MBE in the 1994 New Year’s Honours list.

Michaelmas Term 2023

Datuk Nora Manaf is a Director and Group Chief Human Capital Officer of Maybank – the largest public-listed company in the Malaysian stock exchange and listed by Time Magazine as one of the world’s companies changing the world.

Apart from sitting on various corporate boards across Asia, Nora is President of the Malayan Commercial Banks Association, Chairperson of the Banking Sector HR Group, Co-Chair of the ASEAN Research Centre at the Asia School of Business, and a member of the National Labour Advisory Council in Malaysia.

Nora was recognised as a Global Top 50 Human Resource Professional for her work in empowering women leadership programmes. She is also a MP (Master Professional) of the Institute of Human Resource Professionals, Singapore, a Chartered Fellow of CIPD, UK, a Chartered Banker (CB Institute, Scotland) and a Chartered Accountant. She received an Honorary Doctorate from Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh.

Trinity Term 2023

Catherine Mayer is a writer, activist, speaker and the co-founder and President of the Women’s Equality Party, which works to push women’s equality to the top of the political agenda. She co-founded the Primadonna Festival, which had its debut in 2019 and gives prominence to women, people of colour, LGBTQI+ and working class people, and disabled people. She was also the founding Executive Director of the think tank Datum Future and writes and consults on the impact of data-driven technologies.

Trinity Term 2025

Sir McKellen is the recipient of a Golden Globe, Tony and six Olivier Awards for his work on stage and screen. Since making his stage debut in 1961, Sir Ian has appeared in countless productions, most recently playing John Falstaff in Player Kings on the West End in 2024. Sir Ian has championed LGBTQ+ rights since ‘coming out’ in 1988 and was a co-founder of Stonewall, campaigning for legal and social equality for LGBTQ+ people worldwide. Sir Ian was awarded a CBE in 1979 and was knighted in 1991 for services to the performing arts. In 2008 he was made a Member of the Order of the Companions of Honour for services to drama and to equality.

Michaelmas Term 2022

Zara Mohammed is the Secretary General of the Muslim Council of Britain; the first woman, first Scot, and youngest person ever to hold this office. She graduated with an LLB in Human Rights Law from the University of Strathclyde and, in 2016, became the first woman to lead the Federation of Student Islamic Societies (FOSIS).

Michaelmas Term 2022

Jayne Ozanne describes herself as unashamedly gay and unashamedly Christian; she works to ensure full inclusion of all LGBTI people of faith, particularly in the Church. She leads the Interfaith Commission on LGBT+ Lives, and founded the Ban Conversion Therapy Coalition.

Ozanne was appointed by the Archbishops of Canterbury and York to be a founding member of the Archbishops’ Council for the Church of England (1999 – 2004). In 2009, after years of personal struggle as an evangelical Christian trying to reconcile her faith with her sexuality, she came out as gay to her friends and family. Her story is documented in her memoir, Just Love. In 2014 she decided to become more publicly engaged with the sexuality debate within the Church and in 2015 she was elected back onto the Church of England’s General Synod. She has since been heavily involved in campaigning for equal rights for the LGBTI community, notably tabling a Private Members Motion in July 2017 that led to the General Synod condemning conversion therapy and calling on the government to ban it. In 2019 she was invited to be a founding member of the government’s LGBT Advisory Panel and the same year met with Pope Francis to discuss her foundation’s research on the harm of conversion therapy.

Trinity Term 2022

Sir Trevor Phillips OBE is a British writer, broadcaster and former politician who served as Chair of the London Assembly from 2000 to 2001 and from 2002 to 2003. Since 2023 he has presented Sunday Morning on Sky News.

Phillips was appointed head of the Commission for Racial Equality (CRE) by Prime Minister Tony Blair in 2003 and was the chairman of its successor, the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC), from 2007 to 2012. After retirement, he continued to chair numerous corporate and social boards, including as President of the Partnership Council of the John Lewis Partnership from 2015 to 2019.

Trinity Term 2023

Phyll Opoku-Gyimah – widely known as Lady Phyll after turning down an MBE – has more than two decades of experience as an LGBTQ+ rights activist and anti-racism campaigner. She advocated for workers’ rights at the largest civil service union and co-founded UK Black Pride. Since being established in 2005, this award-winning initiative has grown to be Europe’s largest celebration of LGBTQ+ people of colour. Phyll is also Executive Director of Kaleidoscope Trust, a charity dedicated to fighting for the human rights of LGBTQ+ people across the Commonwealth and beyond.

Hilary Term 2023

Bobbi Pickard is a Diversity Equity and Inclusion professional with many years senior operational and programme management experience in the banking, trading, technology and energy sectors. As the first openly transgender person in bp she transformed transgender awareness globally within the company. She is CEO of Trans in the City, an organisation she founded in response to seeing a lack of co-operative working between global corporates to help the trans and non-binary community, and has transformed it into a global organisation with over 350 major organisations collaborating on furthering trans awareness across the world.

Bobbi is a Patron of FFLAG, a Diversity Role Model, a very proud golden champion of Stonewall Housing, a council member of OUTvertising and an ambassador for MindOUT. She is the first trans person ever to close the London Stock Exchange, was voted #1 in the Yahoo Finance OUTstanding 50 LGBT+ Future Leaders’ List 2019, included in the PWC Stonewall 50 Inspirational Role Models 2019, was winner of the Rainbow Honours LGBTQ Champion Award 2019, the Nestle Diversity Champion Award at the 2020 British LGBT awards, placed #14 in the Pride Power List 2020, 12 in 2021, was a business nominee in the 2021 Diva Awards, winner of the Diversity Hero Award at the European Diversity Awards 2021 and was awarded Changemaker of the Year 2022 by Stonewall. She has raised over £300K for LGBTIQA charities in the last 4 years.

Michaelmas Term 2024

Naz Shah MP has been the Labour Member of Parliament for Bradford West since 2015 and served in the Shadow Cabinet between 2018 and 2023. A former carer, NHS commissioner and mental health charity chair, Shah entered Parliament to advocate for women’s rights. Born in Bradford, she was sent to Pakistan at the age of 12 to escape her mother’s violent partner, where she was forced into an arranged marriage. Her mother was later jailed for killing the man who abused her and Shah worked with Southall Black Sisters to campaign for her release.

Inspired by her mother’s work as a Labour councillor and mayor, Dame Emily Thornberry MP joined the Labour Party in her teens. After qualifying as a barrister in the mid-1980s, she began her career representing striking miners, Wapping print-workers and P&O seafarers. Emily won Islington South and Finsbury in 2005, in the wake of the Iraq War, by 484 votes. She has since been re-elected four times and in the shadow cabinet covered the Defence, Brexit, Foreign Affairs, International Trade, and Attorney General briefs.

Trinity Term 2022

Tom Shakespeare is a sociologist and ethicist who currently works at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, where he leads teams researching disability and mental health in Africa and Asia. He has also worked at the World Health Organisation, and served on the Nuffield Council on Bioethics. He has written or edited more than ten books, including Disability: the basics, a short book for lay readers about the social, historical and cultural aspects of disability.

Tom has presented Front Row, A Point of View, The Essay and documentaries on BBC Radio 3 and BBC Radio 4. He has written for publications including The Guardian and The Lancet. Tom graduated with distinction from the MA in Creative Writing at Newcastle University. He has been a stand-up comedian, an actor, a dancer, and an artist, and has served on Arts Council England.

Michaelmas Term 2024

Chris Smith, The Rt Hon. the Lord Smith of Finsbury, was Labour MP for Islington South & Finsbury from 1983 to 2005. During this time, he became the first British MP to ‘come out’ and was the world’s first openly gay cabinet minister. He served as Secretary of State for Culture, Media & Sport between 1997 and 2001, overseeing the reintroduction of free museum entry in the UK. After leaving the House of Commons, he chaired the Environment Agency and the Advertising Standards Authority. Since 2015, he has been Master of Pembroke College, Cambridge – the first openly gay head of house at the university.

Michaelmas Term 2023

Emma Smith is Professor of Shakespeare Studies at Hertford College, Oxford and best-selling author of Portable Magic: A History of Books and Their Readers and This Is Shakespeare. Educated at a state school in Worcester’s outreach link region of West Yorkshire, Emma studied at Somerville College before being elected a Prize Fellow at All Souls College.

Her research combines a range of approaches to Shakespeare and early modern drama, much of it about the reception of Shakespeare in performance, print, and criticism. She is also interested in drama in performance, in the methodology of writing about theatre, in reviewing and its rhetoric, and in productive analogies between cinema, film theory, and early modern performance. She edits the Cambridge University Press journal Shakespeare Survey. Her work also includes collaborations with theatre companies including the Royal Shakespeare Company, National Theatre and Donmar Warehouse. She has also appeared on BBC Radio 3 and BBC Radio 4 and served as a consultant for TV and film.

Hilary Term 2022

Professor Tom Welton OBE is a professor of sustainable chemistry at Imperial College London, and his research focuses on ionic liquids and on solvent effects in chemical reactions. Serving as head of the Department of Chemistry from 2007 to 2014 and as dean of the Faculty of Natural Sciences from 2015 to 2019, he is a fellow and the current president of the Royal Society of Chemistry. Tom is a member of the UKRI Equality, Diversity and Inclusion External Advisory Group, advocating for greater visibility for members of the LGBT community and other underrepresented groups in the sciences.