Notable alumni

Since its founding, King’s has educated some of the world’s foremost thinkers, leaders and innovators, and welcomed exceptional academics as Faculty.

From early innovators such as Florence Nightingale, James Clerk Maxwell, and Sir Charles Lyell, through to Professor Maurice Wilkins, Rosalind Franklin, Sir James Black and Dame Cicely Saunders, we have a history of making advances that have shaped modern life.

Creative writers nurtured at King’s include John Keats, Thomas Hardy, WS Gilbert, and Virginia Woolf.

Great names from King's continue to change the world. Among our current notable alumni are:

• Nobel Peace Laureate Archbishop Desmond Tutu
• 2013 Nobel Physics Laureate Peter Higgs, of Higgs Boson fame
• Authors Hanif Kureishi CBE, Sir Michael Morpurgo OBE DL, Susan Hill CBE and Alain de Botton
• Dame Katherine Grainger, five-times Olympic rowing gold medallist
• Dina Asher-Smith, Olympic and European Championship sprint medallist
• Farah Storr, editor-in-chief of Cosmopolitan magazine
• Susan Gilchrist, CEO of Brunswick Group
• Dev Pragad CEO of Newsweek Group
• Sir Kier Starmer QC MP, Leader of the Labour Party
• Margo Marrone, founder of the Organic Pharmacy.