University Of Birmingham Notable Alumni

Tim Curry, who idolized the Rolling Stones and the Beatles as a teenager, went on to become an actor and singer. He serves as an inspiration to many as he continues to contribute to the film and TV industry even after suffering a major stroke, which has left him wheelchair-bound since 2012.

Matthew Goode is an English actor who played an important role in the success of the TV show A Discovery of Witches, which is an adaptation of Deborah Harkness' All Souls trilogy. During its initial run, the series performed consistently as Sky One network's most-watched show, thanks to Goode's portrayal of a molecular biologist and vampire named Matthew Clairmont.

Ghanaian-origin British actor and screenwriter Michaela Coel was raised according to Pentecostal faith and took to poetry and acting later. A Guildhall scholar, she won a BAFTA for her sitcom Chewing Gum. With I May Destroy You, she became the first Black woman to win an Emmy for writing.

Multi-talented English comedian, Victoria Wood was also an actress, lyricist, singer, composer, pianist, screenwriter, producer, and director. Wood started her career with the TV show That's Life! and established herself as one of Britain's greatest stand-up comedians. She wrote sketches, dramas, and popular sitcoms and her self-deprecating humor got her 14 BAFTA nominations of which she won four. 

Born in New Zealand, to a doctor father from Dublin, Maurice grew up to be a Nobel Prize-winning biophysicist. His X-ray diffraction studies of DNA helped James D. Watson and Francis Crick, his fellow Nobel laureates, ascertain the DNA structure. He was also part of the Manhattan Project.

Tom Riley is an English actor, director, and producer. He is credited with forming a theater company called Article 19. After starting his acting career with the Royal Court Theatre, Tom Riley went on to make his film and TV debut. He has played important roles in TV series, such as Da Vinci's Demons where he portrayed Leonardo Da Vinci.

After a motorcycle injury cut his military career short, James Clavell began writing screenplays for films such as The Fly. The Australian author and World War II veteran later penned iconic Asian Saga novels such as King Rat and Shōgun, which have been made into hit films and series.

Anna Soubry is a British journalist, barrister, and former politician. A vocal critic of Brexit, Soubry left the Conservative Party in February 2019 in order to join the Independent Group for Change (Change UK). Subsequently, Anna Soubry was appointed as the party's leader before the disbandment of Change UK following the party's failure at the December 2019 general election.

British keyboardist Ayalah Deborah Bentovim, better known as Sister Bliss, is one of Britain’s most successful electronica musicians. Starting her career as a pioneering British DJ, she later established the band Faithless. She has also composed for films such as The Beach and Sex and the City 2.

Philip Kerr is best remembered for his 13 historical thrillers, clubbed as the Bernie Gunther series, and the children’s series Children of the Lamp, which he penned under the pseudonym P.B. Kerr. He wrote porn stories as a 12-year-old and later also worked as an ad copywriter.

Yanis Varoufakis is a Greek-Australian economist and politician who served as minister of finance for a few months in 2015 under Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras. He has a Ph.D. in economics from the University of Essex. He began a career in academic economics before entering politics. Along with US Senator Bernie Sanders, he launched the Progressive International. 

Northern Irish physicist John Stewart Bell is remembered for his contribution to quantum physics with his Bell's theorem. His ability to read voraciously earned him the nickname The Prof in childhood. At 16, he joined Queen’s as a technician since he was too young to be admitted to a course.

Desmond Morris is an English ethologist, zoologist, author, and surrealist painter. He is well-known for his book The Naked Ape and for his TV shows, such as Zoo Time. Desmond Morris is also known for his work as the writer and presenter of the popular BBC documentary The Human Animal.

Telecom magnate Mo Ibrahim was born in Sudan and educated in Egypt and the U.K. His company Celtel International was one of the pioneers in the mobile phone industry in Africa and the Middle East. He was featured on Forbes’s billionaire’s list and offers scholarships for African students through his foundation.

Nobel Prize-winning English scientist Francis William Aston was solely a chemist before the advent of X-rays and radioactivity made him focus on physics too. He is best remembered for inventing the mass spectrograph, or the mass spectrometer, which helped him discover 212 of the 287 natural isotopes.

John R. Vane was a British pharmacologist best remembered for his work that helped understand how aspirin produces anti-inflammatory and pain-relief effects. His work also led to the development of new treatments for blood vessel and heart disease. In 1982, John R. Vane was honored with the prestigious Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine alongside Bengt Samuelsson and Sune Bergström.

Rodolfo Neri Vela is a Mexican astronaut and scientist. He became only the second Latin American to travel to space. He achieved this feat in 1985 when he was part of a NASA Space Shuttle mission. Rodolfo Neri Vela is currently working as a researcher in the Faculty of Engineering at the National Autonomous University of Mexico.