Gilane is a writer and curator and a passionate advocate for the value of the arts to society with thirty years’ experience in the visual arts.

She established the first education programmes at the Hayward Gallery in the 1990s and in 2008, studied for a Master’s in Human Rights at Birkbeck, exploring questions of rights and representation in the work of contemporary artists.

She is a founding Trustee and Chair of the Stuart Hall Foundation, an organisation committed to public education, addressing urgent questions of race and inequality in culture and society through its public education programme and by providing opportunities for activism and intellectual inquiry amongst artists, scholars, and activists from under-represented groups.

She was the first art historian to be appointed to the Blanche, Edith and Irving Laurie Chair in Women’s Studies, Rutgers the State University of New Jersey, USA and in 2021 published the anthology The Sphinx Contemplating Napoleon: Global Perspectives on Contemporary Art and Difference.

Armitage-Smith arrived at Birkbeck in 1896, and over the course of the next 22 years, transformed the Birkbeck Literary and Scientific Institution into Birkbeck College, University of London.

Armitage-Smith initiated a massive programme of restructuring, spurred on by a new generation of students and staff who were clamouring for reform. Armitage-Smith was the first Principal to be paid as a full-time Head of the college and he reciprocated by introducing a system of salaries for lecturers, when previously they had received directly the fees students paid for attending their classes.

Armitage-Smith also grouped the dozens of individual classes for the first time into some semblance of the faculty system we recognise today. He argued for Birkbeck’s joining the University of London to educate the ordinary citizens of London, as in contrast to Oxbridge, it should be a “people’s university.”

Affectionately known as Croicks, Ste Croix taught part-time at Birkbeck from 1950 to 1953, before moving to New College Oxford. He was a member of the Communist Party of Great Britain and was to remain a committed Marxist and atheist all his life.

During his time at Birkbeck, Ste Croix composed one of his classic articles, “The Character of the Athenian Empire” (1954), which was to dwell on themes that continued throughout his career, including slavery, persecution, democracy, the poor, and the baneful impact of Christianity.

In the article, he contrasts two very different meanings of the Greek word δημοκρατία. According to one meaning, the whole people are sovereign; in the other, sovereignty resided with the mass of poor people. The government by all citizens was the definition employed by democrats. Government by the poor was the way oligarchs defined it, in Marxist terms, the “dictatorship of the proletariat”.

He was, according to his own reckoning, “politely militant”.

Born in 1771 to the tavern-keeper at the King’s Arms in Arundel Street, Francis Place worked hard and read widely. At 17 he became an independent journeyman breeches-maker, eventually setting himself up in Charing Cross. Despite living in poverty with his wife, a former servant, Place believed in education and self-improvement. He worked 14 hours daily after which he would spend hours reading the most radical authors of his time.

Also known as the ‘Radical Tailor of Charing Cross,’ Place was an atheist and political activist. Place saw the London Mechanics Institute as facilitating upward social mobility for working men. As he informed readers of The Republican in 1826, he was “saved” from “a life of misery” “by precisely such teaching as journeymen may receive in Mechanics’ Institutions”.

Professor Francis Ames-Lewis, a distinguished art historian, served at Birkbeck for 36 years, including three months as Acting Master in 2002, before he retired.

Initially employed as a lecturer in 1969, Professor Ames-Lewis progressed to senior lecturer, reader, professor, and Pevsner Professor in 2002. He served as head of department between 1981-84 and 1995-98, designed and launched the MA History of Art in 1983 and led the department to achieving top marks for teaching quality in 1998.

His other roles included a five-year chairmanship of the Quality Assurance Committee from its inception, a term as Vice-Master, and as Acting Master until the appointment of Professor David Latchman.

An accident that left her disabled halfway through her undergraduate degree at the University of Leicester didn’t put Esther Adegoke off studying. Instead, she transferred to Birkbeck where the evening lectures fit her daily routine better.

Esther was supported throughout her studies by academics and staff from the disability services, who secured access to EyeGaze technology. This meant that she didn’t have to strain her voice for long periods of time, but could communicate through the software and use it to help her write her assignments. Esther has said that without EyeGaze, “I wouldn’t have been able to complete my degree.”

Esther graduated with first class honours in Politics in 2019.

A Polish Jew living in Leipzig at the outset of Nazism, Michaelis was granted asylum in Britain along with three of his siblings and commenced studying maths, physics and chemistry at Birkbeck. Being a German national, he wasn’t accepted for military service until a petition from the Master of Birkbeck proved successful, and he eventually served in the Royal Air Force.

Not much is known about him, but after the war he returned to Birkbeck, became a British citizen, and worked as a research laboratory supervisor during Rosalind Franklin’s time at Birkbeck. He would go on to secure a PhD.

Erica is VP of Chicago Neighborhood Initiatives Micro Finance Group at Citibank and studied International Business at Birkbeck.

She has over twenty years of experience in small business lending and credit underwriting and seeks to deliver solutions that empower entrepreneurs and serve as a model for other lenders to emulate. She is also passionate about identifying innovative financial resources for underserved entrepreneurs.

As part of the team at Citi, a global bank, and their Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) programme, she contributes to addressing society’s greatest challenges, including championing pay equity, addressing the racial wealth gap, increasing economic mobility and confronting the climate crisis.

Emma Rees was working as a hairdresser in Australia before she moved to London and took her bachelor’s degree to develop her entrepreneurial skills. While studying part-time at Birkbeck for a BA Management, she created one of the first on-demand digital platforms for beauty services. Although it didn’t work out long-term, she learned a lot from the process and with the help of two government grants, developed the skills to co-found and build Deployed, a project support infrastructure that improves project success rates.

Emma runs a team of 15 people and is grateful to be able to help elevate other women in the industry. She has spoken publicly on the barriers faced by women in tech and how these can be overcome. Emma’s experiences demonstrate the value of unique perspectives and greater diversity when it comes to innovation, and of continuing to learn throughout one’s life.

Emma is a recipient of the global Melinda Gates Female Founders award and continues to lead the way for women in tech.

The first female director of the University of Surrey Library, Elizabeth Esteve-Coll was raised in Darlington, the daughter of a bank clerk. She graduated from Birkbeck with a Bachelor’s degree in History and History of Art, going on to an illustrious career in the arts and academia.

She was Keeper and Chief Librarian of the National Art Library for two years, then director of London’s Victoria and Albert Museum for seven years from 1988, making her the first woman to head a British national arts collection. She went on to vice chancellor roles at two universities, the University of East Anglia and the University of Lincoln, before a multiple sclerosis diagnosis forced her decision to resign.

She was conferred a Dame Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (DBE) in 1995.