SOAS honorary awardees for 2025
SOAS University of London will award honorary degrees to eight distinguished individuals at this year’s graduation ceremonies.
The awardees include economist Gary Stevenson; development practitioner Elisabeth Kvitashvili, filmmaker Sir Isaac Julien, historian and biographer Ramachandra Guha; acclaimed litigator Harry Matovu KC; Senior Advocate at the Supreme Court of India Rebecca John; award-winning Somali novelist Nuruddin Farah and philanthropist Lord David Sainsbury.
Gary Stevenson
Gary Stevenson is one of the leading voices on the state of the UK economy, speaking to a following of well over a million on YouTube. Gary previously worked as an interest rates trader for Citibank and found success by correctly predicting that growing wealth inequality would lead to a permanent state of economic crisis and falling living conditions.
Gary will be awarded with an Honorary Doctor of Social Sciences in recognition of his extraordinary work, communication and campaigning about inequality, social exclusion, financial markets, debt, and his commitment to teaching people about real world economics. His first book, 'THE TRADING GAME', was a Sunday Times number one bestseller in both hardback and paperback and is published in more than 20 languages.
Nuruddin Farah
Nuruddin Farah is a renowned author of fourteen novels, several plays, and non-fiction books on the Somali diaspora - with his first book ‘From a Crooked Rib’ being described as one of the cornerstones of modern East African literature. He will receive an Honorary Doctorate this year for his work around Somali culture through the areas of conflict, social transformation, migration and diasporic relations, and changing gender roles.
Nuruddin has also been recipient of several major international literary awards, including the prestigious Neustadt Prize.
Elisabeth Kvitashvili
Elisabeth Kvitashvili is an accomplished development practitioner with global humanitarian and crisis response leadership and field operations expertise with the United States Agency for International Development (USAID).
Elisabeth will be awarded an Honorary Doctorate for her extensive humanitarian work and expertise in the development of conflict-related and disaster response programs. For over three decades, Elisabeth worked in numerous countries, in Africa and Asia, and was also founding director of USAID’s Office of Conflict Management and Mitigation and implemented analytical frameworks for addressing conflict with targeted development tools.
Ramachandra Guha
Ramachandra Guha is a historian and biographer who is currently Distinguished University Professor at Krea University and previously taught at Stanford University, the Indian Institute of Science, and the London School of Economics. He will receive an Honorary Doctorate for his substantial contributions as an historian, writer, public intellectual, and defender of the rights enshrined in the Indian constitution.
Ramachandra’s awards include the Leopold-Hidy Prize of the American Society of Environmental History, the Howard Milton Prize of the British Society for Sports History among many others. He is also the recipient of an honorary doctorate in the humanities from Yale University.
Isaac Julien
Sir Isaac Julien, RA is a critically acclaimed British artist and filmmaker. In 2018, Julien joined the faculty at the University of California Santa Cruz where he is a Distinguished Professor of the Arts and leads the Moving Image Lab together with Arts Professor Mark Nash. Julien has produced a variety of works and exhibitions both in the UK and internationally, including ‘What Freedom is to Me’ at Tate Britain and ‘A Marvellous Entanglement’ at São Paulo Museum of Art alongside many others.
Julien is the recipient of The Royal Academy of Arts Charles Wollaston Award 2017, and a Kaiserring Goslar Award in 2022. He was granted a knighthood as part of the Queen’s Honours List in 2022.
Julien will be receiving an Honorary Doctorate for his pioneering work in addressing issues of racial justice, LGBTQIA+ rights, class race, gender and highlighting the experiences of Black British communities through creative mediums of art, film and creative media.
Rebecca John
Rebecca Mammen John is a Senior Advocate at the Supreme Court of India and is also one of the few women designated senior counsel. She will be awarded an Honorary Doctorate for her contributions to social justice and human rights, providing a voice to the most marginalised sections of Indian society, and for interrogating the excesses of state power and leading debates about relationships between the law, power, and social life.
A leading feminist criminal lawyer at the forefront of defending civil liberties and constitutional rights, Rebecca has worked on multiple landmark criminal cases in India, such as the as the ‘2G spectrum’ and the ‘Hashimpura massacre’.
Harry Matovu KC
Harry Matovu KC is a Ugandan-born litigation expert, with many years of expertise in commercial litigation, international arbitration, civil fraud, and public international law. He has represented sovereign states, global corporations, and financial institutions in billion-dollar disputes in this jurisdiction and abroad, including (but not limited to) General Dynamics United Kingdom Ltd v State of Libya and Excalibur Ventures LLC v Texas Keystone Inc, among many others.
Harry will be receiving an Honorary Doctor of Law in recognition of his substantial contribution and commitment to the Commercial Bar in the United Kingdom, Africa, Middle East and Asia and work as a Founder and Chair of the Black Talent Charter - which supports Black talent in business and the professions through new approaches and new ways of thinking. Harry has also been recognised in recent years The Lawyer ‘Hot 100’ List and received nominations as Silk (KC) of the Year for International Arbitration in the Legal 500 Awards.
Lord David Sainsbury
Lord David Sainsbury is a businessman, philanthropist and a former politician. He will be awarded an Honorary Fellowship in recognition of his remarkable philanthropy, the founding of the Gatsby Foundation, and particularly its work in education, public policy, the arts, plant science, and neuroscience.
The award also recognises Lord Sainsbury’s substantial contribution and advocacy for inclusive structural transformation in the African continent, particularly in East Africa, and industrial innovation policy globally. He has funded several SOAS initiatives and has a strong interest in the SOAS Centre for Sustainable Structural Transformation. Having received an honorary award in 2024, Lord Sainsbury will attend this year’s graduation to celebrate with the fellow awardees.
Banner Image: from left to right; Harry Matovu KC, Lord David Sainsbury, Nuruddin Farah, Gary Stevenson, Rebecca John, Isaac Julien, Ramachandra Guha and Elisabeth Kvitashvili.
