Leeds Voices

On 5 July 2024 Sir Keir Starmer (Law 1985, Hon LLD 2012) - one of the University's most prominent alumnus - became the Prime Minister of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. 

Sir Keir is the first Leeds graduate to become UK Prime Minister, and one of only a few University-educated PMs to not study his bachelors at Oxford or Cambridge. 

His journey to Downing Street started in 1982, when the working class boy from Surrey “rocked up” to the Parkinson steps with a Boomtown Rats record under one arm, and a Status Quo album under the other. 

There and then he fell in love with the city, and the University, that he says, changed his life. He graduated with a first class degree in law in 1985, and went on to a distinguished career before becoming an MP in 2015.

And throughout his career his relationship with Leeds has remained strong. As director of public prosecutions he opened the School of Law’s Liberty Building in 2011. He was then awarded an honorary doctorate by the University in 2012. 

And last year Sir Keir returned to his old stomping ground, where he sat down with Leeds Magazine to discuss the three years that formed him, and changed his life. 

Here is that full interview, recorded in October last year. 

You can read the full story published in Leeds Magazine here: https://spotlight.leeds.ac.uk/leeds-magazine-2024/big-interviews/keir-starmer/index.html

Northern Ballet’s Romeo & Juliet has survived fire, flood and the changing fashions of more than three decades. Ahead of the 2024 revival of this classic production, we discover the turbulent tale behind it.

Director of the University’s Cultural Institute Wieke Eringa hears from Daniel de Andrade and Pippa Moore MBE, who danced the title roles and are now passing their knowledge on to the next generation as members of Northern Ballet’s artistic staff.

Romeo & Juliet will return to the stage from 8 March, and you can visit the University of Leeds exhibition Preserving the Passion: Northern Ballet's Romeo & Juliet' in The Stanley & Audrey Burton Gallery until 23 March.

The Northern Ballet Archive, donated to the University of Leeds in 2021, tells the 50-year story of the company from its foundation to the present. Bringing together drawings, props, costumes and photographs, this exhibition documents the production, the evolution and sometimes the complete recreation of a cornerstone of the company’s repertoire.

Founder and director of Northern Bloc Dirk Mischendahl (Psychology 1995) is doing ice cream differently.

He started out by making ice cream through the night and selling it from a van during the day. Now, Dirk and co-founder Josh Lee supply hundreds of theatres, arts venues and tourist attractions across the UK.

Northern Bloc can be found in the Co-op, Ocado, Morrisons, Waitrose, and on all Virgin Atlantic outbound flights. Their plant-based and vegan range are changing perceptions – and setting the standard for non-dairy products.

Ahead of World Vegan Day, we hear his thoughts on making tasty vegan ice cream, why he chose to make ethical products, and his advice for aspiring entrepreneurs at Leeds.

In this episode we’re joined by broadcaster Anita Rani (Broadcasting 2000) and physicist Ondrej Krivanek (Physics 1971), as they return to the University to receive honorary doctorates.

Ondrej is a leading developer of electron-optical instruments. He talks about how the Russian invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968 led to him enrolling in physics at Leeds, and looks back on three years where he combined his studies with playing volleyball and seeing The Who in the Refectory. (08:42)

Anita, a regular presenter of Woman's Hour and Countryfile, studied broadcasting at Leeds, and tells how the course gave her the opportunity to spend six months working in the media in London - and how this led to her getting her first job after graduating in 2000. (01:20)

Each gives their advice to those students starting out on their own careers after graduation.

Naga Munchetty is one of the most recognisable faces in the UK. Since 2014 she's been a regular presenter on BBC Breakfast, she's a presenter on 5 Live, but did you know the spark to embarking on her career as a journalist involved a trumpet and the Leeds Student?

After being a musician in her teens, she had to give back her trumpet to the Inner London Education Authority before embarking on her English course at the University of Leeds. With the loss of her first passion, music, she needed to "find a tribe" at university. As a strong writer, she thought she'd try her hand at writing for the Leeds Student, and soon her insatiable curiosity was fed by her extracurricular journalistic sleuthing.

On this week's episode, Naga discusses how her time at Leeds helped propel her to her career in journalism, and her recent work on shining a light on adenomyosis, a lesser-known womb condition. She shared her own diagnosis of the condition, which causes her - and other sufferers - chronic pain on a daily basis. Naga's reporting on the condition has revealed some women have spent years in agony before being diagnosed with the condition. Her reporting has prompted the government's women's health ambassador, Prof Dame Lesley Regan, to say the NHS is "failing women".

As it's also graduation season, Naga also discusses what it was like to graduate from the University of Leeds, and offers up her own pearls of wisdom for recent graduates.

This week we speak to Dr Keith Brownlee, Director of Medical Affairs at the Cystic Fibrosis Trust. Since graduating with a medical degree from Leeds in 1984, Dr Brownlee gained over 30 years’ experience caring for children and families with Cystic Fibrosis.

In the podcast he speaks about the disease, the development of life-changing treatments, the work of the Cystic Fibrosis Trust, and the impact Leeds has had on improving outcomes for the disease across the world.

As the father of two of Leeds’ most successful sporting alumni – Olympic medal winning brothers Jonathan and Alistair Brownlee – Dr Brownlee also gives us some insight into experience of a parent watching their children compete on the world stage.

This week marks the 75th anniversary of the NHS, and another health organisation that’s celebrating 75 years in 2023 is the World Health Organization. The international body’s renowned for its work in eradicating smallpox, polio, and most recently its efforts during the Covid pandemic. 

Leeds has a long history of its alumni working for the organisation, including Dr Ian Smith. Ian completed his medical degree in 1980, before returning in 1994 to study a Masters in Public Health. His time at Leeds has led him to the heights of the WHO where he works as a senior adviser to the body’s Director General. 

This week we're coming to the end of Pride Month. The month of June is a time when we celebrate and commemorate the LGBT community. We celebrate how far we’ve come from the time of the Stonewall riots of 1969, but we also reflect on the issues that continue to face LGBT people globally. 

And that’s something that we want to address at the University of Leeds. To mark the end of Pride month, we have a very special announcement. Leeds intends to establish up to 25 PhD Pride scholarships exploring global issues that impact the LGBT community. 

It marks a significant investment for the University in the LGBT community, and its ambitions to become a world leader on LGBT research. 

And to explain more we’re joined by Professor of Sociology and Executive Dean of the Faculty of Social Sciences, Paul Johnson OBE.

Prof Johnson’s own work was fundamental in bringing about ‘Turing’s Law’ in the UK. 

You can read more on the plans for the Pride Scholarships here: https://www.leeds.ac.uk/news-alumni/news/article/5333/leeds-announces-plans-to-fund-25-phd-pride-scholarships

This week the University is celebrating its staff and alumni who have been named in the King’s Birthday Honours, and Biomedical scientist and Leeds alum Professor Steve Jackson is among them. He received a knighthood as part of the King's Birthday Honours List. 

Steve is both a researcher and entrepreneur, and heads up the Cancer Research UK Cambridge Institute, and is a professor of biology at the University.

Alongside his research, he’s a successful entrepreneur and has founded several biomedical sciences startups, one of which developed the so-called cancer wonder drug olaparib, which has been used to treat 75,000 people worldwide. 

The synthetic lethality drug exploits the genetic weakness to kill certain cancer cells, while leaving normal sells unharmed. 

It was our pleasure to interview him in the place where it all started, at the University of Leeds.

After struggling with a debilitating combination of fatigue and burnout during her career as an HR leader, Karina decided to take matters into her own hands. She retrained as a nutritionist, and now runs her own clinic, providing support to people with fatigue, stress and burnout.

This year, she released her bestselling book, Fix Your Fatigue. Karina recently starred on Channel 4’s Steph’s Packed Lunch, as well as The Chris Evan’s Breakfast Show.

She talks us through her experience of fatigue and how she came to recognise that tiredness isn’t normal. We learn how to make simple adjustments to everyday favourites – from jam on toast to spaghetti bolognaise – and talk through the five steps people can take to fix their fatigue.