Alan Rusbridger
Principal of Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford University
Alan Rusbridger was editor-in-chief of Guardian News & Media from 1995 – 2015 and is now Principal of Lady Margaret Hall at the University of Oxford. His career began on the Cambridge Evening News, where he trained as a reporter before first joining the Guardian in 1979. The paper was nominated newspaper of the year five times between 1996 and 2014. Rusbridger has been named editor of the year three times. He has won the Liberty Human Rights Award, the European Press Prize and the Ortega y Gasset award and has been honoured by CUNY, Columbia, Oslo and Syracuse Universities.
Born in Zambia, he graduated from Magdalene College Cambridge University with a degree in English in 1976. He was a visiting fellow at Nuffield College, Oxford and is a visiting professor of history at Queen Mary's College, London and Cardiff University. He has honorary doctorates from Lincoln, Oslo, Kingston and Roehampton Universities.
A keen amateur pianist and clarinettist, Rusbridger has been chair of the National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain and the Photographers' Gallery in London. He is the author of three children's books, published by Penguin. He was the co-author, with Ronan Bennett, of the two-part BBC One drama, Fields of Gold. Additionally, he has written a full-length animation film script and a play about Beethoven.