This is a list of notable alumni of the University of Sussex .
Hilary Benn , Labour Party Member of Parliament
Festus Mogae , President of Botswana
Thabo Mbeki , President of South Africa
Guy Scott , President of Zambia
Peter Kyle , British Labour Politician and member of British Parliament
Kemi Badenoch , Conservative Member of Parliament for Saffron Walden
Marina Baker , Liberal Democrat politician in Lewes
Enele Sopoaga , former Prime Minister of Tuvalu
Tony Baldry , former Conservative Member of Parliament for Banbury
Hilary Benn , Labour Member of Parliament for Leeds Central , former Secretary of State for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
Lloyd Russell-Moyle , British Labour politician and Member of British Parlimaent
Ben Bradshaw , Labour Member of Parliament for Exeter , former Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport
Isatou Touray , Vice-president of The Republic of The Gambia
Carlos Alvarado Quesada , president of Costa Rica
Simon Busuttil , Maltese Member of the European Parliament
David Lee Camp , U.S. member of the House of Representatives [ 1]
Bernard Coard , minister and deputy prime minister of Grenada
Indrajit Coomaraswamy , Governor of the Central Bank of Sri Lanka
Rob Davies , minister of the Department of Trade and Industry of South Africa
Bogolo Kenewendo , Economist and youngest-ever government minister of Botswana
Michael Fabricant , Conservative Member of Parliament for Lichfield
Andrew George , former Liberal Democrat MP for St Ives
Philip Gould, Lord Gould , Life peer and adviser to the Labour Party
Peter Hain , former Labour Member of Parliament for Neath and Secretary of State for Wales
Sir Jonathan Faull , former British official in the European commission and current chair of European Public Affairs at Brunswick and Professor at King's College London
David Hallam , former Labour Member of the European Parliament, author
Musa Hitam , former deputy prime minister of Malaysia
David Lepper , former Labour Member of Parliament for Brighton Pavilion
Thabo Mbeki , former President of South Africa
James McMurdock , Reform UK Member of Parliament for South Basildon and East Thurrock
Festus Mogae , President of Botswana
Caroline Nokes , Conservative Member of Parliament for Romsey and Southampton North
Dan Norris , former Labour Member of Parliament for Wansdyke (1997–2010), Mayor of the West of England (2021–present), and Labour Member of Parliament for North East Somerset and Hanham (2024–present)
Sherry Rehman , Senator, Pakistan (2015–present)
Matt Rodda , Labour Member of Parliament for Reading East (2017–2024) and Reading Central (2024–present)
George Saitoti , Kenyan politician
Martin Salter , former Labour Member of Parliament for Reading West
Tunku Puteri Intan Safinaz , Tunku Temenggong of Kedah
Guy Scott , President of Zambia
Kamil Šaško , Health Minister of Slovakia
Mateusz Szczurek , Finance Minister of Poland
Euclid Tsakalotos , Greek finance minister, (2015–present)
Geoffrey Van Orden , Conservative MEP for East of England 1999–2019, formerly Brigadier, British Army
Ruwan Wijewardene , Sri Lankan politician and Member of Parliament
Alan Woods , Trotskyist activist
Mohammad Shtayyeh , Prime Minister of the State of Palestine
Dame Froyla Tzalam GCMG , Governor-General of Belize (2021–present)
Adrian Bird CBE FRS , Director of Wellcome Trust Centre for Cell Biology, University of Edinburgh
Brenda Boardman MBE , policy development related to fuel poverty
Amir Caldeira , Brazilian quantum physicist
David Clary FRS , President, Magdalen College, Oxford
Dave Cliff , computer scientist
Peter Coles , astrophysicist
Ian H. S. Cullimore , computer scientist
Anthony R. Dickinson FRS , neuroscientist
Lesley Fallowfield , cancer psychologist
Philip Ingham FRS , developmental biologist
Francesca M. Kerton , chemistry professor
Adam Kilgarriff , corpus linguist, lexicographer and the co-author of the Sketch Engine corpus management system
Sir Peter Knight FRS , Principal of the Faculty of Natural Sciences Imperial College London
Georgina Mace CBE FRS , Director, NERC Centre for Population Biology, Imperial College London
Elizabeth F. Churchill , Director of User experience at Google and Vice President-elect of the Association for Computing Machinery
Dimitri Nanopoulos , quantum physicist
Becky Parker , physicist and physics teacher
Armando J. L. Pombeiro , Portuguese chemical engineer
Rohan Pethiyagoda , taxonomist
Anil Seth , neuroscientist
Nalin de Silva , theoretical physicist, philosopher, professor
Mark Steedman , cognitive scientist
Tim Sumner , experimental physicist
Benjamin J Whitaker , chemist
Shamshad Akhtar , Executive Secretary of United Nations Economic and Social Commission
Abdalla Uba Adamu , professor, media scholar
Daniele Archibugi , economic and political theorist
Shamshad Akhtar , development economist, diplomat, former governor of State Bank of Pakistan
Maria Balshaw , director of the Whitworth Art Gallery , Manchester and Manchester Art Gallery
Alan Carter , philosopher
Cheung Kam Ching , philosopher
Norman Davies , historian
Kay Firth-Butterfield , professor and author
Gabriella Gibson , British medical entomologist and professor
Paul Gilroy , professor and cultural critic
A. C. Grayling , philosopher
Paul Hirst , professor
Mary James , educator
Calestous Juma , professor
Reetika Khera , economics professor
Robert Hugh Layton , Emeritus Professor at Durham University
István Mészáros , professor
Paul Morris , educationalist
Timothy O'Shea , vice-chancellor of the University of Edinburgh
Nick Rees-Roberts , professor
Reza Shah-Kazemi , author
Guy Standing , development economist
Tim Sumner , professor
Lucy Worsley , historian and curator
Ayman Zohry , expert on migration studies
Writers and broadcasters [ edit ]
Helen Boaden , former BBC director
Ian McEwan , novelist and screenwriter
Patrick Allen , award-winning author and teacher
Becky Anderson , CNN International correspondent and presenter
Desi Anwar , journalist, news presenter
David Baboulene , travel writer and story theorist
Mark Barrowcliffe , novelist
Helen Boaden , former director of BBC Radio
Tommy Boyd , broadcaster
Edward Kamau Brathwaite , author
Estelle Akofio-Sowah , businesswoman and Google country manager
Shantanu Gupta , author and political analyst
Peter Brimelow , journalist and author
Emily Buchanan , BBC World Affairs correspondent
Michael Buerk , BBC journalist and newsreader
Richard Calder , novelist
Duncan Campbell , investigative journalist, consultant, producer and forensic expert
Lord Richard Cecil , journalist and adventurer (died 1978)
Paul Evans , poet
Simon Fanshawe , writer, broadcaster
Darius Fisher , producer, director
Connie Glynn , writer and YouTuber
Philippa Gregory , novelist
Charlotte Greig , novelist and musician
Claudia Hammond , writer, broadcaster
Patrick Hicks , novelist and poet
Tobias Hill , novelist and poet
Alan Jenkins , poet
Gabriel Josipovici , renowned contemporary British author
Merfyn Jones professor, historian, broadcaster; governor of the BBC ; vice-chancellor of the University of Wales, Bangor
Robin Lustig , broadcaster
Marina Mahathir , leader in many non-governmental organizations
Sarra Manning , writer
Howard Marks , Welsh author, former teacher and drug smuggler
Ian McEwan , novelist
Kuchenga Shenjé , Author & Journalist
Andrew Morton , journalist and writer
Dermot Murnaghan , television presenter and journalist
Clive Myrie , BBC News presenter and journalist
Kim Newman , journalist and writer
Chris Paling , novelist
Ashley Pharoah , television writer
Nigel Planer , actor, novelist, playwright
Heydon Prowse , BAFTA award winner BBC journalist, activist, satirist and director
Jolyon Rubinstein , BAFTA award winner actor, writer, producer and director
Chris Ship , Deputy Political Editor of ITV News
Alexandra Shulman , editor of Vogue
Julia Somerville , broadcaster
Zoe Strimpel , journalist, writer, historian
Steve Coll , author and 1990 Pulitzer prize winner
Shirley Thomas , professor, broadcaster
Srđa Trifković , historian and journalist
Janice Turner , writer for The Times
Kabura Zakama , Nigerian poet
Musicians and entertainers [ edit ]
John Altman , film composer
John Altman , award-winning film composer, music arranger, orchestrator, and conductor
Tony Banks , keyboard player with Genesis
Beardyman , beatboxer
Frankie Boyle , comedian
Daniel Catán , composer
Graham Clark , jazz/rock violinist ex-Gong
Mo Foster , session musician (bass guitar)
Mark Hollis , lead singer of Talk Talk
Marcus Hamblett , composer and musician
Billy Idol , musician
Jem , singer-songwriter
Steve Knightley , singer-songwriter
Cariad Lloyd , comedian and actress
Ophelia Lovibond , actress
Mura Masa , electronic music producer and multi-instrumentalist, studied English Literature
Bob Mortimer , comedian
Sara Pascoe , stand-up comedian and author
Grant Serpell , former drummer with Sailor and Affinity
Cristian Vogel , electronic musician
Jessie Ware , singer-songwriter
Josephine Wiggs , bassist with The Breeders
Louis Russell , Tall Man
Rebeca Grynspan , Head of United Nations Development Programme
Rosalie Birch , England Test cricketer, part of Ashes winning team 2005
Brendan Foster , former distance runner, founder of the Great North Run , and currently a BBC athletics commentator
Jayanthi Kuru-Utumpala , mountaineer and first Sri Lankan and fourth women in the world to reach the peak of Mount Everest
Ralf Rangnick , Former Interim Manager of Manchester United F.C. , Head Coach of the Austria national football team [ 3]
Virginia Wade , Wimbledon Ladies' Singles Champion, 1977
Keith Skeoch , CEO of Standard Life
Jeremy Coller , CEO of Coller Capital , a British private equity firm
Liam Hackett , activist, founder and CEO Ditch the Label
Maikanti Baru , engineer, former chief, Nigeria's state oil firm; Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation
Harriet Lamb , CEO of International Alert
Nancy Okail , Executive Director, Tahrir Institute for Middle East Policy ; expert on human rights
Raj Rajaratnam , hedge fund CEO, Galleon Group ; convicted of insider trading
Simon Segars , CEO of ARM Holdings plc, electronic engineer
Sir Keith Skeoch , chief executive (CEO) of Standard Life
Noel Tata , industrialist
Zhang Xin , entrepreneur and CEO of SOHO China
People Departments and buildings Student life