UCL professors honoured as new British Academy Fellows
20 Jul 2026 01:23 PM
Three UCL academics have been appointed as Fellows of the British Academy, in recognition of their contribution to the humanities and social sciences.
- L-R: Professor Lorraine Dearden, Professor Dorian Fuller, and Professor Miriam Leonard
Professor Lorraine Dearden (UCL Social Research Institute), Professor Dorian Fuller (UCL Institute of Archaeology), and Professor Miriam Leonard (UCL Greek & Latin) are among the 92 academics who have joined the British Academy as UK Fellows, International Fellows and 2 Honorary Fellows this year.
The British Academy, founded in 1902, is the UK’s national academy for the humanities and social sciences. It brings together over 1,800 leading minds from the UK and overseas to better understand the world and help share a brighter future.
Professor Geraint Rees, UCL Vice-Provost (Research, Innovation and Global Engagement), recently said:
“I would like to extend my warmest congratulations to the exceptional UCL colleagues who have been elected as Fellows to the British Academy.
“Lorraine, Dorian and Miriam demonstrate the fantastic impact of UCL’s formidable humanities and social science research. Their contributions help us understand the modern world and enable us to meet its challenges with robust evidence and informed analysis. I am very pleased they have been recognised by the British Academy today.”
Professor Lorraine Dearden is Chair of Economics and Social Statistics at UCL’s Social Research Institute where she uses data to understand, evaluate and inform public policy.
Professor Dearden’s research interests include education, training, and labour markets. Throughout her career she has investigated returns to higher education by subject and university; the impact of early years policies on children's and parents' outcomes; ethnic inequality and discrimination; and the impact of domestic violence on labour market outcomes.
Professor Dearden is a world expert in designing fair, affordable and equitable higher education financing systems, and she is currently involved in the design of higher education finance systems in Colombia, Indonesia and Chile, for which she won the ESRC Impact Prize for Public Policy in 2022.
Professor Dorian Fuller is Professor of Archaeobotany at UCL and joint director of the International Centre for Chinese Heritage and Archaeology.
Throughout his career, Professor Fuller has worked on field projects around the world, focusing on filling in evidence gaps for past agriculture through archaeobotanical sampling of archaeological sites.
He spent more than a decade leading the Early Rice Project, a project that has improved understanding of methods and evidence for the evolution and spread of rice agricultural systems throughout Asia. Professor Fuller’s work demonstrated how rice agricultural systems have impacted social and environmental change, including prehistoric increases in the greenhouse gas methane that came from rice.
Professor Fuller currently coordinates UCL’s MSc in Environmental Archaeology.
Professor Miriam Leonard is Professor of Greek Literature and its Reception at UCL, where she has taught since 2008. Her research explores the intellectual history of classics in modern European thought from the 18th century to the present. She has a particular interest in the relationship between ancient Greek literature and philosophy and modern critical theory, psychoanalysis and feminism.
Her research on Sigmund Freud has led her to co-curate three exhibitions at the Freud Museum and she has authored books including Athens in Paris: Ancient Greece and the Political in Post-War French Thought, How to Read Ancient Philosophy, and Revolution: Modern Uprisings in Ancient Time.
Professor Susan J Smith, President of the British Academy, recently said:
“I am delighted to welcome our newest Fellows to the British Academy. Each has made an outstanding contribution to their field, and together they reflect the remarkable breadth and depth of scholarship across our disciplines.
"At a time when society is grappling with radical uncertainty in the face of technological, economic and environmental change, the humanities and social sciences have never been more important. Insights from economics, geography and political studies help us navigate geopolitical tensions, while literature, history and philosophy – to name a few of the disciplines the academy represents – fuel our creative industries and help people to better understand themselves and each other.
"Our new fellows join a community of scholars with unparalleled expertise, dedicated to advancing research, fostering collaboration across disciplines and demonstrating the value of the humanities and social sciences. I am proud to give my warmest congratulations to them all on their election today.”
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- L-R: Professor Lorraine Dearden, Professor Dorian Fuller, and Professor Miriam Leonard
Media contact
Sophie Hunter
Sophie.hunter@ucl.ac.uk