Honorary degree recipients for the Chancellor’s ceremony announced

Following his admission as Chancellor of the University of Oxford in February 2025, Rt Hon The Lord Hague of Richmond, CVO, will confer honorary degrees on distinguished individuals at a Special Honorary Degree Ceremony on Tuesday 24 February 2026.

The ceremony will take place at 11.30am in the Sheldonian Theatre, where honorary degrees will be awarded to Lady Elish Angiolini, John Kerry, Dinah Rose, Professor Irene Tracey, Professor Sir John Curtice, Christina Lamb, Dr Dominic Sandbrook and Isabella Tree.

I have nominated exceptional individuals whose achievements have been an inspiration to me.

Chancellor, Lord Hague

Ticket registration will be open for staff, Congregation, students, Oxford University alumni, retired members of Congregation and academic visitors on Monday 12 January. We are sorry that tickets to the ceremony are not available to members of the public.

Lord Hague said: ‘I have nominated exceptional individuals whose achievements have been an inspiration to me. They have made lasting contributions to society, and in some cases to the University of Oxford in particular. I am very much looking forward to honouring their achievements in February.' 

The event marks a longstanding tradition at the University, where the new Chancellor is invited to propose candidates for honorary degrees at a special ceremony to mark the start of their Chancellorship.

Recipient biographies

Lady Elish Angiolini, LT, DBE, PC, KC, lawyer, academic and public servant

She served as Principal of St Hugh’s College, Oxford (2012-2025) and was a Pro-Vice-Chancellor of the University of Oxford from 2017. In 2022, she was appointed to the Most Ancient and Most Noble Order of the Thistle by Her Late Majesty Queen Elizabeth II. She was installed as Solicitor General for Scotland in 2001, the first woman to hold the post, and Lord Advocate in 2006; Scotland’s senior Law Officer. Lady Elish also practised as a QC in Scotland and led major public reviews into rape prosecution, police conduct and deaths in custody, and in 2021 was appointed as Chair to lead a public inquiry into the abduction, rape and murder of Sarah Everard.

Secretary John Kerry, former naval officer, attorney, diplomat and politician

John Kerry served as the 68th United States Secretary of State (2013-2017). He joined the State Department after 28 years in the United States Senate and was the Democratic Party's nominee for President of the United States in 2004. John served in the US Navy, completing two combat tours of duty in Vietnam for which he received a Silver Star, a Bronze Star with Combat V and three Purple Hearts. He was elected Lieutenant Governor of Massachusetts in 1982, and was then elected to the United States Senate, representing Massachusetts (1985-2013). John became Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in 2009. He was sworn in as the United States inaugural Special Presidential Envoy for Climate in 2021, and in 2024 was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom. In 2025, John was awarded an Honorary Knighthood of the Most Distinguished Order of St Michael and St George 'for services to tackling climate change'.

Left to right: Lady Elish Angiolini, John Kerry, Dinah Rose, Professor Irene Tracey.

Dinah Rose, KC, barrister and President of Magdalen College, Oxford

As a member of Blackstone Chambers, she has appeared in many leading cases in the fields of public law, EU law, employment law and competition law. Her particular areas of interest include human rights and civil liberties, competition damages, appellate advocacy and discrimination law. She was appointed Queen’s Counsel in 2006, and was named Barrister of the Year in The Lawyer Awards 2009. In 2016, she was appointed a Deputy Judge of the High Court, and in 2024 she was appointed a Chair of the Competition Appeal Tribunal. She has appeared before the UK Supreme Court, Court of Appeal and the Court of Justice of the European Union as well as in other major jurisdictions in many leading cases of recent years.

Professor Irene Tracey, CBE, FRS, FMedSci, neuroscientist and Vice-Chancellor of the University of Oxford

Professor Irene Tracey is Vice-Chancellor at the University of Oxford and Professor of Anaesthetic Neuroscience in the Nuffield Department of Clinical Neurosciences, a department she led. Irene was a founding member and subsequently Director for ten years of Oxford’s world-leading neuroimaging centre, FMRIB. She has served on national and international Councils, including: IASP, BNA, MRC and the Lundbeck Brain Prize Committee. Irene was recently President of FENS and has been awarded multiple prizes, honours and fellowships in academia and science, including being appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE). She is a Fellow of the Royal Society and Academy of Medical Sciences.

Professor Sir John Curtice, FBA, FRSE, FRSA, political scientist, broadcaster and Professor of Politics at the University of Strathclyde

In the New Year Honours List 2018, he was appointed a Knight Bachelor for services to the Social Sciences and Politics. Sir John is also Senior Fellow at the National Centre for Social Research, and a Fellow of the British Academy, the Royal Society of Edinburgh and the Royal Society of Arts. Sir John has become a renowned expert during UK election nights, frequently appearing on British and international media to interpret polls and survey data and what they mean for political outcomes. He has written extensively about voting behaviour in elections and referendums in the UK, as well as on British political and social attitudes.

Christina Lamb, OBE, author 

Christina Lamb is a bestselling author and Chief Foreign Correspondent for The Sunday Times who has been covering conflicts across the globe for more than 30 years, particularly focusing on what war does to women. In the New Year Honours List 2013, she was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) for services to journalism. Her dispatches with the Afghan mujaheddin fighting the Soviet Union saw her named Young Journalist of the Year at 22. She has since been awarded Foreign Correspondent of the Year multiple times, received Lifetime Achievement Awards from the Society of Editors (2022) and Women in Journalism (2024) and a Prix Bayeux award. In 2024, Christina received the Chesney Gold Medal for promoting understanding of war. She has written ten books including Our Bodies, Their Battlefields, a study of sexual violence against women during wartime. She also co-authored the global bestseller I Am Malala.

Left to right: Professor Sir John Curtice, Christina Lamb, Dr Dominic Sandbrook, Isabella Tree.

Dr Dominic Sandbrook, FRHistS, historian, writer and broadcaster

His first book and biography, Eugene McCarthy: The Rise and Fall of Post-war American Liberalism, was based on his PhD thesis. Dr Sandbrook is well known for his books about Britain since the 1950s and is also author of the Adventures in Time series of history books for younger readers. He has written and presented numerous documentary series for BBC Two and BBC Radio 4 and is a columnist and book critic for The Times and The Sunday Times. Dr Sandbrook was elected a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society in 2021. In 2023, his podcast, The Rest is History, which he presents with Tom Holland, was awarded the President’s Medal by the British Academy, the first time the award had been given to a podcast.

Isabella Tree, writer and conservationist

She and husband Sir Charles Burrell live and work at the Knepp estate in West Sussex, part of which is the pioneering rewilding project known as Knepp Wildland. She is author of six non-fiction books, including Wilding: The return of nature to a British farm that received the Richard Jefferies Award for outstanding nature writing in 2018 and was made into a documentary film released in 2024. In 2020, she was awarded a CIEEM Medal (Chartered Institute of Ecology and Environmental Management), for outstanding contribution to the field of ecology and environmental management, and in 2021 received the Royal Geographical Society’s Ness Award. Isabella Tree and her husband were jointly awarded the Zoological Society of London’s Silver Medal in 2023.