This week, Vice-Chancellor Karen O’Brien met with the team of Durham alumni who stormed their way to victory in the festive season of University Challenge last year, to congratulate them and celebrate their win.
Key members of the winning team Professor Liz James, Sophia Smith Galer and Professor Derek Ward-Thompson (Team reserve) joined the Vice-Chancellor and the University’s Executive Director, Communications and External Affairs Lucian Hudson, for afternoon tea and a chance to reflect on the journey that led them to victory. Other team members Carla Denyer and Tracey MacLeod were not able to attend.
Vice-Chancellor Karen O'Brien and Executive Director, Communications and External Affairs Lucian Hudson, with University Challenge team members Professor Liz James, Sophia Smith Galer and Professor Derek Ward-Thompson (Team reserve).
The Durham team appeared in the first of the initial seven rounds of the competition, winning convincingly against the University of Warwick. Their score of 265 was the highest of all 14 teams in the group rounds and made them the early favourite. After the match, host Amol Rajan called them ‘an unbelievably strong team with a range of knowledge that was immense’.
The semi final took place on 1 January and in a great start to the New Year, the team were victorious in a much closer match against Tom Parker Bowles’ Worcester College Oxford team. The score was 120 to 85 in Durham’s favour.
After a second all-Cambridge semi final, their opponents in the final were Queens’ College, who narrowly defeated Churchill College in a tie break at 95 points.
The final was closely fought against very strong opponents and was contested right to the final buzzer, with Tracey Macleod answering on poetry in the closing seconds to win for Durham. The final score was 125 to 120 points.
Team captain Carla Denyer (Mechanical Engineering, St Chad’s College, 2005-2009) has been a British politician since 2021. She has served as the MP for Bristol Central since 2024 and was previously a Bristol city councillor from 2015 to 2024. Carla played a key role in Bristol City Council's 2018 climate emergency declaration, the first in Europe. Born in Hampshire, Denyer studied mechanical engineering at Durham and worked in the wind energy sector before transitioning to politics. Her shift was driven by a desire to address systemic barriers to achieving net zero.
Professor Liz James (Ancient History and Archaeology, Van Mildert College, 1982-1985), is an art historian specialising in Byzantine art. After Durham she completed a Masters in Byzantine Studies at the University of Birmingham and then a doctorate at the Courtauld Institute. Liz is interested in all things Byzantine, most especially at the moment, mosaics (check out https://medievalmosaics.com next time you stand in front of a medieval mosaic) and is working on a book, A History of Byzantium in 10 Mosaics. In 2024, she was elected a Fellow of the British Academy. Liz also plays football with Lewes Women’s Vets (veterans, not veterinaries).
Tracey MacLeod (English Literature, St Aidan’s College, 1979-1982), is an English journalist and broadcaster known for presenting arts and music programmes like The Late Show and the Mercury Music Prize. She began her career as a BBC researcher and debuted on Channel 4’s Network 7 in 1987. She has appeared on various TV shows and was a team captain on Radio 4’s All the Way from Memphis. As a restaurant critic for The Independent from 1997 to 2016, she won several awards. She has also been the literary editor of Marie Claire and a radio critic for The Mail on Sunday. Currently, she is a director at KBJ Management, managing TV presenters, and is a regular guest critic on MasterChef.
Sophia Smith Galer (Modern Languages, St Mary’s College, 2012-2016) completes the team. She is an author, journalist, and content creator who has pioneered journalism on TikTok in the UK. Her investigative reporting for the BBC and VICE News has earned her global recognition, and her videos have over 160 million views. Named one of the 25 most influential women in the UK by British Vogue in 2022, she also won the Georgina Henry Prize in 2024. Currently, she is writing her second book, “How To Kill A Language,” about linguicide and language endangerment.
Our team’s reserve is Professor Derek Ward-Thompson (Physics, Collingwood College, 1983-1986), a physicist and astrophysicist specialising in star and planet formation, black hole environments and interstellar magnetic fields. A member of the Event Horizon Telescope Consortium, he contributed to capturing the first image of a black hole in 2019. Derek teaches astrophysics, supervises students, and authored the award-winning textbook An Introduction to Star Formation (2011). Since 2012, he has been Director of the Jeremiah Horrocks Institute at the University of Central Lancashire and has served as Head of Natural Sciences from 2018 until 2023.
As you can see, our alumni go on to achieve incredible things. Where could your Durham journey take you?
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