Man who couldn’t read until 18 becomes Cambridge’s youngest-ever black professor

A man who couldn’t read or write until he was 18 is about to become Cambridge University’s youngest-ever black professor.

Professor Jason Arday was told he would likely spend his adult life in assisted living after being diagnosed with autism and remaining speechless until he was 11.

The 37-year-old, from Clapham in London, spent years getting ‘violently rejected’ when he first started writing academically.

Now, he is now an acclaimed professor who will take up one of the most prestigious professorship posts in the world – professor of sociology of education at Cambridge.

He will be one of just five black professors at the institution and one of 155 black university professors in the UK from a total of 23,000.

‘My work focuses primarily on how we can open doors to more people from disadvantaged backgrounds and truly democratise higher education’, he has said.

‘Hopefully being in a place like Cambridge will provide me with the leverage to lead that agenda nationally and globally.’