Christina Lamb OBE (Photo: Cyrus Mower)

The College is delighted to report that Univ Honorary Fellow Christina Lamb OBE (1983, PPE) received an honorary degree from the University on Tuesday 24 February.

The honorary degrees were conferred by Chancellor of the University of Oxford, Rt Hon The Lord Hague of Richmond, CVO, to eight distinguished individuals during a special honorary degree ceremony in the Sheldonian Theatre.

The other recipients of honorary degrees were Lady Elish Angiolini, John Kerry, Dinah Rose, Professor Irene Tracey, Professor Sir John Curtice, Dr Dominic Sandbrook and Isabella Tree. The proposal of candidates for honorary degrees is part of a longstanding tradition at the University, marking the arrival of a new Chancellor.

Fellow honorand John Kerry, Chancellor Lord Hague and Christina Lamb

Lord Hague said: “Some stories only exist because someone was willing to go there, ask the questions and write it down. Christina Lamb has done that for more than 30 years, reporting from conflicts across the world with a sustained focus on what war does to women. She was reporting with the Afghan mujahideen at 22. Her books are bestsellers. When I was Foreign Secretary, I launched the Preventing Sexual Violence in Conflict because of the horrors that I had witnessed during wars going unnoticed. Silence protects perpetrators. Journalism like Christina’s makes it harder for atrocities to hide. Oxford stands for enquiry, and evidence, and Christina’s work is enquiry and evidence under the hardest conditions.”

Christina said: “I still remember the thrill of tearing open the thick brown envelope and seeing my acceptance to Oxford – no one in my family had ever been to university and it opened up horizons of which I had never dreamed. Opening an email is not quite the same as an envelope but learning I was being awarded an Oxford honorary doctor of letters was maybe even more thrilling – it’s the most wonderful privilege and I haven’t really stopped smiling. To me it’s recognition of all those many people round the world who have bravely told their stories at a time when sometimes it can seem no one is listening.”

Christina Lamb is a bestselling author and Chief Foreign Correspondent for The Sunday Times. She has received numerous prestigious awards including Foreign Correspondent of the Year on multiple occasions, Lifetime Achievement Awards from Society of Editors and Women in Journalism, a Prix Bayeux award and the Chesney Gold Medal for promoting understanding of war. Christina was also awarded an OBE in 2013 for services to journalism.

Having spent over 30 years covering conflicts around the world, Christina continues to highlight the stories of women in areas of conflict, focusing on the ways in which war affects them. She has written ten books including Our Bodies, Their Battlefields, a study of sexual violence against women during wartime. She also co-wrote the global bestselling autobiography I am Malala, along with Malala Yousafzai, the Nobel Peace Prize-winning schoolgirl who was shot by the Taliban for advocating female education.

Christina also holds an Honorary Fellowship from University College, which was awarded in 2017 in recognition of her courageous and critically important journalism, as well as her support for the College.

Published: 26 February 2026

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