Our Chancellor, Dr Fiona Hill, and theologian Professor Christopher Insole have been honoured by the prestigious British Academy.
Fiona, an acclaimed foreign affairs specialist and author, is elected as an Honorary Fellow of the Academy in recognition of her role as a highly influential and active thinker and practitioner in international affairs.
She has been a presidential advisor to three US Presidents: George W Bush, Barack Obama and Donald Trump.
She has also served on the US National Intelligence Council and was a member of the US National Security Council.
Fiona is a widely recognised authority on Russian and European Geopolitics and is a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, a non-profit public policy organisation based in Washington DC.
Born in Bishop Auckland, County Durham, she has been our Chancellor since 2022.
I am extremely thankful to receive this Fellowship from the British Academy. As someone who grew up in County Durham and has dedicated my career to public service and international affairs, this is a wonderful honour.
Professor Christopher Insole is elected as a Fellow for his research on the philosophy and theology of philosopher Immanuel Kant.
His Fellowship also recognises his work looking at wider questions about the limits of reason, and the deep undercurrents that underlie belief and unbelief.
Christopher, who joined our Department of Theology and Religion in 2006, is known for a landmark and revisionary account of Kant's relationship to theology, arguing that Kant sincerely believed in God, without being straightforwardly Christian.
Christopher’s current work, informed by his training as a psychotherapeutic counsellor, explores the deeper motivations behind belief and unbelief.
He is currently the President of the British Society for the Philosophy of Religion.
I am delighted and honoured to be elected a Fellow of the British Academy. It means a great deal to be supported by distinguished colleagues, in theology, philosophy, and the wider humanities, working together to think about some of the deepest questions that human beings can ask themselves.
Founded in 1902, the British Academy is the UK’s national academy for the humanities and social sciences.
It is a Fellowship consisting of over 1,800 of the leading minds from the UK and internationally.
The British Academy is also a funder of both national and international research, as well as a forum for debate and public engagement.
More about our Chancellor, Dr Fiona Hill, and Professor Christopher Insole.
About the British Academy.
Our Department of Theology and Religion is ranked fourth in the QS World University Rankings by Subject 2026 and first in the UK in the Complete University Guide 2027.Visit our Theology and Religion webpages for more information on our undergraduate and postgraduate programmes.
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