Emeritus Academics

Geoffrey Ingham is an Emeritus Reader in Sociology and Political Economy and Fellow of Christ’s College.

He was born in 1942 and received a BA in Sociology from the University of Leicester in 1964, and a PhD from the University of Cambridge in 1968. Before returning to Cambridge in 1972, he taught at the Universities of Sussex and Leicester.

Professor John B. Thompson is a Professor of Sociology at the University of Cambridge and Fellow of Jesus College, Cambridge. He received a BA in Sociology and Philosophy (First Class) from the University of Keele in 1975 and a PhD from Cambridge in 1979. He was a Research Fellow at Jesus College from 1979 to 1984. He was appointed Lecturer in Sociology at the University of Cambridge in 1985, Reader in Sociology in 1994 and Professor of Sociology in 2001. He was Head of Department from 2004 to 2007.

Professor Jacqueline Scott trained at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor where she received her PhD in 1987. She has held a variety of survey related positions before joining the Faculty of Social and Political Sciences (now HSPS) in 1994. Jackie was the Director of the Detroit Area Study, from 1989-1990; and Director of the ESRC Centre on Micro-Social Change, at the University of Essex from 1990-1994, where she was responsible for the initial design and implementation of the British Household Panel Study (now Understanding Society).

Professor Robert Martin (Bob) Blackburn graduated in Maths and Philosophy at Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge, and received a PhD in Social Science at Liverpool University. At Liverpool he taught Sociology, Research Methods and Social Philosophy before moving to Cambridge as Head of Sociological Research in the Department of Applied Economics, and subsequently joining the Faculty of Social and Political Sciences (now HSPS), teaching Issues of Social Inequality.

Professor Göran Therborn was Head of the Sociology Department at Cambridge from 2006, and retired in 2010, but he still teaches an MPhil module. He has worked on all the populated continents. Since his formal retirement he lives mostly in Sweden. 

Dr David Lehmann has a multiple academic identity: as a Latin Americanist he has done research in Chile, Ecuador, Mexico and Brazil, and although Brazil has been the most prominent, his attachment to and inspiration from Spanish America is extremely important. He has also undertaken major research in Israel.

David Lane is an Emeritus Fellow of Emmanuel College, Cambridge University, UK, and previously was Professor of Sociology at the University of Birmingham. He is a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences.

Professor Christel Lane holds a BSc from the University of Essex (Sociology) and a Ph.D. from the London School of Economics. She was a Post-Doctoral Research Fellow at the University of Cambridge.