Jason Arday: he learned to talk at 11 and read at 18 – then became Cambridge’s youngest Black professor

Jason Arday … ‘I don’t talk about theories – I tend to talk more about life.’ Photograph: Anselm Ebulue/The Guardian

Jason Arday believes in destiny. The University of Cambridge’s youngest Black professor, he joined its faculty of education in March 2023, at 37. Before then, he had been a professor at Glasgow and Durham universities; published three books of academic work, mainly focusing on race and education; and, most importantly to him, raised more than £5m by doing charity work. All of this he has squeezed into a time period where he was learning to navigate the world with neurodivergence; Arday didn’t speak until he was 11 and couldn’t read or write until the age of 18.

It’s an unlikely story, he concedes, one that has made headlines and changed his life irrevocably. But he believes he was always going to do something great. “I knew I was destined to do something,” he says with a smile. “But I didn’t know it’d be this, admittedly.”