When 37-year-old Jason Arday accepted his tenure as professor of Sociology earlier this year, it made him the youngest ever black professor at Cambridge.
There are a number of reasons why this is remarkable. Born in Clapham, South-London, Arday grew up in a council estate. When he was three, he was diagnosed with autism and global development delay, an umbrella term for children with impaired physical and cognitive development. He couldn’t speak until he was eleven. He couldn’t read or write until age eighteen.
