Professor Rachael Mulheron and Professor Daniel Harbour elected Fellows of the British Academy

Professor Daniel Harbour is an expert in formal linguistics and in writing systems.

For 25 years, Professor Harbour has worked with speakers of endangered languages from the US to the South Caucasus and West Papua to preserve their knowledge for future generations and to understand the unique insights they offer into human language. In more public-facing work, Professor Harbour researches writing systems. His major study of decipherment—from the Palaeolithic, via hieroglyphs, oracle bones, and quipus, through to the search for extraterrestrials—will be published by Bloomsbury UK and US in 2025, with international rights presold in five languages.

On hearing the announcement, Professor Harbour said:

“Being elected to the British Academy feels like a lifetime achievement award come early. The Academy plays a unique role in advancing the public understanding of language, including via school curriculum reform and the Linguistic Olympiad. I am excited to contribute to both of these.

Decipherment and writing systems are enticing gateways to the richness of language. I hope to advocate for their study in school. And in 2025, Queen Mary will host a key training stage of the Olympiad with, we hope, enhanced participation from schools in and around Mile End.”

Professor Rachael Mulheron KC (Hon) is Professor of Tort Law and Civil Justice at the School of Law, where she has taught since 2004. Since June 2023, Rachael has also served as an Ordinary (Non-judicial) member of the Competition Appeal Tribunal. Her principal fields of academic research and publication concern Torts, Medical Negligence, Collective (Class) Actions, and Civil Justice.  Rachael was a member of the Civil Justice Council, the jurisdiction’s civil justice law reform body, for almost a decade, chairing and authoring several reports on civil procedural topics on behalf of the Council. In addition, Rachael has participated on rules-making committees on several issues, including the class actions regime of 2015 and the Defamation Act of 2013.

She has served, at the appointment of either government or judiciary, in numerous law reform chairing roles, including ‘hot-tubbing’, the Disclosure Pilot, BTE insurance, and litigation funding. Prior to her academic career, Rachael practised as a solicitor in Brisbane, Australia, first in general litigation and then in Construction Law. In 2021, Rachael was appointed as Honorary Queen’s Counsel for services to law reform, and in 2024, was elected as a Fellow of the British Academy.

Professor Mulheron said:

“It is a tremendous privilege to be elected as a Fellow of the British Academy. The Academy has a hugely important role in distributing tens of millions of pounds of grant funding per year in order to assist important academic research projects to come to fruition.

Additionally, its public engagement role in education touches many corners of society, both in Britain and more widely. It will be an honour to contribute to these, and to other, activities of the Academy, as it continues its longstanding tradition of supporting and nurturing research, education and collaboration.”

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 1700 of the leading minds in these subjects from the UK and overseas. Current Fellows include the classicist Professor Dame Mary Beard, the historian Professor Sir Simon Schama and philosopher Professor Baroness Onora O’Neill, while previous Fellows include Dame Frances Yates, Sir Winston Churchill, Seamus Heaney and Beatrice Webb. The Academy is also a funder of both national and international research, as well as a forum for debate and public engagement.  

Welcoming the new Fellows for 2024, President of the British Academy Professor Julia Black said:

“We are delighted to welcome this year’s cohort of Fellows, and I offer my warmest congratulations to each and every one. Since the Academy was created in 1902, our Fellows have been the lifeblood of the organisation, representing the very best of our disciplines – and we would not have the impact we have without their expertise, time and energy. I very much look forward to working closely with our new Fellows; the breadth and depth of their expertise adds so much to the Academy.”