About the Alumni Festival

About the Alumni Festival

The Alumni Festival brings together alumni from around the world to discover the latest fascinating research and reconnect with fellow alumni. The 2023 Festival is taking place over the weekend of 22 – 24 September 2023.

Recordings of past Alumni Festivals are now available on the Festival Player. Over the years, the Alumni Festival has allowed thousands of alumni to explore interesting topics, with highlights including:

2022

  • You may have seen the spectacular images of our universe from The James Webb Space Telescope. But how is this data transforming our knowledge about the evolution of galaxies and the supermassive black holes at their centres? Hear from three leading Cambridge astrophyicists about The James Webb Space Telescope and the complex lives of galaxies 
  • Andrew Lownie, author of a prize-winning biography of the Cambridge Spy, draws on newly released documents to tell the full story of Guy Burgess's treachery and lonely exile in Russia, in Stalin's Englishman: the lives of Guy Burgess 

2021

2020 – 30th Anniversary

  • Andrew Lownie gives an enthralling portrait of the private and public lives of Dickie and Edwina Mountbatten, covering their wartime careers, their period as Viceroy & Vicereine of India, and their links to Royal Family in his lecture: The Mountbattens: their lives and loves.
  • A large swathe of Cambridge’s most iconic lawn has been transformed into an ecosystem rich in biodiversity, that sees harebells, buttercups, poppies, cornflowers and more stretching from the Chapel to the banks of the Cam. Join King's College Head Gardener Stephen Coghill for a tour of the stunning King’s College wildflower meadow, and discover how it came about.