Notable alumni

Dr Adaeze Nwosu

Batch of 1979 · Epidemiologist

Led the regional vaccination programme that reached more than a million children in its first three years. Inducted for a career spent making the unglamorous work of public health run on time, and for thirty years of letters of encouragement to Riverside science students.

Hiroshi Tanabe

Batch of 1972 · Bridge engineer

Designed eleven river crossings on three continents, including the footbridge that now carries the morning commute past the college gates. Still sketches every bridge by hand first, on the squared paper he started using here.

Margaret Olsen

Batch of 1970 · Headteacher and literacy campaigner

Founded the reading scheme that has put a library card into the hands of every child in the district since 1988. The first Riverside graduate to become a headteacher, and the first to be carried out of her own retirement party.

Rafael Montoya Ruiz

Batch of 1985 · Marine biologist

Mapped the kelp forests of an entire coastline and persuaded three fishing communities to protect them. His field notebooks, donated to the archive, are the most borrowed items in it.

Leila Haddad

Batch of 1991 · Children's author and illustrator

Twenty-two picture books, translated into fourteen languages, that started as drawings in the margins of her Riverside exercise books. She has illustrated every Riverside reunion invitation since 2011, without being asked twice.

Samuel Oyelaran-Price

Batch of 1988 · Para-rowing coach

Coached national para-rowing crews to three world titles. Learned to row in the boathouse his own year group paid for, and has sent back a set of oars for every medal.

Ananya Krishnan

Batch of 1996 · Founder, community solar cooperative

Built a cooperative that now powers four thousand homes and pays a dividend to every one of them. Inducted for showing a generation of Riverside engineers that the most useful thing to build is sometimes an organisation.

Tomasz Wielgosz

Batch of 1981 · Conductor

Music director of a city orchestra for eighteen years. Comes back every December to conduct the carol concert in the Hall, and has never once let the alumni choir sing the descant.

Grace Achieng Otieno

Batch of 2002 · Human rights lawyer

Won landmark cases on housing and land rights for families who had never before had a lawyer. Began arguing in the Riverside debating society, where she lost her first motion and very few since.

Liam O'Connell-Baptiste

Batch of 1999 · Emergency physician

Founded a volunteer mountain rescue service that has answered more than two thousand calls. Inducted for courage on the hill and patience in the classroom, where he trains every new volunteer himself.

Mei-Lin Zhou

Batch of 2008 · Software engineer and educator

Built a free weekend coding school that has taught more than three thousand adults to write software, most of them the first in their family to work in technology.

Fatima Al-Sayed

Batch of 1994 · Restoration architect

Restored more than forty historic buildings, including the granary that became the Riverside library in 2001. The window seats were her idea, and every student since has been grateful.