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Former Cambridge Professor Jason Arday Found Dead Days After Resigning
Arday was reportedly found lifeless at an address in south London on Friday.
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The Metropolitan Police confirmed his death, saying in a statement:
“At this time his death is being treated as unexpected, but is not believed to be suspicious.”
His death came only days after he stepped down as a professor and fellow of Jesus College, University of Cambridge, following intense scrutiny of his academic work and personal life.
Arday Was Cambridge’s Youngest Black Professor
Arday made history in 2023 when he was appointed as a professor at Cambridge, becoming the youngest Black professor in the university’s history.
His academic career, however, came under renewed scrutiny following a series of investigative reports.
Among the allegations was a claim that portions of his 2015 doctoral thesis contained passages that were identical or very similar to material from an earlier paper written by another researcher.
Questions were also raised in the British media about Arday’s claims of having raised £5.5 million ($7.4 million) for charity through endurance challenges, including running 30 marathons in 35 days and covering 965 kilometres in six days.
Arday acknowledged that he had made mistakes but rejected the wider allegations against him, saying he had been unfairly portrayed.
He said he was being wrongly “portrayed to be a liar and a fantasist and an academic fraud”.
Arday announced his resignation from Cambridge last week, saying that the personal toll of the scrutiny had become too difficult to continue bearing.
“While criticism is an inevitable part of academic life, what I have experienced has gone far beyond scholarly disagreement,” he said.
Cambridge University had initially dismissed plagiarism claims made against Arday by a former colleague, noting that the allegations had previously been investigated by Liverpool John Moores University.
However, Cambridge later announced that it would conduct an independent investigation into the circumstances surrounding Arday’s appointment.
Following his death, Arday’s family criticised what they described as a campaign of harassment and misinformation directed at the academic.
In a statement released through his publisher, Simon & Schuster, the family said:
“The campaign of misinformation was too much for Jason, who was a gentle man and who always wanted to see the best in everyone. We are in shock to have lost this amazing father, partner, brother, uncle and son,”
Arday’s death has brought an abrupt end to the life and career of an academic who had made history at one of Britain’s most prestigious universities.
