Alumni in action
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UEA alumni are staying connected, opening doors and sharing what they’ve learned.
UEA’s global alumni community continues to give back in many meaningful ways: sharing career insight with students, volunteering time and expertise, and returning to the Lasdun Lecture stage to spark ideas and conversation.
Alumni mentors: lighting the way
Prabin Mohanty (NBS14) Alumni Mentor
“My principle is to be the kind of mentor I wished I had.”
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Prabin’s first years after graduation taught him how bumpy a career can be, and why guidance matters. He broke into finance with Société Générale, only to learn in his second year that his department was closing. The experience, he says, was unsettling as a young graduate, but it also showed him the value of honesty, strong relationships and steady work ethic.
That’s the mindset he now shares with UEA students. Prabin mentors with relatability at the centre: the nerves of job applications, the juggle of internships and deadlines, and the reality that rejection is normal.
His “yes” moment came after a donation to UEA research into paediatric cancer when he asked, simply, “Can I be a UEA careers mentor?” Four years and 13 mentees later, he’s still giving back with time, perspective and reassurance.
Jackie Scott (HIS96) Alumni Mentor
“Mentoring can provide reassurance, perspective, and encouragement.”
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Jackie remembers the pressure of final year: trying to choose a path, without a clear map. After graduating, she worked in London before returning to Norwich, where she built a long career at Aviva.
When she saw a call-out for alumni to join a mentoring pilot, she said yes straightaway. For her, mentoring is about reassurance and perspective: helping students feel supported when everything can feel overwhelming and reminding them there isn’t one “right” route after university. What’s surprised her most is how open and reflective students are, and how mentoring becomes a twoway process. “It’s easy to forget your own path,” she says, “until you start to share it with someone else.”
Whether through a mentoring chat that helps shape a student’s next steps, or a lecture that brings our community together, it all comes back to the same impulse: staying connected to UEA and paying it forward.
Many alumni also choose to give their time by sharing career insight through case studies, speaking to students, supporting alumni events, or helping to bring alumni together locally through Global Gatherings. If you can open doors through introductions in your sector, that support can help create new opportunities for students and strengthen links with employers.
Mentoring is just one way to stay connected. Thousands of alumni have attended social and networking events all over the world since 2020.
1,000 Hours of mentoring time given by alumni since 2020
683 Mentoring connections since 2023
465 Mentors engaged since 2023
Alumni take to the Lasdun Lecture stage
UEA’s Lasdun Lectures bring together alumni, supporters, students, staff and members of the local community to explore the most pressing ideas shaping our world. Featuring leading voices from within UEA and beyond, the series also often welcomes alumni speakers to share the questions, insights and experiences that have shaped their careers. Here are a few recent highlights.
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Bob Goodson (EAS99)
November 2025
“Are you using the device, or is the device using you?”
In November, entrepreneur and co-author Bob Goodson returned to UEA for his first speaking appearance at the University since graduating more than two decades ago. His talk blended insight, humour and nostalgia, exploring how technology shapes our attention and behaviour, and what we trade away when we scroll without thinking.
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Stephen Lamber OBE (SOC78)
March 2026
“This university helped give me the foundation to better understand the power of storytelling, and it’s exciting to come back and reflect on how those early ideas have shaped my career in television.”
In March, television producer Stephen Lambert, of hugely popular ‘The Traitors’ fame, returned to UEA to explore why reality and competition formats grip audiences, and what great storytelling reveals about us. Opening the lecture, Stephen reflected on arriving at UEA in 1978 and how Lasdun’s architecture shaped the feel of campus life and community. He described the lecture as a full-circle moment, returning to the place that helped set his direction in life.
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Professor Sir Michael Houghton (BIO69)
May 2026
“Without having the teaching I got at UEA for three years, I would not be where I am now.”
In May, Nobel Prize winner Professor Sir Michael Houghton delivered an online Lasdun Lecture, sharing insights from a career dedicated to researching diseases with unmet medical need and the drive to turn discovery into improved healthcare.
Past speakers include Nobel Prize winner Professor Sir Paul Nurse (BIO70) and author Professor Christie Watson (LIT07), just a small snapshot of the breadth of voices in UEA’s flagship lecture series.