// BBC UK NEWS — CRONACA
Analysis: Arday's death will send shockwaves through a divided academia
Jason Arday was found dead in Battersea, south London, on Friday
Jason Arday's death - described as unexpected and not suspicious - will send shockwaves through UK universities and beyond.
When he was appointed as professor of sociology of education in 2023 Arday was the youngest black professor at Cambridge and the university publicly celebrated his background.
Barely one per cent of professors at UK universities are black, so he was joining a small and highly visible minority in academia.
His appointment, in the wake of Black Lives Matter and debates about de-colonising the curriculum, drew worldwide attention.
Tributes paid to Jason Arday after ex-Cambridge professor found dead
Jason Arday had beaten what would have been an impressive international field of candidates to a top job in a university ranked in the global top 10.
However, in July 2026 questions about the quality of his academic research, which some had raised privately with him, broke into the open.
These included an allegation that parts of his first major piece of research, a PhD awarded by Liverpool John Moores University, were plagiarised. In other words it was suggested he had used the work of another academic without adequately crediting them.
Arday said this was untrue and Liverpool John Moores University said after a review that it stood by the quality of the research. Arday suggested any mistakes in attribution were due to his autism.