University College London

In our final week in London, we are busy completing the final touches on our papers and presentations. We are also able to make time for the fun parts too. For example, we live right around the corner from one of the most historic universities in London, University College London!  UCL was opened in 1826 to students of any race, class, or religion. It was also the first university to accept female students as equals to men. Today, it is ranked fourth in the world’s top ten universities. Through our research we have found that many historic figures have attended or had some sort of association with UCL in the past. From Alexander Graham Bell, the man who invented the telephone, to Chris Martin, the lead singer of the popular band Coldplay, UCL has a long list of successful alumni. James Sully was also a part of UCL’s history for a large part of his life. Sully was an early British psychologist that contributed many articles and textbooks about topics such as philosophy, psychology, and music. He was elected Grote Chair of the Philosophy of the Mind and Logic in 1892. He kept this position until 1903 when he retired. Another famous face seen at University College London was Karl Pearson.

Karl Pearson, the world famous statistician, was a lecturer at UCL during his career in academia.   He became an engineering lecturer with a heavy focus on mathematics.  Student accounts show that he was a very intelligent and confident man, yet he rarely backed down from an intellectual argument.  After extensive study in multiple different fields at several different institutions, Pearson came to UCL at the beginning of his career as a professor.  In 1890, at the beginning of his teaching career, he married his first wife Maria Sharpe at the age of 33.  Soon after, W.F.R. Weldon, a zoologist who became a great friend of Pearson’s, was offered a position at UCL as well.  The two continued to motivate and push each other’s intellectual boundaries until Weldon’s death in 1906.  Weldon also introduced Pearson to his most influential colleague, Sir Francis Galton.  A cousin of Charles Darwin, Galton theorized that the physical world could be analyzed using correlation rather than causation.  This idea peaked Pearson’s interest and eventually awarded him with the title, “the father of modern statistics”.  This is a great example of the quality of educators that UCL has produced over the past century.  Along with Pearson, several Nobel Prize winners and other important figures have been a part of the UCL faculty, making it one of the most prestigious institutions in the world. 

http://www.ucl.ac.uk/about-ucl/history

Here is a link to more UCL history!

Christian Panier & Samantha Beckwith