Sheffield Uni Honors Writer Pitts, Space Pioneer Horne

Award-winning writer Johny Pitts and space exploration pioneer Sue Horne will receive honorary degrees from the University of Sheffield, alongside the latest cohort of graduating students.

The self taught writer, photographer and broadcaster Johny Pitts, will be made an Honorary Doctor of Letters on Wednesday 22 July, in recognition of his work exploring African-European identities and documenting the Black experience across Europe.

Born and raised in Sheffield, Johny is the curator of Afropean.com, an award-winning digital platform and multimedia project that maps, explores, and celebrates the African diaspora in Europe. His book, Afropean: Notes from Black Europe, won the 2020 Jhalak Prize, the 2020 Bread and Roses Award and the 2021 Leipzig Book Award for European Understanding and has been translated into eight languages.

It's a career that has taken him from a working-class upbringing to some of the most prestigious stages in publishing and broadcasting, a journey that shapes the advice he now offers graduates navigating imposter syndrome and unfamiliar institutional spaces.

He said: "Slowly over the years I've noticed that the very things that used to make me feel like an imposter now imbue me with a sense of self-confidence. If you are from a working-class background or disenfranchised community, and you find yourself in an exclusive or prestigious environment , you know why you're there, and it usually isn't because of money or nepotism. To carry that journey with you, to be rooted in but not restricted by a peripheral space, and be a bridge between worlds, is the highest calling. We are roses blooming through concrete."

As a photographer, Johny's work has featured in solo exhibitions at FOAM in Amsterdam and The Photographers' Gallery in London. As a broadcaster, he has presented for MTV, ITV and the BBC, and currently hosts Open Book on BBC Radio 4.

Reflecting on his connection to Sheffield, he said: "No matter where I go, or what kind of creative work I do, the atmosphere of a midweek afternoon in Sheffield, especially in the city's hinterlands, is something that always inspires me. I yearn for that unhassled state in which the pressure is off, and nobody is looking. Sheffield is a city like that; it doesn't ask you for anything, just that you drop your shoulders and stay down to earth.

"The poet Robert Frost wrote that "Home is the place where, when you have to go there, they have to take you in", and I sense that even for people who weren't born and raised in Sheffield, the city offers the feeling of being home, for however long you want to stick around."

Also receiving an honorary degree on Wednesday is space exploration pioneer Sue Horne, who will be made an Honorary Doctor of Science, in recognition of her work building, shaping, supporting and championing the UK's Mars science community over the last two decades. She said: "An honorary degree particularly from Sheffield means so much to me. I am so proud about how the space community has developed, what they are achieving, and that they think I have helped them achieve their ambitions is brilliant."

Thanks to her efforts, the UK is a world leader in Mars research, and she has been a driving force behind the UK's flagship Mars rover, Rosalind Franklin, due to launch in 2028. She has received an MBE for services to the Space Science Programme and to education.