This year’s Alumni Award Winner for Arts and Media is Katya Adler, BBC’s Europe Editor since 2014 and one of the most well-respected reporters of our time.
A journalist with over 25 years of broadcasting experience, Katya has covered major stories of social, political, and economic significance, including Brexit, intra-European tensions over the Iraq War and the eurozone crisis. Prior to being appointed BBC Europe Editor, she was a news correspondent in war zones and world affairs and has been, among other roles, the BBC’s Middle East correspondent, Madrid correspondent, Berlin correspondent and a presenter on BBC’s World Service.
Katya is also an award-winning presenter – her documentary Spain’s Stolen Babies was a finalist in the 2012 Royal Television Society awards and Children of War, which focused on the experiences of young refugee and asylum seekers in Europe, won an AIB award in 2016.
Katya studied German and Italian at the University of Bristol in the mid-1990s and is fluent in five languages – English, German, Italian, Spanish and French – with a working proficiency in Arabic and Hebrew. Her incredible language skills have helped her to win the trust of politicians and leaders across the world and enabled her to bring the very best reportage to our screens.
At Bristol, Katya’s work ethic and talent for investigation impressed her peers and lecturers alike, including Dr Mark Allinson, Senior Lecturer in German, who first met Katya on her return from her study abroad year. Dr Allinson describes the huge variety of work placements Katya undertook during this year, including her time working at the Blue Danube Radio in Vienna, the Rome offices of The Times and as a television reporter for NBC in Turkey. Her undergraduate dissertation in German was focused on denazification and she secured a rare interview with one of the world’s best-known Holocaust survivors and Nazi hunters, Simon Wiesenthal.
Of her time at the University of Bristol, Katya says: “Being at university is THE opportunity to meet people becoming experts in all sorts of different fields. I love hearing from others who are passionate about their specialist areas, whatever that may be.”
Each year, the University of Bristol recognises alumni who have made remarkable contributions to society through the Alumni Awards. You can see the full list of our 2022 winners on our website.