Alumnus Walter Isaacson Visits Pembroke College

We were delighted to host Pembroke Alumnus Walter Isaacson earlier in Trinity Term to deliver a talk and Q&A about his new book, The Code Breaker, and his journey into biography.

Walter came to Pembroke as a Rhodes Scholar in 1974 after graduating from Harvard University. Reports given by his tutors during that time are filled with praise on Walter’s clarity of thought and expression. Since then, Walter has become a renowned author and journalist. He served as the chair and CEO of CNN, editor of Time Magazine and President and CEO of the Aspen Institute. He is the author of the only commissioned Steve Jobs biography, along with bestselling biographies of Leonardo da Vinci, Benjamin Franklin, Albert Einstein, and more. He has also been selected as one of the Time’s 100 most influential people in the world. Walter is now Leonard Lauder Professor of American History and Values at Tulane University.

His most recent book, The Code Breaker: Jennifer Doudna, Gene Editing, and the Future of the Human Race (2021), tells the story of Nobel Prize winner Jennifer Doudna and her discovery of the gene-editing technology CRISPR.

To watch his full talk, head to our Youtube Channel here.

You can also purchase The Code Breaker here.

The above photo is of Walter Isaacson with our Director of Alumni Relations Andrew Mitchell.