Charles Allberry was born in Sydenham, Forest Hill, south London, on 9th November 1911, one of twin brothers, the eldest children of William Henry Allberry and Hilda Gertrude (née Bonnet). He had also a younger sister and two younger brothers.

Born in 1928, Harry Smith attended Merchant Taylors’ School from 1940 through to 1946. He obtained six months’ deferment from National Service in order to sit the Open Scholarship examinations in Classics to Christ’s College, Cambridge.

Born in 1934 in South Ockendon, Essex, Geoffrey Martin obtained his BA in Ancient History from University College London in 1963, following a period of training as a chartered librarian and National Service. He followed this up with postgraduate study in Cambridge, becoming a Fellow of Christ's and taking his MA in 1966. He received his PhD in 1969, during his Junior Research Fellowship.

John Tait (in full, William John Tait) was born in London in 1945. He was schooled in Classics at University College School under Dr John Usher, and went on to read Classics (Literae Humaniores) at Wadham College, Oxford.

Professor Gay Robins studied Egyptology as an undergraduate at the University of Durham, and then obtained a D.Phil. from Oxford University in 1981 under the supervision of Professor John Baines. From 1979 to 1983 she was the Lady Wallis Budge Research Fellow in Egyptology at Christ’s College, Cambridge.

Nigel Strudwick read Egyptology at the University of Oxford, graduating in 1978, and then went to the University of Liverpool to study for a PhD under A.F. (Peter) Shore, obtaining the degree with a thesis on the Administration of Egypt in the Old Kingdom in 1983.

Toby Wilkinson first became interested in Egyptology at the age of five. He studied Egyptology at the University of Cambridge, graduating with a First Class Honours degree and winning the University’s Thomas Mulvey Prize.

Sarah Joanne Clackson (née Quinn) was born in Leicester on 11 December 1965, the youngest daughter of Peter D. and Audrey I. Quinn. She attended Loughborough High School, where she later acknowledged the influence of her Classics teacher, Mr Hammond, and the school library. At St. John's College, Cambridge, she studied Classics followed by Egyptology (1985–1989). A part-time PhD at University College London was completed in four years (1992–1996) and resulted in her first major book, P.Mon.Apollo (2000).

Fredrik Hagen was born in Stavanger, Norway, in 1977. He read Egyptology at the University of Liverpool (BA 2001), where he developed a particular interest in language and social history under Mark Collier and Chris Eyre. He then moved to Queens’ College, Cambridge, where he graduated with an MPhil in 2002, and, after having moved to Christ’s for his PhD, he was elected as a Budge Fellow in 2005.

Rune Nyord received his higher doctorate (dr.phil.) from the University of Copenhagen in 2010 and was elected the same year to the Lady Wallis Budge Junior Research Fellowship at Christ’s College. He stayed in Cambridge as Fellow of Christ’s College and Research Associate of the McDonald Institute until 2017, working on a project proposing a broad rethinking of ancient Egyptian mortuary religion funded by the Carlsberg Foundation and the Isaac Newton Trust.

Dr. Kathryn Howley is an archaeologist and art historian of ancient Egypt and Sudan, currently serving as Lila Acheson Wallace Assistant Professor of Ancient Egyptian Art at NYU. Dr. Howley is particularly interested in questions of materiality and intercultural interaction.

Alex Loktionov was born to a Russian family in France but was educated in the UK; a multicultural background that inspired his interest in diverse human societies from a young age. In 2011, he started studying for a BA degree in Archaeology and Anthropology at Selwyn College, Cambridge. He graduated in 2014 and received an MPhil in Egyptology from St. John’s College, Cambridge, the following year.