GARY YOUNGE has been appointed as a professor at The University of Manchester.

The renowned journalist and author will join the university’s school of social sciences, working as a professor of sociology.

Younge will be leaving his role as editor-at-large at The Guardian to take up the new position.

“The Guardian was my first full time job, and I worked there for 26 years – it’s been a fantastic experience. Journalism, for me, has always been a process of enquiry and sharing whatever insights I’ve gathered in an accessible and informative way – that’s precisely what I hope to achieve as a professor at The University of Manchester, and why I’m excited to be joining the sociology department,” The University of Manchester reported Younge said.

The move will not mark and end to Younge’s illustrious journalism career or his work with The Guardian, and he will continue to write for the publication.

Katharine Viner, The Guardian’s editor-in-chief, said: “Congratulations to my wonderful friend and colleague [Gary Younge], a brilliant Guardian writer who will be fantastic as a professor! Delighted he will still write for us regularly.”

Throughout his 26 years at The Guardian, Younge has worked as a journalist, columnist and US correspondent. He also spearheaded the publication’s Beyond the Blade project, which explored the deaths of each child and teenager killed as a result of knife crime in 2017, one of the worst years for fatal knife attacks in 40 years.

Younge, who is of Barbadian heritage, is the author of five books, including Another Day in the Death of America, A Chronicle of Ten Short Lives and No Place Like Home: A Black Briton’s Journey Through the American South. He has also won numerous awards for his journalism, including the David Nyhan Prize for political journalism from Harvard’s Shorenstein Center.