Frances D’Souza

UK Trustee

Frances D’Souza was appointed a crossbench peer in 2004. She was elected as Convenor of the Independent Crossbench Peers in November 2007 and appointed a Privy Counsellor in 2009 and Lord Speaker in 2011.

Educated at University College London and Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford University, Frances D’Souza has also been a Ford Foundation Research Fellow in comparative physiology and an Overseas Development Administration research fellow.  In the 1970s and 80s she also held lectureships at the London School of Economics and Oxford Brookes University.  She was a Governor of the Westminster Foundation for Democracy and Chair of Programmes.  She was Executive Director of Article 19, the anti-censorship organisation from 1989-98 and Director of REDRESS from 2000-2004

She received a CMG in 1998 for services to Human Rights and was awarded an Honorary Fellowship, University of Hull in 2017.