India, Aug. 15 -- Jason Arday, the former Cambridge University scholar whose meteoric rise was followed by a swift fall in recent weeks, has died at the age of 41, his family confirmed on Friday.

Arday grew up in a working-class part of South London, the child of Ghanaian immigrants. He was identified early on as having learning difficulties and wrote in his memoir that he could not speak until age 11 and could not read until age 18, as per The New York Times.

He was diagnosed with autism and global developmental delay at age three.

Arday built an impressive academic career focused on race and education, with stints at Roehampton, Glasgow and Durham universities before becoming Cambridge's youngest Black professor in 2023, taking up an...