Julian Huppert

Julian Leon Huppert (born 21 July 1978) is a British politician who served as Member of Parliament for Cambridge from 2010 to 2015. A member of the Liberal Democrats, he had previously served as a member of the Cambridgeshire County Council for East Chesterton.

Huppert succeeded David Howarth, who stood down after one term as an MP. At the 2015 general election he lost the seat to Daniel Zeichner of the Labour Party by 599 votes, and failed to retake it at the 2017 general election.

Huppert is the son of the Australian-born geophysicist Herbert Huppert and the psychologist Felicia Huppert. He was born in the United States, and moved to Cambridge when he was three months old. He had a Jewish upbringing, and his family attended Beth Shalom Reform Synagogue in Cambridge. However, he has stated that he is an atheist.

After attending the Perse School in Cambridge, Huppert spent a year at Sydney Grammar School in Australia, winning a silver medal at the International Chemistry Olympiad in 1995. At Trinity College, Cambridge, he completed a Master of Science degree in 2000, followed by a PhD in Biological Chemistry in 2005 supervised by Shankar Balasubramanian.

After his PhD, Huppert was elected a Junior Research Fellow of Trinity College in 2004, and became a fellow of Clare College, Cambridge in 2009, where the previous Cambridge Liberal Democrat MP, David Howarth, was a member. He worked as a research scientist studying the structures of DNA as well as tutoring students.

On returning to academic life in 2015, Huppert lectured on science and technology policy at the Cavendish Laboratory, and in 2016 was appointed as the founding director of a new centre, the Intellectual Forum, based at Jesus College.

During his eight years serving as a County Councillor on Cambridgeshire County Council for Cambridge's East Chesterton area, Huppert helped open Brown's Field Community Centre, chaired the Cambridge Traffic Management Committee and served on the Regional Assembly.^{[citation needed]} His interests in internationalism, the UN and human rights led him to a position on the National Council of Liberty, formerly the National Council for Civil Liberties, from 2009 to 2011.

Huppert unsuccessfully contested Huntingdon at the 2005 general election, before winning the Cambridge seat in the 2010 general election.