Richard Ludlow English (born 1963) is a Northern Irish historian and political scientist from Northern Ireland. He was born in Belfast. He studied as an undergraduate at Keble College, Oxford, and subsequently at Keele University, where he was awarded a PhD in History. He was first employed by the Politics Department at Queen's University Belfast in 1990 and became a professor in 1999. In 2011, he took up an appointment at the University of St Andrews but five years later returned to Queen's University Belfast as pro-vice chancellor for internationalisation and engagement. His father, Donald English (1930–1998), was a prominent Methodist preacher.