College Record 2022/23

COLLEGE RECORD 2022/23

WOLFSON 

COLLEGE 

RECORD 

2022/23

WOLFSON 

Published by Wolfson College 

Copyright 2023 Wolfson College 

Wolfson College, Linton Road, Oxford OX2 6UD 

Telephone: +44 (0)1865 274 100 

digicomms@wolfson.ox.ac.uk 

www.wolfson.ox.ac.uk 

All information is believed to be correct at the time of 

going to print (October 2023). Every effort has been 

made to verify details and no responsibility is taken for any 

errors or omissions, or any loss arising therefrom. 

Unless otherwise stated all images © Wolfson College, 

University of Oxford. Every effort has been made to 

locate the copyright owners of images included in this 

record and to meet their requirements. The publishers 

apologise for any omissions, which they will be pleased to 

rectify at the earliest opportunity. 

Edited by Roger Tomlin and George Mather 

Reviewed by Huw David 

Cover photo by John Cairns 

Many thanks to Victoria, Luke, Chris, Dan, Fiona, Judith, 

Alice, Alex, and all our members who submitted reports. 

Correction: in last year’s Record 

(p. 11, ‘A Fond Farewell’), we said that Ellie Clifton was a 

Wolfson gardener for seven years. This should have been 

‘twenty-four years’, from 1998 until 2022. 

Discover more news on our social channels. 

@WolfsonCollege

CONTENTS 

Introduction 

2 Letter from the President 

8 Letter from the Bursar 

12 Letter from the Development Director 

15 List of Donors 2022–23 

19 Gifts to the Library 

Clubs and Societies 

21 AMREF Group 

22 Arts Society 

25 AstroClub 

25 BarCo 

26 Boat Club 

29 Darwin Day 

30 Engineering Society 

30 Family Society 

31 Feminist Society 

32 Music 

33 Old Wolves and Archives 

Research Clusters 

36 Ancient World 

38 Law in Societies 

40 Mind, Brain and Behaviour 

41 Oxford Centre for Life-Writing 

43 Oxford Trauma and Emergency Care 

44 Quantum Hub 

45 Tibetan and Himalayan Studies Centre 

Lectures and Seminars 

48 Annual Lectures 

48 The President’s Seminars 

The Record 

49 College Officers and Membership 

50 President and Fellows 

58 Elections and Admissions 

60 Visiting Scholars 

61 Graduate Students 

64 Elected Members of GB and GPC 

65 Scholarships and Prizes 2022–23 

68 Degrees completed 2022–23 

Personal News 

80 Appointments and Awards 

84 Books published by Wolfsonians 

88 Births and Marriages 

88 Deaths 

89 Obituaries 

Memories 

97 From Tibet to Oxford 

98 From Uruguay to Oxford 

98 Wolfson in History and Today 

Other Contributions 

103 Byzantium Then and Now 

105 Celsius at Wolfson 

108 The Jungle Book illustrated 

109 The Bunker 

111 Christmas Cards for Prisoners 

112 The Marsh Project 

114 The Legal Fight for Clean Rivers 

118 Editor’s Note

Sir Tim Hitchens receiving the Vice Chancellor’s Sustainability Award on behalf of the College 

Photo: Ed Nix 

Follow Sir Tim on X @SirTimHitchens 

INTRODUCTION 

1 


Photo: Judith PalmerPhoto: Salix Finance 

The President’s Letter 

SIR TIM HITCHENS 

O 

ne of the great joys of Wolfson College is its annual rhythm. When Michaelmas 

term starts Walter Sawyer’s glorious garden bursts into autumnal colour, designed 

to welcome students who may not be here through the summer vacation. The last 

punts are taken out of the water. Sturdy souls try to eat their lunch on Harbour Quad, but 

their numbers dwindle. The café fills up. The cold weather hits. We take photos of frosty 

mornings. After Christmas the meads start to flood, and we watch to see whether the 

island is marooned. Then the first snowdrops appear. Crocuses emerge in Tree Quad. Mike 

and the gardening team start mowing the lawn again. Students and researchers emerge 

from their libraries and labs to enjoy the lengthening evenings. The punts come out again 

and the Victoria Arms is once more within reach. Graduation ceremonies start in earnest. 

Students try their hand at croquet. Exam season goes on longer for some than they would 

like, while others celebrate the end of an academic year. We plan our summer research. 

The lawns start to go brown. And then, as autumn arrives, the gardens burst into colour 

again. 

INTRODUCTION 

WOLFSON.OX.AC.UK 

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An Oxford college, even a very modern one like ours, thrives on that sense of natural 

rhythm and continuity. We provide a predictable setting for people’s lives. 

INTRODUCTION 

I’m conscious too that for the last few years we have lived a disrupted life here in College. 

The pandemic, of course, locked the world up in a solipsistic cell. Everyone is struggling 

with the cost of living crisis. And for the last two years we have been going through our 

latest epic adventure, the complete decarbonisation of the College. The College houses 

along our neighbouring roads have in many cases been gutted and rebuilt, without fossil 

fuels, better insulated, and now much better 

provided. The Annex is now a real asset to 

the College, not just something we couldn’t 

avoid, and its garden, thanks to Mike and 

the team, is looking wonderful. Other 

improvements: we have also doubled the 

Private Dining Room in size, just next to the 

Upper Common Room, so we have another 

space – known now as the Levett Room, 

in honour of its funder – the size of the 

Sir Tim opens the newly refurbished Annex 

Photo: John Cairns 

Haldane Room for art exhibitions, events 

and entertaining. 

Hammers and scaffolding can of course be a sign of a healthy organisation, and they will no 

doubt in time return. But for the moment it is wonderful to have an uninterrupted view 

and something near a monastic silence in College, at least during the daytime. At a personal 

level, things took a little longer to get back to normal. Sara and I spent four months 

enjoying the pleasures of student accommodation in Block C while the lodgings were being 

insulated and decarbonised in their turn. We very much enjoyed watering flowers and 

herbs on the balcony, meeting other residents in the laundry, and listening to the late-night 

chatter from the College bar. 

Students in one of the refurbished Annex kitchens / Photo: John Cairns 

3 


So let me look back on what has been a normal, extraordinary year. 

I begin with Emeritus Fellow Ellen Rice, who died in April, having been a member of the 

Governing Body, Fellow for Archives, Senior Research Fellow and, earlier in her career, 

Domestic Bursar. There is an obituary of her in this Record by another Emeritus Fellow, 

her husband Jim Kennedy, and we will be planting a tree in her memory in Tree Quad, just 

next to the Nursery to which she devoted so much of her time. There is also an obituary 

of the art historian Kiyoko Hanaoka, a long-term Member of Common Room, who died in 

January. We were pleased to provide her family from Japan a place in College to grieve and 

celebrate her extraordinary life. 

Among those Governing Body Fellows who have left their positions is Jeremy Johns, who 

deserves special mention since he has been part of the College fabric for many decades. I’m 

delighted he is now an Emeritus Fellow, and his wife Nadia also became a Fellow at Wolfson 

last year. We also bid a fond farewell to Tarje Nissen-Meyer, who has left us for a wonderful 

new opportunity at Exeter University; he too is now Emeritus. 

Among our new Governing Body Fellows is Rebecca Nichols who joined us in April as 

Professor of Materials Modelling, and Jack Hanson and Frédérique Duyrat who join us as 

Professor of Roman Archaeology and the new Keeper of the Collections at the Ashmolean 

respectively. Liam McNamara also joins the Governing Body as the Ashmolean’s new 

Keeper of Antiquities. We also welcome Meron Piotrkowski who joins us from Princeton 

as our new AP in Jewish History. We also welcome our first Isaiah Berlin Junior Research 

Fellow, Tania Shew. 

INTRODUCTION 

Photo: Judith Palmer 

The intellectual life of the College has returned to a state of vigorous good health. Three 

new Clusters have burst into life, Mind, Brain and Behaviour; Law in Societies; and the 

Cross Disciplinary Machine Learning Cluster. The Centre for Life-Writing has gone from 

strength to strength, with significant new philanthropy and a growing community of 

distinguished visiting scholars. Martin Goodman has overseen an expanding programme 

for the Ancient World Research Cluster. Tibetan and Himalayan Studies has benefited 


4

from several new scholarships. For me perhaps the most intriguing Cluster event this year 

was the investigation of AI and Music, involving the BBC Philharmonic and hip hop, under 

the guidance of Dave de Roure and the Digital Research Cluster – what kind of music can 

humans co-create with AI? Vlatko Vedral also gave us this year’s London Lecture in the 

House of Lords on quantum entanglement, including evidence that quantum effects are not 

limited to subatomic particles but can be seen in living creatures – as Vlatko said at various 

points throughout the lecture, ‘now it really gets weird!’. 

INTRODUCTION 

Cyril Almeida delivering the 2022 Sarfraz Lecture / Photo: John Cairns 

I’ve found the three President’s Seminars this year very interesting, with wonderfully 

engaged audiences. We’ve looked at the way bees’ brains work; how to identify an exoplanet; 

and the legality of anti-bias recruitment algorithms, among many other topics. 

Our Haldane Lecture by Nobel prize winner Paul Nurse posed what to the non-biologist 

is the deceptively simple question: ‘what 

is life?’. Nathaniel Coleman challenged 

us in this year’s Berlin Lecture to think 

harder about the legacy of Section 28, the 

1980s law which banned the promotion 

of homosexuality. Katherine Dunbabin 

guided us elegantly through Roman mosaics 

during the Syme Lecture. The journalist 

Cyril Almeida explained the interactions of 

army and politicians in Pakistan. The Kyivbased 

British artist and photographer Mark 

Neville, whose works hang in our corridors, 

spoke passionately about making art in 

the midst of war. Our two CARA Fellows, 

Shaharzad Akbar and Katya Kovalchuk, gave 

intriguing presentations on their specialisms: 

human rights in Afghanistan, and the 

Katherine Dunbabin / Photo: John Cairns 

iconography of the Hagia Sophia in Istanbul. 

5 


As the heavy engineering of the decarbonisation project comes to a close, I am grateful 

to all those who, in a variety of ways, continue both to drive our legacy fossil fuel use 

down and to build our biodiversity: the arrival of our electric minibus this autumn, our 

collaboration with Oxbikes to encourage more cycling around, the arrival of electric 

scooters. To reduce the use of fossil fuels 

by vans who deliver to us we’ve pioneered 

the Pedal and Post initiative which is rolling 

out to other colleges this autumn. We’ll be 

paying for that from the fund we’ve now 

established to offset our small amount 

of remaining Scope 3 carbon emissions. 

Thanks to the volunteers who have tended 

the College kitchen garden, and all those 

who this year and over many years have 

done such wonderful work to support 

and nurture our natural environment, 

from those volunteers working to increase 

the species which populate our meads 

and marshes, to those in the kitchens 

ensuring that the food we eat is local and 

sustainable. Our nature and our climate are 

two sides of the same coin. 

A Pedal and Post delivery arriving in the Lodge 

Photo: Femke Gow 

INTRODUCTION 

Other personal highlights of the last year have been the annual May Day music concert 

in this Hall, marking my five years since becoming President, with music from Brazil, India, 

China, and the Beatles; and taking part in January’s life drawing classes in the Haldane 

Room, where I was very relieved for the model’s sake that the heating was so good. I’m 

delighted that these classes will be a regular fixture this coming year. I was also very pleased 

to take part in the very first graduate college Christmas carol service in the University 

Church, a tradition I hope will become annual. The College was also sad to see the end of 

Photo: George Mather 


6

the long association we have had with the Fournier Trio, who have been playing here as 

Artists-in-Residence since 2011 – they have held concerts here every term or so for the 

last twelve years. As they have grown more internationally successful and in demand, it has 

been harder for them to continue that commitment. We heard their last regular concert 

with us in early March – Beethoven’s Piano Trio in D major and Tchaikovsky’s Piano Trio 

in A minor – and they have promised to keep coming back when there are gaps in their 

schedule. It’s sad to say farewell, but only because they have been so successful – nurturing 

talent and then setting it free is, I suppose, part of the mission of a college. We are now in 

the process of identifying a successor artist-in-residence, and were delighted to have the 

Scottish / Hong Kong / Chinese Asaka Quartet playing for us in June. I should add that we 

have also run a competition to identify the best visual artist among our own community, 

and congratulations are due to Junior Research Fellow Amaia Salazar, Emeritus Fellow 

Barbara Harriss-White, and Graduate Student Jean Kearney. 

INTRODUCTION 

On behalf of the College I was also very pleased to travel this Easter to the United States 

and meet our alumni and supporters there: in Chicago, Boston and New York. We have a 

wide range of people who care about this College. I was particularly thrilled to meet one of 

America’s leading detective novelists, Sara Paretsky, who lives in and writes about Chicago. 

She has very fond memories of her time as a Visiting Scholar at Wolfson at the start of her 

career, when only a handful of her now twenty-one hard-boiled detective novels had been 

published. 

Next year, on 29 June, we will be celebrating fifty years since we moved into these 

extraordinary Powell and Moya buildings on the banks of the river Cherwell. It’s both 

a built environment, reflecting the optimistic values of the late ’60s, and a living culture, 

which means as much now as it did when it was created then. The care that’s been taken 

with every detail of this architecture, both the original and the additions over the years, is 

wonderful; the way our values and culture have been nurtured by many of you over the 

years is equally remarkable. We’re custodians as much as residents. And as the annual 

rhythm turns and turns again, I can only reflect that we’re lucky to be here. 

7 


Letter from the Bursar 

RICHARD MORIN 

This has been another challenging year 

for the College finances as inflation has 

continued to spiral and the increase in the 

cost of borrowing has brought about the 

inevitable write-down of investment values. 

Nevertheless, the underlying health of the 

College finances, along with our prudent 

and cautious approach, has enabled us to 

just about balance the books once again. 

Thanks to the kindness of alumni and others 

we have continued our decarbonisation 

programme and have managed to establish 

a new, permanently endowed research 

fellowship in memory of Sir Isaiah Berlin. 

This endowed Fellowship has been created 

from the amalgamation of small donations 

received for this purpose over many 

Richard Morin / Photo: John Cairns 

years, and shows that even the smallest of 

donations can grow into something substantial and important over time. 

INTRODUCTION 

The adjustment in asset prices because of the increase in the cost of borrowing has 

resulted in a substantial fall in the value of our investments, with both public and private 

equity, as well as property, being challenged by the changing landscape. A predicted sharp 

drop in inflation has yet to happen, but it is still generally believed that inflation will diminish 

by the end of this calendar year, assuming of course that no other major catastrophes befall 

the economy. 

One of the saddest impacts of the current cost of borrowing is that we are no longer able 

to raise the £14 million that we had hoped to raise through the private markets to fund 

a new ‘Garden Building’ to accommodate fifty new student rooms on our south car park. 

The design has now been completed and planning permission achieved, and, originally, we 

had intended to borrow the money and service the debt through the income that the new 

rooms would have generated. The rise in the cost of interest rates unfortunately means 

that this is no longer possible, and we are therefore looking at other options, including 


8

fundraising, to fund the finance gap. It would be terrific to be able to complete this 

important project, as it would enable another fifty students to live on site and be immersed 

in the full Wolfson experience. 

INTRODUCTION 

The proposed Garden Building / Image: Penoyre and Prasad 

We have also been working on completing the design for a new sports and wellbeing 

centre, and we hope to submit this for planning permission in the coming months. This 

work has been instigated and supported by the kindness of a generous donor, to whom 

the College will be eternally grateful. While full funding is not yet in place for the building 

phase, we are hopeful that more funds can be raised and construction can start as soon as 

finances allow. 

With the value of our investments having fallen by around 4% over the last twelve months, 

the College’s buying power has been reduced, especially when set against inflation of 10%, 

but with very careful budget and cost management we achieved a small surplus at the 

end of the last year: that small surplus was committed to the extensive decarbonisation 

programme as per Wolfson’s five-year plan. The decarbonisation programme is almost 

complete, with the whole of the main site now zero carbon emitting, with no fossil fuel 

heating. Our houses in Garford, Linton and Chadlington Roads are also almost fossil fuel 

heating-free, with the last few properties being insulated and having heat pumps installed 

this autumn. This has been a challenging programme of work for the College, and many 

people have told me how proud they are to be a member of a college so committed to 

being truly zero carbon at a time when it is most needed. 

Having reached net zero this year and having completed the current programme of 

decarbonisation works, we are now looking for funding for the next stage, which will be to 

increase the number of photovoltaic panels on our flat roofs, so we can generate more of 

our own electricity locally. We also need to put more insulation in place in the remaining 

9 


uninsulated parts of Wolfson’s estate and want to buy a large storage battery so that we 

can draw down electricity from when it is available in its greenest form and store it for later 

use. There is also work underway in College amongst staff, Fellows and students, to reduce 

our own individual carbon footprints wherever we can. 

We are currently offsetting those residual individual carbon footprints, as well as the carbon 

footprints of our operations, by reinvesting in green initiatives at the College. Other, smaller 

projects completed across College include the refurbishment of the Private Dining Room 

through the kindness of a donor (now renamed the Levett Room), and the purchase of 

an electric minibus (again through the kindness of a donor), which is due to arrive in the 

autumn and will ensure carbon-free travel between the College and town. 

INTRODUCTION 

The Levett Room / Photo: John Cairns 

So, despite all these challenges, there is much to be pleased about in terms of the progress 

being made. The day-to-day running of the College continues to be blessed by an amazing 

team of managers and staff who look after us all so very well. Our Head Chef, Michael 

Godfrey, an award-winning international executive chef, and his team, including Sofia Miron 

Sardiello, recently promoted to be the new College Steward, continue to produce the most 

dazzling catering experience, and an environment in which the academic magic continues to 

happen. 


10

INTRODUCTION 

11 



Letter from the Development Director 

HUW DAVID 

Looking back on the 2022–23 academic year, it’s satisfying to reflect on what the President 

in his Foundation Dinner speech called ‘a normal, extraordinary year’. ‘Normal’ in the 

full resumption, for the first time in three years, of the regular patterns of lectures, 

seminars, lunches and dinners that are the hallmark of Wolfson life; ‘extraordinary’ for the 

accomplishments of our students and Fellows, the generosity of our alumni and friends, and 

the progress of our decarbonisation and other building projects around College. 

Once again, Wolfson benefitted from remarkable philanthropic support. For the zero 

carbon project, the Wolfson Foundation’s grant of £500,000 enabled us to complete 

the replacement of the remaining single-glazed windows in our original Powell and Moya 

buildings. A hugely generous and anonymous gift of $500,000 enabled us to embark upon 

the final stages of decarbonising our built estate, funding the installation of air-source heat 

pumps, removal of gas boilers and comprehensive insulation of our Linton Road properties 

during the summer vacation. And starting this autumn, Wolfson will have Oxford’s first 

electric minibus thanks to a donation of £86,000 from an alumnus, eliminating many 

tonnes of diesel emissions as it shuttles back and forth to Broad Street. With Wolfson’s 

crest emblazoned on the side, it will also be a powerful embodiment of the College’s 

commitment to clean energy and, we hope, a catalyst for other colleges and institutions to 

electrify their fleet. 

INTRODUCTION 

While the zero carbon project has specialized in transforming Wolfson’s hidden 

infrastructure – the heating, plumbing and electrics that make the College run – other 

building projects have had a much more visible impact. Over the winter, the Private 

Dining Room and Coffee Room were amalgamated by removing a partition wall and 

comprehensively redecorated to create a bright modern space overlooking Harbour 

Quad. The Levett Room, as it is now named in gratitude for the generosity of Honorary 

Fellow Chris Levett, has become an outstanding space for events, art exhibitions and 

entertaining. Two other projects in the coming months will similarly transform much-used 

but tired spaces, both thanks to exceptional gifts: the Music Practice Rooms underneath the 

Marble Hall and the Lower Common Room. Across the Cherwell, in Wolfson’s floodplain 

meadows, the generosity of the Aspen Foundation in memory of the late Sir Martin Wood 

is restoring and enhancing the biodiversity of these SSSI grasslands. 


12

Wolfson’s vibrant research clusters have also attracted some tremendous gifts. For the 

Oxford Centre for Life-Writing, we are hugely grateful for two donations of £100,000, 

one from the Dorset Foundation and one from an anonymous benefactor, and for the 

support of OCLW’s many friends in sustaining its outreach work with disadvantaged 

communities and neurodivergent young people. The new Law in Societies cluster revived 

Wolfson’s longstanding expertise in socio-legal studies thanks to significant philanthropic 

support. We were once again indebted to Honorary Fellows Lorne Thyssen for enabling 

so much outstanding research under the Ancient World Research Cluster’s aegis and 

Simon Harrison for his remarkable support for the Boat Club, towards our planned new 

Sports and Wellbeing Centre, and for scholarships in Physics and Quantum Computing. In 

January we established the Baruch Spinoza Scholarship in solar physics, named in honour 

of the Enlightenment philosopher and inspiration to Isaiah Berlin, thanks to a kind gift from 

alumnus Matthew Levy. 

INTRODUCTION 

Physics – of the quantum kind – was at the heart of this year’s London Lecture by Vlatko 

Vedral. Attended by a rapt capacity audience at the House of Lords, it was one of several 

memorable alumni events throughout the year. September’s alumni reception in College 

was for the first time preceded by a talk, livestreamed for Wolfsonians across the world, by 

Christoph Bachhuber on ‘The Unfolding Story of the Hittite Empire and its Collapse’. Our 

Christmas drinks reception at the Oxford and Cambridge Club in London as ever brought 

together alumni of many eras. And following three years of Covid confinement to British 

shores, the President and I were delighted to travel to the USA in March to meet alumni 

and friends in Chicago, Washington, New York and Boston, where a drinks reception 

brought Wolfsonians from across New England together at Tufts University, thanks to the 

kindness of Tufts’ President Tony Monaco and his wife Zoia Larin Monaco, an alumna. 

With a full programme of events scheduled for 2023–24 we look forward to meeting you 

on our travels or to welcoming you back to College soon. Thank you again to everyone 

whose generosity, at all levels, helps to make Wolfson the special place it is. 

STAY IN TOUCH 

The Alumni and Development 

Office is here to help keep you 

connected with the University after 

you leave. Don’t hesitate to contact 

Alice Marsh (left) and Alex Fels (right) 

who are happy to help if you have 

any questions. 

alumni.office@wolfson.ox.ac.uk 

13 


INTRODUCTION 


Photo: John Cairns14

List of Donors 

The College thanks all these 

people and organisations for their 

generous donations in the last academic year. 

INTRODUCTION 

The Romulus Circle (£50,000+) 

The Augustus Foundation 

Derek Boyd 

Simon Harrison 

Matthew Levy 

The Wolfson Foundation 

Four anonymous donors 

The Lycidas Circle (£20,000+) 

John Adams 

Christian Levett 

The Morningside Foundation 

Mark Pengelly 

The Berlin Circle (£10,000+) 

The Aspen Trust 

The Isaiah Berlin Literary Trust 

Vera Fine-Grodzinski 

Reid Hoffman and Michelle Yee 

Pritam Singh 

Suzy Assaad Wahba 

The Harbour Circle (£5,000+) 

The Derrill Allatt Foundation 

Felix Appelbe 

Michael Berman 

The Khyentse Foundation 

Andrew Prentice 

The Pritzker Family 

Marie Richards 

Lord Aamer Sarfraz 

George Smith 

Two anonymous donors 

The Tree Circle (£1,000+) 

Thomas Black 

Timothy and Kathy Clayden 

Jean Pierre de Vries 

Stephen Donaldson 

Anthony Gray 

Jeremy Johns 

Ira and Phyllis Lieberman 

James Lowe 

Thayne McCulloh 

Pat Nuttall 

Carol O’Brien 

Jonathan Paine 

Walter Sawyer 

Varda Shiffer and Doron Shiffer-Sebba 

Ken and Veronica Tregidgo 

Anthony Wierzbicki 

Mzia Wilkinson 

The Heathfield Charitable Trust 

The Jefferson Trust 

Simon Fraser University 

Three anonymous donors 

15 


Patrons of the College (£500+) 

Marie-Laure Aris 

William Beaver 

Jacob Biamonte 

James Byrne 

Joshua Curk 

Julie Curtis 

David Dalgarno 

Roberto Delicata 

Clifford Jones 

Helen Lambert 

Patricia Langton 

Roland Littlewood 

Gideon Makin 

Marc Mangel 

Gregor McLean 

John McManigle 

Andrew Neil 

Andres Reyes 

Alison Salvesen 

Lesley, Lady Smith 

Christopher Staker 

Lindsay Stead 

Leslie Tupchong 

Peter Turner 

The Paul and Edith Babson Foundation 

The Richard Brown Research Foundation 

One anonymous donor 

Sponsors of the College (£100+) 

Philippa Archer 

Marie-Laure Aris 

Liz Baird 

Simon Barker 

Robert Baron 

Steve Barry 

Christopher Bartley 

Michael Bevir 

John Bidwell 

Mary Bispham 

David Blackman 

Michael Bloom 

David Bounds 

William Bradshaw 

Diana Briggs 

Harvey Brown 

Nicholas Brown 

Harry Bryden 

Richard Buch 

Rhys Burriss 

Richard Butterwick-Pawlikowski 

Robin Buxton 

Helen Caldwell 

Carl Calvert 

Juliet Campbell 

Sarah Carpenter 

Anne Carwardine 

Alfred Cerezo 

Choon Chai 

Cyril Chapman 

Chia-Kuen Chen 

Samuel Clark 

Nicola Clarke 

James Crabbe 

Andrew Crane 

Ken Cranstoun 

Gail Cunningham 

Paula Curnow 

Norman Davies 

Margaret Dick 

Kennerly Digges 

Sarah Donaldson 

Simon Dowell 

Madhuri Dutta 

John Edgley 

Charles Ehrlich 

Georgina Ferry 

Caro Fickling 

Alex Finnegan 

Peter Flewitt 

Martin Francis 

Jane Gardner 

Penelope Gardner-Chloros 

Evan George 

Sally Gold 

Alan Gordon 

INTRODUCTION 


16

INTRODUCTION 

Patricia Halligan 

Sabina Heinz 

James Henle 

Paul Henry 

Martin Henry 

Ray Higgins 

Michael Hitchman 

Timothy Horner 

Chris Howgego 

Dan Isaacson 

Lama Jabb 

Ann Jefferson 

Carolyn Kagan 

Lorcan Kennan 

Graham Klyne 

John Koval 

Johanna Kuila 

Yusaku Kurahashi 

Matthew Landrus 

Bettina Lange 

David Langslow 

Ann Laskey 

Helen Lawton Smith 

Robin Leake 

Jane Legget 

Jay Lewis 

Nancy Macky 

Marc Mangel 

Alan Mapstone 

Colin McDiarmid 

Alison McDonald 

Tom Mclean 

Carol McQuire 

Paul Metzgen 

Caspar Meyer 

Francisco Mora 

Victoria Mort 

Lucia Nixon 

Robert Owens 

Lucinda Phillips 

John Pinot de Moira 

Raymond Pow 

Anthony Rabin 

Moritz Riede 

Julie Richardson 

Mary Ritter 

Paul Roberts 

David Roulston 

Judith Ryder 

Louise Samuel 

Malcolm Savage 

David Scobey 

John Sellars 

Joanna Shapland 

Ben Simpson 

Richard Sorabji 

Alan Spivey 

Gillian Stansfield 

John Strachan 

Nikita Sud 

Anne Sykes 

Heinrich Taegtmeyer 

Michael Taylor 

Swee Thein 

Noreen Thomas 

Robert Thomas 

Charles Thompson 

Chris Thompson-Walsh 

Edward Thorogood 

Michael Tully 

Nouri Verghese 

Lynn Villency Cohen 

Richard Walker 

Jonathan Webber 

Scott Weenink 

Samuel Williams 

Lizzie Wingfield 

Henry Winstanley 

Jonathan Wolff 

John Woodhead-Galloway 

Christopher Woodruff 

Adam Wyatt 

Hubert Zawadzki 

Sibo Zhu 

Four anonymous sponsors 

17 


Supporters of the College 

Shaharzad Akbar 

Faisal Alomari 

Sarah Anderson 

John Barford 

Peter Berkowitz 

Mary Black 

Michael Bloom 

Steven Bosworth 

Iben Brinch 

Kurt Burnham 

Andrew Busby 

Petra Caruana Dingli 

Timothy Claridge 

Diana Crane 

Claudia Davidson 

Catharine Frances Doherty 

Michael Durrant 

Kate Elliott 

Adlai Englard 

Vernil Ferdinand 

Janet Floyd 

Alun German 

Veronica Ghirardi 

Nicky Grace 

Claudia Gualtieri 

Anthony Hall 

Paul Harrison 

Jonathan Hart 

David Holloway 

Agnieszka Iwasiewicz-Wabnig 

Aidan Lomas 

Viviana Mabombo 

Davide Di Maio 

Jessica Malay 

Diana Martin 

Caitlin McDonnell 

Carol McQuire 

Keith Meadows 

Rana Mitter 

Mir Mohiuddin 

Elle Montoya 

Michael Murphy 

Paul Murphy 

Lisa Napoli 

Hana Navratilova 

Andrew Neil 

Jonathan Noble 

Jason Oke 

Lucy Palmer 

Debbie Parker Kinch 

Naama Potok 

Caroline Prance 

Tabassum Rasheed 

Christina Redfield 

Niyati Sharma 

John Shelton 

St John Simpson 

Robert Tanner 

Chelsea Wallis 

David Wiggins 

Jonathan Woolf 

Norman Yoffee 

Mackenzie Zalin 

Seven anonymous supporters 

INTRODUCTION 

Photo: Femke Gow 


18

GIFTS TO THE LIBRARY 

The Library welcomes gifts of books from all its members, past and present, which enhance 

its academic collections and add to the pleasure of its readers. Books have generously 

been donated by those whose names follow, authors or contributors being identified by an 

asterisk. There are also some exciting donations to come, of which there will be news in 

the coming year. 

Fiona Wilkes (Librarian) 

INTRODUCTION 

Julian Ashton 

*Dr S A Beebe 

Eduardo Benítez-Inglott y Ballesteros 

*Professor John and Mrs Mary Brockington 

*Marta Cerrito 

*Dr Timothy Clayden 

*Professor Bob Coecke 

*Professor J A E Curtis 

*Professor Louis de Koker 

*Dr Judy Dlamini 

The Foundation for Law, Justice and Society 

*Professor Itzhak Galnoor 

*Dr Amy Garnai 

*Kent Gilges 

*Dr Kevin Grecksch 

*Dr Henry Hardy 

Professor Barbara Harriss-White 

*Ian Hembrow 

*Professor Cliff B Jones 

*Dr Alon Kadish 

Dr Jay Lewis 

*Dr J P Linstroth 

*Dr Hana Navratilova 

Dr Colm O’Reardon 

*Dr Olivera Petrovich 

*Dr Fernanda Pirie 

*Professor Tariq Rahman 

Dr Andres Reyes 

*Dr Maria Sandri 

*Dr John Sellars 

Dr Katsuri Sen 

Ben Simpson 

*Professor Sir Richard Sorabji 

*Dr John Strachan 

*Dr Rachel Stevens 

*Professor David Zeitlyn 


19 


INTRODUCTION 



20

Clubs and Societies 

AMREF GROUP 

The group coordinates fundraising for Amref Health Africa, which has been the College 

charity since the late 1970s. From its base in Nairobi Amref operates throughout East 

Africa, working closely with local communities to create lasting health change; it is as well 

known there as Oxfam, and has a great reputation internationally. 

CLUBS AND SOCIETIES 

In 1994 the group worked with the College and Amref to create the Wolfson-Amref 

Bursary, which provides financial assistance every year to students taking Amref’s flagship 

Diploma in Community Health Practice. The annual value of the bursary was increased 

from £2.5k to the current £3k in 2016. 

Egza Zino Riko, a refugee from the war in South Sudan, who is nearing the end of her 

diploma studies, was assisted by a full scholarship in 2021. She writes: ‘The Wolfson 

Scholarship Award has given me courage, motivation and boosted my self-esteem and I 

now believe that after my studies, I will be a skilled and more passionate community health 

practice officer. I aspire to effectively identify and implement impact interventions within my 

community in South Sudan or other countries, prioritizing the children, pregnant women, 

and the elderly.’ 

During a recent visit to her family in South Sudan, Rhodah Nyareath Hoth, who gained a full 

scholarship in 2022, ‘witnessed the suffering my community goes through.’ ‘Women are not 

empowered, children lack access to immunization, and the men lack the understanding on 

the importance of healthcare for all. Upon completion of my course, I will be fully enriched 

with knowledge and skills to share with my household, my community and with the number 

of people I will be able to reach out to in the wider South Sudan. I must confess, I am 

getting enriched with knowledge I never expected to have.’ 

The funds sent to Amref from Wolfson over the years are the result of lots of generosity 

and hard work from the whole community here, and we would like to thank you all. More 

than £1,000 was donated by the spectators at last November’s Fireworks Night; over £300 

was raised in donations in the College bar, where a quiz also raised more than £40; and Tim 

Key, who annually pipes in the haggis during the Burns Night Supper, once again gifted his 

fee. The annual battels appeal raised more than £2,000. 

21 


Coordinating these efforts are individuals such as the group’s two student representatives, 

Nameerah Khan and Ryan Walker, who very sadly leave us this year after completing their 

studies: they have given such great service and we will miss them a lot. Thanks also to Alex 

Messenger in Accounts, and everyone in the Lodge and in Housekeeping. 

In July 2022 Wolfson hosted a well attended 

panel discussion ‘Healthcare in Africa: fit for the 

future?’ that included contributions from Dr 

Githinji Gitahi, CEO of Amref Health Africa; Dr 

Anne Makena, Co-Director of the Africa Oxford 

Initiative; and Tilly Alcanya, a Senior Research 

Consultant at the Red Cross Climate Centre. 

The discussion was chaired by the head of Amref 

UK, Camilla Knox-Peebles, and introduced by our 

President, Sir Tim Hitchens. 

Before he left the Amref Group, Ryan Walker ran 

the 2023 London Marathon for Amref, raising 

over £2,200. He remembers the Marathon as 

‘an incredible experience, and one I will never 

forget. It’s hard to find the words to describe the 

noise from the crowd on Tower Bridge, and it 

was great to see the Amref UK team stationed at 

Mile 25 to cheer us to the end.’ 

Mark Pottle, Chair of the Amref Group 

Ryan Walker, running the 2023 London Marathon 

for Amref Health Africa / Photo: Mark Walker 


ARTS SOCIETY 

The 2022–23 exhibition programme 

opened with And so runs the year (in 

yesterdays many) – a technically rich and 

diverse collection of new paintings and 

drawings by Helen Leith Spencer. This was 

a subtle and intellectually rich series of 

reflections on nature and place, literature 

and community, influenced at times by the 

experience of pandemic and lockdown. 

Helen Leith Spencer, Topples Wood (acrylic on canvas) 

Photo: Peter Stewart 

During Hilary term the Society’s normal 

exhibition spaces were closed for 

renovation, but they reopened in Trinity 

with new lighting perfect for an exhibition 


22

that was full of light, colour and gold. Byzantium Then and Now, curated by Elena Draghici- 

Vasilescu, presented the work of a group of artists associated with the Prince’s Foundation 

School of Traditional Arts in London, who have sought to replicate and revive the 

techniques used by icon-painters in the Byzantine Middle Ages. Their work is discussed later 

in this Record by the curator herself. It is an exercise in recreation, but also reinvention, the 

paintings often applying the traditional idiom to the artists’ experiences and perspectives. 

We were also delighted to be able to use other parts of the College to exhibit different 

media. Babar Suleman’s film Unfeeling, which opened last year, continued in the Marble 

Hall through Michaelmas term, and Gilles Le 

Corre brought a stunning collection of new 

ceramics to the Old Lodge and library display 

cases. 


Two purchases of small works were made 

for Wolfson’s permanent collection: Like a 

Wave in this Slope, a recent gouache by the 

exiled Afghan artist Kubra Khademi, and 

[transcript of] one way ticket, a very special 

paper sculpture by Mau Samayoa, intended 

to record the moment of his departure from 

his home country of El Salvador in 2010. 

Both will go on display in the autumn. We 

were also thrilled to receive as a gift a major 

work for the gardens, a playful and reflective 

bronze by Rob Ward entitled Ladder, which 

has been installed at the end of B Block. It 

replaces the more mundane scaffolding poles 

which have dominated the site during the 

decarbonisation project. 

Sculptor Rob Ward with his newly installed Ladder 


Meanwhile, John Robinson’s bronze, Bonds of 

Friendship, has returned from conservation 

in dazzling form to take up its former place 

in front of the College. 

John Robinson, Bonds of Friendship 


Life-drawing classes twice a term continued 

to attract enthusiastic and creative 

participants under the expert guidance of 

Stacey Gledhill. We had a powerful and very 

moving presentation from the renowned 

photographer Mark Neville, who updated 

us on his current work in Ukraine, and a 

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staged conversation with former Wolfson Fellow Carey Young, marking her major solo 

show Appearance at Modern Art Oxford. Thematic tours of the Wolfson collections and 

architecture were offered by Tim Hitchens and Peter Stewart. 

Finally, in May we launched a new art competition for the whole community, which was 

won by Amaia Salazar (JRF). Second and third prizes went to Barbara Harriss-White (EF) 

and Jean Kearney (GS) respectively. After the terrific response to the call for submissions, 

we plan to repeat the competition in future years. We are grateful to the Creative Arts 

Fellow, Tom Brennan, for convening the judges and administering the process. The 2023 

winners’ works will be put on temporary display in College. 

Peter Stewart 


Above: Amaia Salazar, Hallucinations Part 3 (photograph) / Photo: the artist 

Left: Barbara Harriss-White, 

Ypres–Reims–Raqqa–fascist Toledo 

(enamel, carbon debris and grit on 

copper) 

Photo: the artist 

Right: Jean Kearney, 

Exploring the Borders 

(pen and pencil on paper) 

Photo: the artist 


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ASTROCLUB 

Wolfson’s latest exhibition is the night 

sky. On the night of 25 April, 2023, the 

Astroclub held its inaugural session, and 

it was a success. We gazed upon the 

radiant Moon and the dazzling beauty of 

Venus. But that was only the beginning of 

an extraordinary adventure. Fast-forward 

to 23 May, and our second session was 

even better. We gathered under the vast 

expanse of the night sky for an evening 

which began with the engaging introduction 

‘What are we observing tonight?’ We 

were told how the marvellous night sky is 

part of a grand celestial puzzle composed 

of stars and planets. The highlight was to 

look through a telescope at the Moon and 

Venus, the Moon’s craters and the phases 

Photo of the Moon taken using the Wolfson telescope 

Photo: Oscar Barragán Villanueva 

of Venus. For some of those who came, it was the first time they had looked through 

a telescope: they said it was a life-changing experience. That night also we glimpsed the 

International Space Station passing overhead, a bright moving point reminding us that 

humankind’s curiosity knows no bounds. 

The night sky has a unique way of drawing us together and reminding us of the vastness of 

our universe and the boundless possibilities that lie beyond our horizon. Whether you are 

a seasoned stargazer or a curious novice, join us at the Astroclub. Discover the wonders 

of the night sky and let the beauty of the universe ignite your imagination and curiosity. 

Prepare to be amazed, as we delve into the depths of the cosmos and find ourselves 

forever changed by the enchanting allure of the night sky. 

Oscar Barragán 

BARCO 

The Cellar Bar has continued to be a thriving hub of socialising and entertainment. For 

new and old College members alike, it has been a valuable space both for relaxing and for 

making connections with fellow members of the community. We have hosted a number 

of events: a stellar series of bops hosted in conjunction with Internal Entz, including the 

infamous Freshers’ Week Alphabop, a Hilary term Bop to the Future – replete with 

DeLorean aesthetics and ’80s dance floor fillers – and the Trinity term Surreal Subfusc, 

where revellers blended the world of Dali with traditional Oxford dress. There have been 

pub quizzes, karaoke nights, live bands, cocktail evenings, bar exchanges with other colleges, 

a launch night for the College’s Garden of Earthly Delights Spring Ball, giving College 

members endless opportunities for mingling and diversion. 

25 


We have expanded the drink and snack options available to our patrons, all at prices that 

any comparable establishment in Oxford would find it hard to beat. Fresh pints of draught 

ale from cask will soon be permanently available, complementing our already broad choice 

of beer in bottle and on tap. For those who crave savoury snacks beyond the usual crisps 

and nuts, we are now delighted to serve a British pub classic: pickled eggs. We are proud 

of how well our own gin – Spirit Wolf, developed in conjunction with Chalgrove Artisan 

Distillery – has been selling since its introduction in 2021. While stocks last, sealed bottles 

remain available for purchase whenever the Bar is open, for £45. 

Our premises have seen some modernisation and glamourisation. The outdated toilet 

facilities have been given a much-needed refresh; the ceiling of the Games Room is now 

permanently adorned with a verdant and floral fitting; and we now have a dedicated storage 

space for our barrels and kegs, thanks to the kind help of the Home Bursary. 

Our overall project to maintain and improve the Bar as the best community space in 

Oxford never ends. We have ambitions to widen our selection of drinks and to give the 

Games Room a major refresh: updating the lights and equipment, and improving the 

soundproofing, to make it a venue for bigger, bolder and more exciting events. We will 

continue to promote the Bar as a nucleus of College activity over the summer and into 

the autumn, when the new cohort of freshers will arrive. We look forward to welcoming 

patrons, old and new, and are always looking for volunteers to join our service rota and the 

Bar committee (BarCo), the team that keeps the Bar ticking. 


Will Thurlwell, BarCo Chair 

BOAT CLUB 

Training camp in Henley / Photo: Thomas Chapman 

2022–23 was a year of change. Previous seasons had been dominated by the success of 

the women’s squad, and it was time for the men to emulate them. In Torpids and Summer 

Eights the men’s first boat (M1) rose to its highest-ever position on the river, narrowly 

missing the Torpids headship, whilst in Torpids M2 held the second-boat headship briefly 


26

efore bumping the bank on the final day. The men’s squad also saw success in some big 

external regattas, winning the college category at Bedford Regatta, and qualifying for the 

Temple Challenge at the world-renowned Henley Royal Regatta; this was in a composite 

boat with Christ Church, the first time any college has qualified since 2014 except for 2021, 

when entries were severely reduced by the pandemic. 


W1 at Summer Eights / Photo: Nikola Boysova 

This is not to deny the hard work and commitment of the women’s squad. It was always 

going to be a challenging season, with a relatively new and inexperienced squad of athletes, 

but everyone rose to the challenge admirably. In Torpids and Summer Eights W2, W3 and 

W4 all held on to their headship, with the Torpids W4 crew achieving elusive blades. W1 

ended in the middle of the pack in Division 1, after a vicious fight with colleges returning 

to full strength after the pandemic. At Nottingham Regatta the women qualified for the A 

final, finishing respectably in fourth position, and earlier in the year they entered two mixed 

novice / senior crews into Quintin Head on the Tideway in London. 

The year also marked a noticeable change in the relationship between the two squads. The 

playful rivalry between them still exists, but the Club is united in expressing the egalitarian 

ethos of Wolfson. With a large intake of new members, we had men jumping into 

women’s boats, women hopping into men’s boats, coxes running back-to-back sessions to 

support outings for both squads, and even coaches volunteering to row or cox to ensure 

that outings could go ahead. At our annual training camp in Henley, between sessions 

of working hard to improve our technique – the saying is that ‘miles make champions’ – 

everyone was chatting to everyone else, and there was little separation seen according to 

squad or level of experience. 

27 


As we head into the Long Vacation, work does not stop for our members from Wolfson 

and St Cross. There are pots to be won at summer regattas, new coxes to be given a seat, 

the chance of sculling in our small boats. Summer is also when we welcome new volunteers 

and say goodbye – or at least ‘au revoir’ – to those finishing their degrees and leaving 

Oxford. We bid a special farewell to one of our long-standing coaches, who is moving to 

the USA. He marked his last day with us by repeating the first, taking some new members 

out on the water for their first outing with the Club. 

As always, we thank our generous sponsors and alumni for the ongoing support which 

makes everyone remember to Fear the Wolf. 

Finishing positions (with the change in brackets) 

(1) Torpids, out of 73 qualifying crews: 

M1: 2nd (+2); M2: 32nd (–1); M3: 56th (+4); M4: 64th (+2) 

W1: 6th (–5); W2: 25th (–4); W3: 37th (–4); W4: 44th (+6) 

(2) Summer Eights, out of 85 qualifying crews: 

M1: 4th (+1); M2: 41st (+1); M3: 55th (+1); M4: 69th (–3) 

W1: 7th (–4); W2: 27th (–4); W3: 48th (–3); W4: 67th (+3) 

Aimee Ruffle, Boat Club President 


M1 about to bump Oriel at Torpids 1 / Photo: Al Craigie 


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DARWIN DAY 

On Saturday 18 March 2023, we welcomed fifty students from our Cambridge sister 

college, Darwin, for the first Darwin Day since Covid. We began with a classic brunch 

together in Hall, before splitting up for a range of morning activities. They began with 

rowing, tennis, board games and croquet. Darwin wanted to give croquet a try, and the 

Wolfson team were obviously excellent teachers as Darwin just kept beating them: they 

quickly mastered the game, and everyone had a lot of fun. Upstairs, a range of board games 

were being played, but the tennis players only just escaped the rain. A taxi or two took the 

rowers on a quick tour of Oxford before dropping them at the boathouse, where the Boat 

Club was ready and waiting to show Darwin why they had boats in Division 1 for both men 

and women. But it was not quite possible: Wolfson’s mixed boats were overshadowed by 

Darwin’s last-minute crew. 


Returning to Wolfson, the Darwin students had a short break, a chance to see the College 

and a packed lunch in the dry, before another session of activities. This time there was 

squash, the ultimate frisbee taster, a university challenge competition which went to the 

very final buzzer, and some carnival games by the harbour enjoyed by all. The last activity 

session was on the sports field, where children, students, parents and family watched 

sports day games and football matches. There was a tug of war, beanbag toss, sprints, 

an egg and spoon race, and a three-legged race, of course, for everyone to relive their 

childhood. 

The day ended with the Darwin Cup being formally awarded to Darwin, before everyone 

migrated to the bar for an evening of live music and karaoke. Overall, it was a very 

successful Day, and Darwin thanked us for our wonderful hosting. Special thanks must go 

to Lizzie Horton, Oana Diaconescu and Rebecca Crossley, for organizing the Day; and to 

everyone from Wolfson and Darwin who attended or volunteered their services to make it 

the fun it was. 

Next year Wolfson will go to Cambridge, where it must try to bring the Cup home again. 

Rebecca Crossley 

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ENGINEERING SOCIETY 

This is a new society which has 

attracted more than a hundred 

members of the College from all 

disciplines. It celebrated its inaugural 

Open Day on 31 May. 

It has hosted informal dinners to 

foster interdisciplinary discussion, 

and an intricate paper-folding event 

on 1 March 2023 called ‘Let’s make a 

flexagon’. 

Photo: Ping Lu 

The committee is planning more events for Michaelmas term, to include a welcome for 

new members and workshops on cuneiform learning and chess playing. 

Ping Lu 

FAMILY SOCIETY 

The Society has had a year full of events without restrictions, despite a drastically reduced 

number of organisers, and it has been wonderful to see families new and old coming 

together. 


We began with our traditional Welcome Party in October, which brought together lots 

of new arrivals to Wolfson, with good food, games and music. This party enabled new 

families in College to meet their neighbours, and ask any questions they may have. October 

was a busy month since it also saw the welcome return of the pumpkin-carving party, in 

which pumpkins from a local farm were picked, gutted and carved into all sorts of creative 

and spooky designs. We even welcomed some students without children, who had never 

carved a pumpkin before, to join in the messy fun. The food waste was all donated to the 

gardening team for their compost heap. Halloween celebrations continued with the annual 

trick or treating, which began as always with a visit to the President’s house. Our thanks go 

to everyone who opened their doors to the children, who were thrilled with all their treats. 

The annual fireworks display in November provided another great opportunity for student 

families to get together, with the College providing the Private Dining Room as an indoor 

viewing room for those who were not fans of loud explosions. 

We were unable to put on our usual Winter Party because of time constraints, but those 

who stayed in College during the Christmas break got together for drinks and snacks in the 

Family Room on Christmas Eve. 


30

The new year began with one of our most popular events, the International Party, to which 

families were encouraged to bring a dish from their home country, whether home-cooked 

or shop-bought. The result was a cornucopia of delicious food which included Japanese 

sushi, Korean noodles, African meat pies and Bulgarian baklava. The children also enjoyed a 

great game of flag bingo, using their bingo card to locate flags of the world which had been 

hidden around the room. 

Spring saw the welcome return of the Easter Egg Hunt. This event was a great success, 

beginning with an indoor picnic and ending with a fast and furious hunt for edible and toy 

eggs hidden all round the Tree Quad, which was enjoyed by children of all ages. 

The academic year concluded with the summer barbecue, which was somewhat hampered 

by rain but still well-attended, with delicious food being provided by the talented College 

catering team. 


The Society was able to comment to the College on a proposal to revamp the playpark. 

Two quotations have come from outside developers, and it is hoped that work will start in 

summer 2024. 

Thanks to discussion with the College, the partners of students who are not themselves 

Members of Common Room can now be provided with fobs which give them access to the 

Family Room, the pigeon holes and the laundrette. 

After two years as Chair, let me say what a privilege it has been to help and support the 

families of Wolfson; and let me conclude with a big thank you to all those who have helped 

me. I will be succeeded by Emilia Antonio and Harriet Hanson, who I know will continue to 

provide families with the help and support they require. 

Judith Palmer, Chair of the Family Society 2021–23 

FEMINIST SOCIETY 

‘Where are the women?’ This seemingly simple question is advocated by Cynthia Enloe 

in her book Making Feminist Sense of International Politics. It leads us to uncover the ideas, 

unequal relationships and policies, that reveal the gendered workings of our society. This 

helps us discover ‘exactly how the world works’. 

We asked ourselves this question in the Feminist Society this year, hosting a panel 

discussion on ‘Women in Academia’, a reading group on ‘Women in international relations’ 

and a dance workshop on the ‘unease’ of embodying gender roles in art. Our studentled 

‘flash presentations’, ‘tea conversations’ and film screenings promoted the greater 

involvement of diverse groups of students. The Society allied itself with Lady Margaret Hall 

31 


MCR, Linacre College and Wolfson Film Society for these events. Their format and location 

varied, so as to encourage different sorts of conversation. Their diverse range was intended 

to make participants aware of the question of ‘gender’ and to ask of their own fields of 

research, ‘Where are the women?’ 

MUSIC 

This academic year has seen a number of concerts and musical activities at Wolfson. Under 

its outgoing conductor and former Wolfson student Callum Salisbury, the Choir delivered 

end-of-term concerts which were well received. The Music Society offered a platform and 

organised recitals in the Auditorium by JongSun Woo, En Yuan Khong, David Earl, Felix 

Tennie and Amy Thakurdas. A special type of recital was played by Magdalene Ho, which as 

a ‘Concert for Ukraine’ helped raise funds for Save the Children. 

The Fournier Trio’s residency at Wolfson has come to an end after ten years with a 

beautiful concert this spring by the original Trio, Chiao-ying Chang (piano), Pei-Jee Ng (cello) 

and Sulki Yu replaced by Soojin Han (violin). But the Society is excited to announce a new 

residency with the Asaka Quartet which starts in Michaelmas 2023. 

Felix Tennie 


The Fournier Trio / Photo: Luisa Summers 


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OLD WOLVES and ARCHIVES 

Last year, in 2022, a bunker or underground 

shelter was discovered in the College 

grounds, as described later in this Record, 

and in June this year (2023) it was visited 

by a party of Old Wolves under the expert 

guidance of Dr Nicholas Márquez-Grant 

(MCR). The Archivist has been liaising with 

interested parties for its restoration and 

preservation. 


The Archivist worked with Dr Roger Tomlin 

(EF) on a display relating to the antique 

Kurdish rugs hanging in Hall, which the 

College has from him on long-term loan. 

Our returning volunteer, Old Wolf Mary Thomas, kindly gave her services to the Archives 

again this winter. Alfred Ye (GS) spent time with the Archivist learning about archives in 

general, and also generously did some work in the Archives on a voluntary basis. Another 

Wolfson student, Alicia Vergara Steinmann, continued as Archives Assistant. We are grateful 

to them all for their help and support. 

Donations 

Items received this academic year include 

photos of our former Fellow Archivist, the 

late Dr Ellen Rice, from Professor 

W J Kennedy (EF); images of the snowdrop 

Galanthus ‘Natalie Garton’ (named after 

the widow of the late Dr Geoff Garton, a 

former Fellow and Bursar of Wolfson), from 

Walter Sawyer (HF); and a postcard from 

1910 showing the Haldane family’s house, 

‘Cherwell’, apparently just after it had been 

built, from Dr Geraint Jones (GBF). This 

Maria Cunningham and Nicholas Márquez-Grant tell 

some Old Wolves about the bunker in the garden of 14 

Chadlington Road / Photo: Alicia Vergara Steinmann 

Postcard of ‘Cherwell’ seen from Linton Road in 1910 

Photo: Wolfson College Archives 

postcard is a real find as it shows the house, which once stood on the College site, from a 

different angle than the few other photos we have of it. 

33 

Photo: Wolfson College Archives 

We also received a commemorative stone incised with 

the initials E R for Queen Elizabeth (Elizabeth Regina), 

discovered in the course of building work in the garden of 

one of the College houses. It does not look particularly 

old, and it carries no date or other information, but it was 

probably bought from a builders’ yard by the Bursar who 

then lived in the house, as a decorative item for the garden. 


Old Wolves Events 

On 24 November 2022, Dr Susan Walker 

(EF) described the Emperor Caracalla’s 

disastrous visit to Alexandria in AD 215. 

We learned that gigantic Roman granite 

columns were regularly recycled, since they 

reappear as part of other buildings all over 

the Mediterranean. And we were delighted 

to learn that a ‘column’ is often known in 

French as ‘un Camembert’. 

On 9 February 2023, the Wolfson alumnus 

Dr Hubert Zawadzki, author and historian, 

gave us a moving talk on ‘Captivity, Military 

Service and Survival’ – his own parents’ 

wartime story (1939–45). It was made all Susan Walker and the Emperor Caracalla 

Photo: Alfred Ye 

the more poignant by the presence of invited 

members of the audience who had personal connections to the events described. 

On 18 May 2023, Professor James Crabbe (SF) gave a wide-ranging and informative talk on 

the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals, asking if we could achieve them by 2030. His talk 

covered life under water, and the importance of education to reduce the inequity of health 

provision. It is now available on the College’s Youtube channel. 


Hubert Zawadzki and his parents 

Photo: Alicia Vergara Steinmann 

James Crabbe and Sustainable Development 

Photo: Margaret O’Rorke 

The talks were preceded, as usual, by a very enjoyable lunch in Hall. The Archivist is grateful 

to all who contributed to the success of these events and looks forward to attending future 

events herself, now that she has retired. They will be announced on the College website. 

Liz Baird, College Archivist 


34


35Photo: George Mather 


Research Clusters 

ANCIENT WORLD 

The fundamental aim of the Ancient World Research Cluster is to support members 

of College and Common Room working on Ancient World topics and to promote 

interdisciplinary working and exchange between scholars of different age groups and 

experience through meetings and lectures, through grants and sponsorship of research 

events, and through the organisation of a variety of other activities intended both for our 

members and for the wider University and public. The breadth of our members’ research 

interests is reflected in the wide variety of events we have been able to organise and 

fund. 

Public talks and related events 

The AWRC organised eight Lunch Table and Talks, one special evening lecture with 

drinks reception, and one book launch evening event. New initiatives included the 

inauguration of the termly Early Career Research Festival (three events), which have been 

organised as an opportunity for members of the Cluster early in their research careers to 

present and discuss their research and to meet in a casual setting both with others at the 

same career stage and all other members of the Cluster. In Hilary term we organised a 

display of books in the Library Corridor featuring the works of Cluster members, which 

was accompanied by an exhibition of photographs made by one of our graduate student 

members during fieldwork in Jordan and Lebanon. In Trinity term, to mark the end of 

the academic year, we inaugurated the AWRC Maritime Day. Here is a list of events in 

2022–23: 

RESEARCH CLUSTERS 

David Wiles, ‘Democracy, demagoguery and theatre: lessons from the ancient world’; 

Rafiullah Khan, ‘South Asian Archaeology in the 1920s and 1930s: the Archaeological 

Survey of India, Archaeological Laws and the Swat State’; Talah Anderson (for the Early 

Career Research Festival), ‘Divine kinship at the Assyrian royal court’; Paul Roberts, ‘An 

important excavation salvaged: the Roman Villa Rustica at Matrice (Molise) in Central 

Italy’; Thea Sommerschield, ‘Restoring, dating and placing Greek inscriptions with 

machine learning: the Ithaca project’; an opening event for the book display and photo 

exhibition; the Early Career Research Festival included short presentations by Christie 

Carr (Assyriology/Sumerology), Buki Fatona (Science and Religion), Toby Hudson (Indo- 

European Linguistics), Alessandra Rocchetti (Roman Studies), Svenja Arlt (Prehistoric 

Archaeology), Tom Gavin (Ancient History), Thomas Nelson (Classics), and Émilie Pagé- 


36

Perron (Assyriology); there was a book launch for S.J. Barker, C. Courault, J. Á. Domingo, 

and D. Maschek (eds), From Concept to Monument: Time and Costs of Construction in the 

Ancient World: Papers in Honour of Janet DeLaine; Izabela Ephal, ‘Who is considered a 

usurper in the Ancient Near East?’; Israel Ephal, ‘When and how did the Arabs become 

an organic component of the Fertile Crescent?’; Anahide Kéfélian, ‘Roman coin circulation 

from ancient Armenia’; Eleanor Dickey, ‘Latin loanwords in ancient Greek: why are they 

so misunderstood?’; Roland Fletcher, ‘The urban conundrum’; the Maritime Day included 

presentations by David Blackman (ancient Mediterranean seafaring), Nesreen Elgaly 

(ancient Egyptian ship and boat models), and Cristina Gonzalez-Esteban (digital maritime 

archaeology). The presentations were followed by a punting expedition up the Cherwell 

to the Victoria Arms for a pub dinner. 


Grants, awards, bursaries 

Thanks to generous funding from Baron Lorne Thyssen-Bornemiszma and the Augustus 

Foundation, the Cluster has been able to support the second year of Lorne Thyssen 

scholar Tom Gavin for the DPhil project ‘Homonoia and Inter-Polis Cooperation in 

Roman Asia Minor (1st to 3rd cent. AD)’ beginning in Michaelmas 2021. He has now 

been awarded a third year of funding. 

The AWRC has created a new scholarship for a fully funded one-year MSt in any ancient 

world subject, to be advertised for the 2023–24 academic year. 

This academic year the AWRC awarded six grants in support of travel for archaeological 

fieldwork and laboratory analyses on archaeological materials, and for a field school. 

These include: excavation fieldwork in Greece; archaeological survey fieldwork in Mayan 

landscapes in Guatemala; excavation fieldwork in Mozambique; radiocarbon dating of 

human remains from pre-Columbian burials in the Bahamas; study of human remains 

from a Roman mausoleum in Spain; survey / architectural recording fieldwork in Tunisia, 

France and Croatia; an archaeological summer school programme in Italy. 

Four grants were made to support travel to study archives and museum collections, 

and for equipment to digitally record museum collections, for historical linguistic 

research, and for a fieldtrip to study animal behaviour relevant to research on ancient 

representations of animals. They included a trip to the British School at Rome to study 

archives and collections, a trip to India for ethno-linguistic research on ancient and 

historical language change in Indic; a trip to Malawi to observe elephants in their natural 

habitat with reference to ancient representations of elephants; Reflective Transmission 

Imaging of archaeological collections in the Ashmolean Museum. 

One grant was made to support the extension of a research stay in Oxford / Wolfson by 

a visiting Pakistani scholar and Cluster member working on Gandharan archaeology with 

a focus on the Swat valley (1895–1947). 

37 


Three grants were made to support the organisation of a conference and workshop in 

Oxford, and a conference session abroad. They were ‘Oxford Postgraduate Conference 

in Assyriology’ at St John’s; ‘Games, Gaming and the Ancient World’ at Wolfson; 

‘Cuneiform in the Age of Digital Archaeology’ in Copenhagen. 

Three grants were made to support the publication of research. Imaging and translation 

costs for the forthcoming monograph Landscapes of the First Farmers, Cities and States on 

the Konya Plain, Turkey: Results of the Konya Regional Archaeological Survey Project; printing 

and publication costs for the forthcoming edited volume Architectures of the Roman 

World: Models, Agency and Reception; printing and publication costs for the forthcoming 

monograph Trattati greci sui tropi. Introduzione ed edizione critica. 

Five grants were made to support travel to present research at conferences. The papers 

were called ‘Where’s the chief? Household autonomy and matriarchal authority in ’Ubaid 

Mesopotamia (Edinburgh)’; ‘A Survey of Neuroanatomical Networks in Early Medieval 

Period via St Augustine’s Philosophy of Mind’ (Leeds); ‘Staging the Near Eastern Goddess 

in Oscar Wilde’s Salomé’ (Sacramento); ‘Carian chiefs, Hittite heads, and other Anatolian 

etymologies’; ‘Building Materials and Construction Techniques in Antiquity’ (Belfast). 

Other initiatives 

The AWRC supported the transfer and custodianship of the Manar al-Athar Library from 

the Ioannou Centre to the College Library. The library comprises some 2,500 books and 

offprints and 100,000 images, relating mostly to the architecture and archaeology of the 

Middle East and North Africa from the Hellenistic, Roman and Islamic periods. 


Running the Cluster 

The AWRC developed a new website which went live in 

Michaelmas 2022, with information about the Cluster, member profiles, information 

on AWRC grants and awards, and an Events page. The administrator is developing a 

‘Member Activity’ page that features the research projects and media activities of Cluster 

members, including an interactive map. 

Martin Goodman (Director) 

Christoph Bachhuber (Administrator) 

LAW IN SOCIETIES 

This is a new Research Cluster, led by Dr Marina Kurkchiyan and Professor Linda Mulcahy, 

which provides an opportunity for members of Wolfson, external speakers and a mixed 

academic and public audience to explore various facets of law and legal phenomena. Its 

launch continues the long tradition of socio-legal scholarship and engagement at Oxford, 

where the UK’s first Centre for Socio-Legal Studies was launched fifty years ago and was 

based at Wolfson for more than twenty years. The new cluster is generously supported by 

the College and by John Adams, a longtime friend and Honorary Fellow of Wolfson. 


38

It is an interdisciplinary scholarly platform which seeks to bring together those with an 

interest in the rules, formal and informal, by which social order has been organised at 

different times and in different cultures. By initiating exchanges between lawyers, political 

scientists, sociologists, human geographers, anthropologists, historians and philosophers, 

it seeks to generate new ideas and debate solutions. It aims to work closely with other 

research clusters, and will sponsor events jointly where an appropriate overlap exists. 

The Cluster plans to arrange a variety of events each year, including public lectures, panel 

discussions, ‘author meets reader’ sessions, film screenings and reading groups. Autumn 

lectures will focus on a topic which lies at the interface of law and political science; winter 

lectures on a law and humanities theme; and the summer lecture will be given by an 

eminent international scholar and organised in partnership with the Centre for Socio-Legal 

Studies. 


In its first year the Cluster organised five events, in addition to informal meetings with 

the students’ discussion group and an all-members College lunch. The events programme 

began with a workshop session led by Marina Kurkchiyan, Fernanda Pirie and Kimberley 

Czajkowski on socio-legal readings of historical texts. This was followed by a lecture given 

by Professor Jeremy Johns on Islamic Law in Norman Sicily. In Trinity term, Professor Des 

Manderson of the Australian National University delivered a lecture on socio-legal and 

critical readings of colonial artworks. 

Professor Manderson enjoys a drink after his lecture at Wolfson. 

Photo: Haley Drolet 

39 


Other events included a discussion of two prominent new publications which addressed 

populism and constitutional democracy. The discussion was led by Professor Chris Thornhill 

from Manchester University and Professor Nick Barber from the Oxford Law Faculty. In 

June the Cluster hosted an early career workshop co-sponsored by Cambridge University 

Press and the Centre for Socio-Legal Studies, providing an opportunity for scholars in the 

early stages of their career to receive detailed feedback from experienced colleagues. It also 

provided an opportunity to learn more about the publishing process. Places for this event 

were allocated in a competitive international competition. 

The programme for 2023–24 will begin with a public lecture by Professor Colin Crouch 

which will address the idea of post-democratic societies. 

Linda Mucalhy (Director) 

Marina Kurkchiyan (Director) 

MIND, BRAIN AND BEHAVIOUR 

The Cluster was relaunched in November 2022 at a special President’s Seminar on 

the ‘Mind and Brain’. Dr Tim Viney (RF) discussed the origins of spatial memory and 

memory loss in humans, Dr Rachel Parkinson (RF) talked about bee vision and taste in 

the agricultural landscape, and Buki Fatona (GS) provided a fascinating account of the 

imagination as a vehicle for mental travel. This was followed by a drinks reception and guest 

night. 

The aim of the Cluster is to bring together diverse members of the College community 

interested in exploring questions concerning the nature of the mind and the brain, and 

the factors that guide or influence behaviour. Drawing upon the rich variety of research 

backgrounds, meetings are intended to take ideas and concepts that are very familiar to 

some experts, and share them with other experts from very different backgrounds, leading 

to a greater understanding and novel insights. 


The Cluster held two events in Hilary term, which were well attended. Building upon 

the wide range of questions raised by the attendees at the President’s Seminar, the 

first meeting was held as a ‘mutual tutorial’ featuring Dr Rachel Parkinson and Dr Tim 

Viney, who contrasted navigation strategies in bees and mammals. We found a surprising 

overlap in terms of scientific terms and concepts, and the discussion even extended to 

‘social navigation’ in ants. We were delighted that such a variety of experts from different 

backgrounds could contribute. This was followed by lunch in Hall. The second meeting 

featured an external speaker, Dr Abhishek Banerjee from Newcastle University, who 

provided an interesting account of flexible decision-making, in which the prefrontal cortex 

takes a leading role. This was followed by a Cluster dinner in Hall. 

Two further meetings were held in Trinity term. Given that many Cluster members live far 

from College, this term’s events were organised as hybrid meetings (in-person and online). 


40

Following lunch in Hall, Dr Mootaz Salman (GBF) discussed brain-on-a-chip technology 

and humanised models for brain disorders. We benefited from his clear and open appraisal 

of this exciting research area. The final meeting of the academic year was another mutual 

tutorial, featuring Dr Abhishek Dutta (RF) (on machine learning for fish behaviour) and Dr 

Sarah Skeels (MCR) (on behaviour of weakly electric fish). 

We are grateful to the Events Office for efficiently coordinating room bookings as well as 

arranging lunch tables via the Catering Team. We also thank the Academic Proposals and 

Funding Sub-Committee, the Academic Committee, and the Governing Body for approving 

the revival of the Cluster, and we look forward to future events held in the next academic 

year. 

Tim Viney (Director) 


OXFORD CENTRE FOR LIFE-WRITING 

This academic year we have expanded both our online and in-person events series, ensuring 

we maintain connections with our global community. Our lectures and talks at Wolfson 

remain very well attended and in 2022–23 we have especially enjoyed lectures from Anna 

Beer and Ike Anya. 

Lectures and speaker events 

Our lecture series brought high-profile writers to Oxford, including Miranda Seymour (on 

writing Jean Rhys’s biography, with live readings by Diana Quick), Ann Jefferson (on writing 

Nathalie Sarraute’s biography), and Jennifer Homans in conversation with Hermione Lee (on 

twentieth-century choreographer George Balanchine). This year our Weinrebe Lecture in 

Birmingham was given by Alexandra Walsham on ‘Writing the Generations: Time, Place and 

Family Memory in Early Modern England’. 

At the end of 2022 we launched a new international Life-Writing Research Network, 

an online seminar series which welcomed four speakers in its first two terms, including 

Margaretta Jolly and Tamarin Norwood. 

2022–23 has also seen the launch of the Laura Marcus Life-Writing Workshops in 

partnership with Oxford’s English Faculty. Convened by Hermione Lee, they have welcomed 

speakers including Marion Turner, Bart van Es and Kirsten Shepherd-Barr, alongside OCLW 

Co-Directors Elleke Boehmer and Kate Kennedy, to explore topics in life-writing and to 

encourage Oxford students to share their own work in a workshop format. 

Conference and Linton Lecture 

In January 2023 we ran a conference on ‘Women Writing Women’ which featured Michelle 

Deininger, Kate Kirkpatrick and Siân Brooke among others. Topics discussed included 

‘Confronting Apocalypse’ from an ecofeminist perspective, how women communicate 

online, and a case study on writing the life of Simone de Beauvoir. The day was attended by 

41 


over one hundred people, and concluded with our first Linton Lecture, delivered by Anna 

Beer on ‘Eve Bites Back: an Alternative History of English Literature’. 

Visiting Scholars and Doctoral Students 

During the 2022–23 academic year we hosted twenty-three Visiting Scholars from around 

the world. Each week in term time our visitors gather for a closed seminar to share work in 

progress and reflect on trends in the field. Among our current scholars we are supporting 

projects as diverse as a psychological account of lies, lying and liars, and a biography of the 

German anti-Nazi political activist Sophie Scholl. 

This academic year we welcomed nine Visiting Doctoral Students, and have three new 

students arriving in the autumn. Our own doctoral student Freya Marshall-Payne is now in 

her third year, working on a life-writing project with Oxford’s homeless women. 

Education and outreach activities 

We have continued our relationship with the Unicorn School in Abingdon, which caters for 

children with special education needs such as autism and dyslexia. We have also developed 

partnerships for a new life-writing project with adopted children. In April we ran a five-day 

course with Joanna Wheeler of Transformative Story and youth theatre troupe Four-Eyed 

Theatre to train the actors in workshop-running skills and to equip them with the tools and 

methodologies necessary to work with vulnerable young people to articulate and express 

their own stories in different ways. 

Supporting writers in our community 

Our events are attended by many members of the public as well as by academics and 

students. To provide a space for these participants, in September 2022 we hosted a lifewriting 

book group and in Hilary term (January–March) we ran a very successful reading 

group on the subject of autofiction, focusing on the work of Maurice Blanchot. We have 

also run day conferences to support aspiring writers: in January 2023 we ran a workshop 

on ‘Writing about Living People’, partnering with the Society of Authors to discuss legal 

issues surrounding copyright; and in April we welcomed author Patrick Gale, editor Richard 

Milbank, and creative writing tutor and author Alice Little (who is also our Administrator 

at OCLW) to talk about the blurred line between fact and fiction when it comes to lifewriting. 

These practical workshops have been a popular addition to our programme and 

demonstrate the value of life-writing to a range of audiences. 


OCLW remains at the forefront of global conversations about life-writing and our work 

continues to consolidate our international reputation for excellence. We have achieved a 

wide reach working with many audiences, and are able to extend this impact by running 

online and hybrid events and outreach programmes. 

Kate Kennedy (Co-Director) 

Alice Little (Administrator) 


42

OXFORD TRAUMA AND EMERGENCY CARE 

Each term we hold two open invitation meetings, preceded by lunch in College. The agenda 

includes an update on Oxford Trauma and Emergency Care, followed by presentations on 

subjects within trauma care and the methodology surrounding trauma and emergency care 

research. This year our sessions have been in-person, but included hybrid options for those 

to which we invite our Patient and Public Involvement members, since this makes the event 

more accessible to them, some of whom have mobility issues or live prohibitively far away. 

This blend has enabled a wider group to attend and take advantage of the connections and 

networking opportunities of face-to-face meetings. 


Wednesday 28 September 2022 

In our first meeting we met in person and enjoyed the benefits of catching up with 

colleagues. Our guest speaker was Dr Paul Mitchell, an international expert in fragility 

fracture guidelines and tool kits, who joined us online from New Zealand. His subject was 

fragility fracture care in Asia Pacific, including the unique challenges and opportunities of 

treating these injuries. Then Professor Steve Gwilym gave a presentation entitled ‘Trauma: 

are we forgetting the X factor?’ which encouraged his audience to ask more expansive 

research questions, in particular about patient experience and pain. 

Wednesday 7 December 

Our final meeting of 2022 consisted of two presentations. First Dr Ping Lu talked about 

the classification of tetanus severity in intensive-care settings for low / middle income 

countries using wearable sensing. Then Professor David Keene of Exeter University, 

who works closely with the Oxford Trauma and Emergency Care team and runs several 

clinical trials in trauma rehabilitation, presented an update on the ‘AFTER’ (Ankle Fracture 

Treatment: Enhancing Rehabilitation) trial. This has recently gone from feasibility study to 

full randomised trial. 

Wednesday 25 January 2023 

Professor Dan Perry of Liverpool University introduced two new trials which will soon 

begin: ‘ODDSOCKS’ will compare surgery and casts for treatment of Displaced Distal tibial 

fractures in children, and ‘BIGBOSS’ will assess the best way of treating a problem of the 

hip (slipped epiphysis) in children and young people. Then Kathryn Lewis, a senior research 

nurse in Oxford, gave a talk entitled ‘Recruiting to studies: what makes it work?’. She has 

led the trauma research team at the Oxford University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust for 

many years, and works very closely with many of our clinical trials. 

Wednesday 29 March 

Professor David Keene introduced us to a new clinical trial, ‘PROMOTE’, which will assess 

the feasibility of a psychological intervention to improve pain management and improve 

recovery after major trauma. Then Lydia Underdown, Information Governance Manager 

in our department at Oxford, gave an overview of relevant information governance 

43 


considerations for clinical research. And finally Professor Matt Costa gave an update on new 

trial interventions which are being set up under the WHiTE (World Hip Trauma Evaluation) 

Platform. 

Monday 10 July 

Our final meeting of the academic year began with a talk from Dr Stephen Gill, Senior 

Research Fellow at St John of God Hospital and Deakin University, Geelong (Australia), who 

spoke about injury profiles in American Football. Then En Lin Goh, a DPhil student within 

our department, gave an update on his DPhil research project into complications following 

hip fracture surgery. The third talk was by Martin Holt, who leads the research finance 

team in our department at Oxford. 

Other Cluster activities 

We have also held Senior Management and Operational Group meetings on the mornings 

of Cluster meetings, and have hosted ad hoc events related to trauma and emergency care 

research. An example is the visit of Gerard Slobogean, Professor of Orthopaedic Trauma 

at the University of Maryland, who came to Oxford in July to exchange ideas about clinical 

trial design. We also plan to host Dr Maoyi Tian, Senior Research Fellow from the George 

Institute in China, who will be visiting this summer to discuss fragility fracture care in a 

global context. 

Matt Costa (Director) 

Jessica Ryan-Phillips (Executive Assistant) 


QUANTUM HUB 

The New Frontiers Quantum Hub has celebrated the seventieth birthday of David Deutsch 

(HF) with a collection of essays from world-leading experts in fundamental quantum 

physics. See 

The pianist Rakhat Bi has been elected a Visiting Scholar to explore connections between 

quantum physics and music. 

The economist Francesca Loria from the Federal Reserve has visited the Cluster to foster 

interaction between the quantum computing researchers in the Cluster and macroeconomy 

research. 

The Cluster has been actively seeking further funding from various donors, including the 

Agnelli Foundation in Turin, to enhance the collaboration with the INRIM laboratories on 

quantum optics. 

On the horizon there is a series of podcasts to be realised with support from the Eutopia 

Foundation, on how to foster creativity in tailored research environments; and a focussed 

physics meeting on constructor theory and its applications, between the INRIM quantum 


44

optics group and the Cluster representatives, their postdocs and students, to be held in 

Turin, in-person in August. 

Vlatko Vedral 

TIBETAN AND HIMALAYAN STUDIES CENTRE 

It has been a productive academic year for the Centre. As in previous years, it has hosted 

a broad range of academic and cultural events with lectures on a diversity of topics ranging 

from Tibetan history and literature to Tibetan Buddhism and the treasure traditions. 

On 24 November 2022, we organised a book launch for Khentrul Lodrö T’hayé Rinpoche’s 

The Power of Mind: A Tibetan Monk’s Guide to Finding Freedom in Every Challenge. Khentrul 

Rinpoche, an accomplished Tibetan spiritual master with an international following, gave 

an illuminating talk on the central theme of his book – the Buddhist training of the mind. 

He demonstrated how everyone could cultivate compassion, altruism and wisdom, and 

transform oneself and others. His talk was masterfully translated by Paloma Lopez Landry, 

who translated and edited the book. 


On 1 December we held the seventh of the annual Aris Lectures, established in 2015 in 

memory of Michael and Anthony Aris and their immense contribution to Tibetan and 

Himalayan Studies. Professor Sarah Jacoby delivered ‘Women and Wit in Tibetan Buddhist 

Literature’ to a packed audience in the Auditorium. Her lecture explored the life and work 

of Sera Khandro Dewé Dorjé, one of the most esteemed, revered, and prolific writers in 

Tibetan history. Whilst drawing attention to Sera Khandro’s unique wit and wisdom, it also 

discussed the weighty themes of female agency, Buddhist misogyny and sexual violence. By 

demonstrating the ways in which Sera Khandro’s life and eloquent writings record Tibetan 

social history and resonate with contemporary concerns, Professor Jacoby enlightened and 

enraptured her audience. 

On 27 January 2023 we hosted a lecture on ‘The Art of Tibetan Literature’ by Professor 

Geshe Beri Jigme Wangyal, a prolific poet and scholar who lectures at the Central Institute 

of Higher Tibetan Studies in Saranath, India. In his lecture, he gave a brief yet informative 

introduction to the long, rich and diverse history of Tibetan literature while discussing its 

origins, development, scope, legacy, shortcomings and the role of women. 

On 24 February we held our annual celebration of the Tibetan New Year, Losar, with 

Tibetan prayers, music, poetry, dancing and traditional food and drinks. Local Tibetans 

joined current students of Tibetan and Himalayan Studies in organising the party, which 

was a great success. Our Losar parties have gathered momentum year by year, and provide 

a rare and jovial social space for students of Tibetan and Himalayan Studies, and other 

members of the College and University, to interact with Tibetans and experience Tibetan 

culture at Wolfson. 

On 13 June Professor Georgios Halkias delivered an insightful lecture on ‘The Secret Path 

45 


to the Copper-Colored Mountain: Jigme Lingpa on Rebirth in Padmasambhava’s Pure Land.’ 

Introducing a famous Tibetan aspiration prayer, he discussed the Buddhist notion of a pure 

land and its lasting influence on Tibetan religion, culture and landscape. 

Dr Robert Mayer has continued to organise his hugely successful Treasure Seminar Series 

with their eclectic and interdisciplinary focus on Tibetan and other treasure traditions. 

The fourth series, in Hilary and Trinity terms, consisted of seven well-attended online 

lectures with a diversity of esteemed speakers from the UK and abroad covering revelatory 

traditions in Tibetan, Indian and Chinese religion. 

The Cluster has been able to give out scholarships and research grants thanks to the 

enduring support and generosity of the Margot and Tom Pritzker Art Collaborative, the 

Khyentse Foundation and Marie-Laure Aris. This year we awarded three £4,000 Khyentse- 

Pritzker scholarships and two £300 Anthony Aris Research Awards to current students of 

Tibetan and Himalayan studies. These grants are vital for easing students’ financial burdens, 

assisting them with their studies and boosting their overall morale. 

It has been a productive and constructive year, and we thank Wolfson, its Events Office and 

all our colleagues and friends for their constant support. 

Lama Jabb (Director) 



46


47Photo: John Cairns 


Lectures and Seminars 

ANNUAL LECTURES 

Syme Lecture (3 November 2022) 

Professor Katherine Dunbabin, ‘Writing on the Floor. Inscriptions on Roman mosaic 

pavements: uses, locations, audiences’ 

Safraz Pakistan Lecture (24 November 2022) 

Cyril Almeida, ‘Beyond the hybrid regime: establishing a stable locus of power in Pakistan’ 

Haldane Lecture (2 February 2023) 

Professor Sir Paul Nurse, ‘What is Life?’ 

Berlin Lecture (25 May 2023) 

Dr Nathaniel Adam Tobias Coleman, ‘Black Brummie Schoolboy’ 

COLLEGE LECTURES AND SEMINARS 

THE PRESIDENT’S SEMINARS 

Michaelmas term (10 November 2022): ‘Mind and Brain’ 

Buki Fatona, Rachel Parkinson, Tim Viney 

Hilary term (30 January 2023): ‘Ways of Seeing’ 

Oscar Barragán Villanueva, Clara Fortes Brandao, Rachel Wood 

Trinity term (15 May 2023): ‘Less Bias’ 

Jinghe Fan, Pablo Mukherjee, Amaia Salazar 


48

College Officers and Membership 

(with date of appointment) 

The Record 

at 1 October 2023 

THE RECORD 

President: Sir Tim Hitchens (May 2018) 

Vicegerent: Professor Peter Stewart (Oct 2022) 

Bursar: Richard Morin (Nov 2015) 

Senior Tutor and Dean of Welfare: Emily Eastham (Mar 2017) 

Development Director: Dr Huw David (Apr 2019) 

Secretary to Governing Body: Professor Frances Gardner (Oct 2022) 

Fellow for Archives: Professor Erica Charters (Oct 2020) 

Fellow for Library: Professor Erica Charters (Mar 2021) 

Research Fellows’ Liaison Officer: Professor Loren Landau (Oct 2020) 

Visiting Scholars’ Liaison Officer: Professor John (Jack) Hanson (Oct 2023) 

Data Protection Officer: Ben Bridle (North Oxford Shared College Services) 

Assistant Data Protection Officer: Luke Jackson-Ross 

Dean of Degrees: Professor Wolfgang de Melo (Oct 2016) 

Deputy Deans of Degrees: Dr Imre Bangha (Oct 2017), 

Professor Erica Charters (Oct 2017), Dr Roger Tomlin (Oct 2017) 

Editor of the College Record: Dr Roger Tomlin (Oct 2007) 

Wine Steward: Professor Jacob Dahl (Oct 2021) 

Abbreviations: 

EF 

GBF 

GS 

HF 

HMCR 

JRF 

MCR 

RF 

RMCR 

SF 

49 

Emeritus Fellow 

Governing Body Fellow 

Graduate Student 

Honorary Fellow 

Honorary Member of 

Common Room 

Junior Research Fellow 

Member of Common 

Room 

Research Fellow 

Research Member of 

Common Room 

Supernumerary Fellow 

SRF 

VF 

Senior Research Fellow 

Visiting Fellow 

College Membership 

Governing Body Fellows 58 

Honorary Fellows 41 

Emeritus Fellows 53 

Supernumerary Fellows 45 

Research Fellows 40 

Junior Research Fellows 52 

Visiting Fellows 1 

Graduate Students 947 

Members of Common Room 775 


President 

Hitchens, Sir Tim, KCVO, CMG, MA (MA Cambridge) 

Governing Body Fellows 

Andersson, Ruben, MA (BA SOAS, MA City London, MSc, PhD LSE) 

Ordinary Fellow, Professor of Social Anthropology 

Aveyard, Paul, MA (BSc, MB, BS London, MPH, PhD Birmingham) 

Professorial Fellow, Professor of Behavioural Medicine 

Bangha, Imre, MA (MA Budapest, PhD Santineketan) 

Ordinary Fellow, Associate Professor of Hindi 

Barrett, Jonathan, MA (MA, PhD Cambridge) 

Ordinary Fellow, Professor of Quantum Information Science 

Boehmer, Elleke, MPhil, DPhil (BA Rhodes University, South Africa) 

Professorial Fellow, Professor of World Literature in English 

Charters, Erica, MA, DPhil (BA Carleton, MA Toronto) 

Ordinary Fellow, Professor of the Global History of Medicine; 

Fellow for Archives 

Cosmidis, Julie, MA (MA, PhD Paris) 

Ordinary Fellow, Associate Professor of Geobiology 

Costa, Matthew, MA (MB, BChir, PhD East Anglia, MA Cambridge) 

Professorial Fellow, Professor of Orthopaedic Trauma Surgery 

Dahl, Jacob, MA (BA Copenhagen, PhD California) 

Ordinary Fellow, Professor of Assyriology; Wine Steward 

David, Huw, MA DPhil (MA Warwick) 

Ordinary Fellow; Development Director 

De Melo, Wolfgang, MPhil, DPhil (MA SOAS) 

Ordinary Fellow, Professor of Classical Philology 

Duyrat, Frédérique (MA, PhD Sorbonne) 

Ordinary Fellow, Director of Collections at the Ashmolean 

Eastham, Emily, MA (MA Oxford Brookes) 

Ordinary Fellow; Senior Tutor and Dean of Welfare 

El Khachab, Chihab, DPhil (BA Ottawa) 

Ordinary Fellow, Associate Professor of Visual Anthropology 

Fellerer, Jan, MA (MA Vienna, Dr phil Basel) 

Ordinary Fellow, Associate Professor of Non-Russian Slavonic Languages 

Gardner, Frances, MA, DPhil 

Ordinary Fellow, Professor of Child and Adolescent Psychology; Secretary to 

the Governing Body 

George, Alain, MSt, DPhil (BSc LSE) 

Professorial Fellow, I M Pei Chair in Islamic Art and Architecture 

Giaccia, Amato (BA Lafayette, PhD Pennsylvania) 

Professorial Fellow, Professor of Oncology and Biology 

THE RECORD 


50

THE RECORD 

Hanson, (John) Jack, MSt, DPhil 

Ordinary Fellow, Associate Professor of Roman Archaeology; Visiting Scholars’ 

Liaison Officer 

Harrison, Paul, MA, BM, BCh, MRCPsych, DM 

Ordinary Fellow, Professor of Psychiatry 

Howgego, Christopher, MA, DPhil 

Professorial Fellow, Keeper of the Heberden Coin Room, Professor of Greek 

and Roman Numismatics 

Jarvis, Paul, MA (BSc Durham, PhD Norwich) 

Ordinary Fellow, Professor of Plant Cell Biology 

Jones, Geraint, MA, DPhil 

Ordinary Fellow, University Lecturer in Computation 

Kamnitsas, Konstantinos, MA (MSc, PhD London) 

Ordinary Fellow, Associate Professor in Biomedical Imaging 

Landau, Loren, MA (MSc London, PhD Berkeley) 

Ordinary Fellow, Professor of Migration and Development; Research Fellows’ Liaison 

Officer 

Lange, Bettina, MA (BA, PhD Warwick) 

Ordinary Fellow, Associate Professor of Law and Regulation 

Lewis, James, MA (BA University of the South, MA, PhD Hawaii) 

Ordinary Fellow, Associate Professor of Korean History 

Lowe, John, MA, DPhil 

Ordinary Fellow, Associate Professor of Sanskrit 

Mathur, Nayanika, MA (MA Delhi, MPhil, PhD Cambridge) 

Ordinary Fellow, Professor of Anthropology and South Asian Studies 

McNamara, Liam, BA, MSt 

Ordinary Fellow, Keeper of Antiquities at the Ashmolean 

Morin, Richard, MA (MA KCL) 

Ordinary Fellow; Bursar 

Mukherjee, Pablo, MPhil (MA Calcutta, PhD Cambridge) 

Ordinary Fellow, Professor of Anglophone World-literature 

Mulcahy, Linda, MA (LLB Southampton, LLM, MA, PhD London) 

Professorial Fellow, Professor of Socio-Legal Studies 

Nanchahal, Jagdeep (BSc, MBBS, PhD London) 

Ordinary Fellow, Professor of Hand, Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery 

Nicholls, Rebecca, DPhil (MSci Cambridge) 

Ordinary Fellow, Associate Professor of Materials Modelling 

Pila, Jonathan, MA (BSc Melbourne, PhD Stanford) 

Professorial Fellow, Reader in Mathematical Logic 

Piotrkowski, Meron (BA Berlin, MA, PhD Jerusalem) 

Ordinary Fellow, Associate Professor of Jewish History 

51 


Probert, Philomen, MA, DPhil 

Ordinary Fellow, Professor of Classical Philology and Linguistics 

Ray, David (MBChB, PhD Manchester) 

Ordinary Fellow, Professor of Endocrinology 

Redfield, Christina, MA (BA Wellesley, MA, PhD Harvard) 

Ordinary Fellow, Professor of Molecular Biophysics 

Riede, Moritz, MA (MSc Cambridge, PhD Konstanz) 

Ordinary Fellow, Professor of Soft Functional Nanomaterials 

Roesler, Ulrike, MA (MA, PhD Münster, Habilitation Munich) 

Ordinary Fellow, Professor of Tibetan and Himalayan Studies 

Rushworth, Matthew, MA, DPhil 

Professorial Fellow, Watts Professor of Experimental Psychology 

Schmid, Annina, MA (MManipTher Curtin, PhD Queensland) 

Ordinary Fellow, Professor of Pain Neurosciences 

Schulting, Rick, MA (BA, MA Simon Fraser, PhD Reading, PGCE Queen’s Belfast) 

Ordinary Fellow, Professor of Scientific and Prehistoric Archaeology 

Sen, Arjune, BM, MA (PhD UC London, FRCP) 

Ordinary Fellow, Professor of Global Epilepsy and Head, Oxford Epilepsy 

Research Group 

Stewart, Peter, MA (MA, MPhil, PhD Cambridge) 

Ordinary Fellow, Professor of Ancient Art; Vicegerent 

Sud, Nikita, MA, MPhil, DPhil (BA Delhi, MA Mumbai) 

Ordinary Fellow, Professor of the Politics of Development 

Taylor, David, MA, DPhil 

Ordinary Fellow, Associate Professor of Aramaic and Syriac 

Vedral, Vlatko, MA (BSc, PhD Imperial) 

Ordinary Fellow, Professor of Quantum Information Science 

Ventresca, Marc, MA (AM, PhD Stanford) 

Ordinary Fellow, Associate Professor of Strategic Management 

Vevaina, Yuhan, MA (BA Tufts, MA, PhD Harvard) 

Ordinary Fellow, Bahari Associate Professor of Sasanian Studies 

Wood, Rachel, MA, MSc, DPhil (BSc Durham) 

Ordinary Fellow, Associate Professor of Radiocarbon Science 

Wolff, Jonathan, BA, MPhil 

Professorial Fellow, Alfred Landecker Professor of Values and Public Policy 

Woodruff, Christopher, MA (BSc Chicago, MA California, PhD Texas) 

Professorial Fellow, Professor of Development Economics 

Yoshida, Nobuko, MA (BSc, MSc Keio, PhD Manchester) 

Professorial Fellow, Christopher Strachey Professor of Computing 

Yürekli-Görkay, Zeynep, MA (BArch, MArch Istanbul, PhD Harvard) 

Ordinary Fellow, Associate Professor of Islamic Art and Architecture 

THE RECORD 


52

THE RECORD 

Honorary Fellows 

Adams, John (BA Rutgers, JD Seton Hall, LLM New York) 

Armitage, Simon (MA Manchester) 

Barnard, John, MA, BLitt 

Berman, Alan (MA Cambridge, Dip Arch UCL) 

Bostridge, Ian, MA, DPhil (MPhil Cambridge) 

Bradshaw, William, the Rt Hon Lord (MA Reading), FCIT 

Brendel, Alfred, KBE 

Burgen, Sir Arnold (MB, MD London, MA Cambridge), FRCP, FRS 

Chan, Gerald (BS, MS California, SM, SCD Harvard) 

Davies, Dame Kay, MA, DPhil 

Deutsch, David, MA, DPhil (MA Cambridge) 

Ekert, Artur (MSc Kraków) DPhil 

Epstein, Sir Anthony, CBE, MA (MA, MD Cambridge, PhD, DSc London, Hon MD 

Edinburgh, Prague, Hon DSc Birm), Hon FRCP, FRCPath, Hon FRCPA, FRS, 

Hon FRSE, FMedSci 

Gellner, David, BA, MPhil, DPhil 

Ghosh, Amitav, DPhil 

Halban, Martine (BA Sussex) 

Halban, Peter (BA Princeton) 

Hamilton, Andrew, MA (BSc Exeter, MSc British Columbia, PhD Cambridge), FRS 

Hardy, Henry, BPhil, MA, DPhil 

Harrison, Simon, (BSc London) DPhil 

His Holiness the Twelfth Gyalwang Drukpa, Jigme Wangchen 

Hoffman, Reid (BS Stanford) MSt 

Kennedy, Baroness Helena, QC, FRSA 

Khalili, Sir Nasser (BA New York, PhD SOAS) 

Lee, Dame Hermione, GBE, MA, MPhil, FBA, FRSL 

Levett, Christian (BTEC Durham) 

Lewis, David (BSc London) 

Macdonald, Michael, MA 

Mance, Jonathan, the Rt Hon Lord, MA, LLD 

Miller, Andrew, CBE, MA (BSc, PhD Edinburgh) 

Monbiot, George, BSc 

Reed, Robert, the Rt Hon Lord, DPhil (LLB Edinburgh, Hon LLD Glasgow) 

Rezek, Francisco (DipL LLB, DES Minas Gerais, PhD Paris) 

Robinson, Dame Carol (MSc Wales, PhD Cambridge) 

Sawyer, Walter, MA 

Segal, Karen 

Sorabji, Sir Richard, CBE, MA, DPhil, FBA 

Thyssen-Bornemisza, Baron Lorne 

Vike-Freiberga, President Vaira (MA Toronto, PhD McGill) 

Whitty, Sir Chris, BM BCh, MA, DSc (MSc London, FMedSci Medical Sciences) 

53 


Williams, Patricia (MA Cambridge) 

Emeritus Fellows 

Abraham, Douglas, MA, DSc (BA, PhD Cambridge) 

Abramsky, Samson, MA (MA Cambridge, PhD London) 

Anderson, David, MA (MA Cambridge, BSc, PhD St Andrews) 

Austyn, Jonathan, MA, DPhil 

Benson, James, MA (BA Macalester College, MA Minnesota, PhD Stanford) 

Briggs, (George) Andrew, MA (PhD Cambridge) 

Brock, Sebastian, MA, DPhil (MA Cambridge, Hon DLitt Birmingham), FBA 

Brown, Harvey, MA (BSc Canterbury New Zealand, PhD London) 

Bryant, Peter, MA (MA Cambridge, PhD London), FRS 

Bunch, Christopher, MA (MB, BCh Birmingham, FRCP, FRCP Edinburgh) 

Cerezo, Alfred, MA, DPhil 

Cluver, Lucie, MSc, DPhil 

Coecke, Bob, MA (PhD Brussels) 

Conner, William, MA (BA Grinnell) 

Curtis, Julie, MA, DPhil 

Davis, Christopher, MA, DPhil (BA Harvard, MSA George Washington, PhD Cambridge) 

Deighton, Anne, MA, DipEd (MA, PhD Reading) 

Delaine, Janet, MA (BA, PhD Adelaide) 

Dercon, Stefan, BPhil, DPhil (BA Leuven) 

Francis, Martin, MA, DPhil 

Galligan, Denis, BCL MA DCL (LLB Queensland, AcSS) 

Giustino, Feliciano, MA (MSc Torino, PhD Lausanne) 

Gombrich, Richard, MA, DPhil (AM Harvard) 

Goodman, Martin, MA, DPhil, DLitt, FBA 

Gordon, Alan, CBE, MA, FCMI 

Harriss-White, Barbara, MA (DipAgSc, MA Cambridge, PhD East Anglia) 

Hoare, Sir (Charles) Antony, MA, DFBCS, FRS 

Isaacson, Daniel (AB Harvard) MA, DPhil 

Jarron, (Thomas) Edward (MA Cambridge) 

Johns, Jeremy, MA, DPhil 

Kennedy, (William) James, MA, DSc (BSc, PhD London) 

Kurtz, Donna, MA, DPhil (BA Cincinnati, MA Yale), FSA 

Langslow, David, MA, DPhil 

Mann, Joel, KNZM, DM (MBChB, PhD Cape Town), FFPHM, FRACP, FRSNZ 

McDiarmid, Colin, MA, MSc, DPhil (BSc Edinburgh) 

McKenna, (William) Gillies, MA (BSc Edinburgh, PhD, MD Albert Einstein) 

Neil, (Hugh) Andrew (MB, BS, DSc London, MA Cambridge) MA, FFPHM, FRCP, RD 

Nissen-Meyer, Tarje, MA (Diplom Munich, MA, PhD Princeton) 

Penney, John, MA, DPhil (MA Pennsylvania) 

Perrins, Christopher, MA, DPhil, (BSc London), FRS, LVO 

THE RECORD 


54

Ramble, Charles, MA, DPhil (BA Durham) 

Rawlins, (John) Nicholas, MA DPhil 

Rickaby, Rosalind, MA (MA PhD Cambridge) 

Robey, David, MA 

Robinson, Chase, MA (BA Brown, PhD Harvard) 

Sanderson, Alexis, MA 

Shotton, David, MA, DPhil (MA, PhD Cambridge) 

Tomlin, Roger, MA, DPhil, FSA; Editor of the College Record 

Walker, Susan, MA (BA, PhD London), FSA 

Watson, Oliver, MA (BA Durham, PhD London) 

Watts, Anthony, MA (BSc London, PhD Durham, DSc Oxon), FRS 

Wilkie, Alex, MA (MSc, PhD London), FRS 

Wyatt, Derek, MA, DPhil 

THE RECORD 

Supernumerary Fellows 

Barber, Peter Jeffrey, BA, MPhil, DPhil 

Bays, Martin, MMath, DPhil 

Bhaskaran, Harish, MA (BE Pune, MS PhD Maryland) 

Brockdorff, Neil, MA (BSc Sussex, PhD Glasgow) 

Clemit, Pamela, BA, MPhil, DPhil 

Coleman, John, MA (BA, DPhil York) 

Collins, Paul (MA, PhD UCL) 

Crabbe, (Michael) James, FRGS, MA (BSc Hull, MSc, PhD, DSc Manchester) FRSA, FRSC, 

CChem, CBiol, FIBiol, FLS 

De Roure, David, MA (PhD Southampton) 

Ehlers, Anke (Hab. Marburg) MA (PhD Tübingen) 

Ferreira, Pedro, MA (Licentiate Lisbon, PhD Imperial) 

Franklinos, Tristan, MA, MPhil, DPhil (MA St Andrew’s) 

Graham, Simon (MBChB, MSc Leeds, PhD Edinburgh) 

Gwilym, Stephen, DPhil (MBBS London) 

Hohee, Cho, DPhil (BA, MA Korea) 

Jabb, Lama, MA, DPhil (MSc SOAS) 

Jamil, Nadia, DPhil (MA Edinburgh) 

Kaski, Kimmo, DPhil (MSc Helsinki) 

Kay, Philip, MA, MPhil, DPhil, FSA 

Kennedy-Allum, Kate (BA, PhD Cambridge, MA KCL, Dip RC Mus) 

Key, Timothy, DPhil (BVM&S Edinburgh, MSc London) 

Kihato, Caroline, (BA Nairobi, MSc Witwatersrand, PhD South Africa) 

Kureshi, Yasser (BA Pennsylvania, PhD Brandeis) 

Kurkchiyan, Marina (MSc Yereven, PhD Vilnius) 

Lachman, Jamie, MA, DPhil (BA Yale) 

Landrus, Matthew, MA, DPhil (MA Louisville) 

Leeson, Paul (MB BChir, PhD Cambridge, BSc St And, FRCP) 

55 


Merrony, Mark, MPhil, MSt, DPhil (BA Wales St David’s) 

Mueller, Benito, MA, DPhil (Dip ETH Zurich) 

Nuttall, Patricia, OBE, MA (BSc Bristol, PhD Reading) 

Ogude, Helidah (BA Witwatersrand, MS, PhD New York) 

Paine, Jonathan, BA, MPhil, DPhil 

Park, Albert, Bsc, MIT, MPhil (PhD Cambridge) 

Penn-Barwell, Jowan (MB Birmingham, MSc Wales, PhD Newcastle) 

Pottle, Mark, MA, DPhil (BA Sheffield) 

Quinn, Catherine, EMBA (BA Birmingham, MA Ohio State) 

Roberts, Paul, MA (BA Cambridge, MPhil Sheffield) 

Ryan, Cressida, BA, MPhil Cambridge, PhD Nottingham 

Sheldon, Benjamin, MA (MA Cambridge, PhD Sheffield) 

Titchener, Andrew (MA Cambridge, MSc Cardiff) 

Toth, Ida, MA, DPhil (BA, MPhil Belgrade) 

Tucker, Margaret, MA, DPhil 

Vanderslott, Samantha, MSc (BSc Bath, PhD UCL) 

Willett, Sir Keith, MA (MB BS London), FRCS 

Zeitlyn, David, MA, DPhil (MSc London, PhD Cambridge) 

Research Fellows 

Ashkenazi, Shaked (MSc, PhD Weizmann) 

Avdokhin, Arkadii (MA Russia, PhD London) 

Bales, Adam (MA Monash, PhD Cambridge) 

Bardelli, Martino (MSc Switzerland, PhD London) 

Banerjee, Abhirup (BSc Calcutta, MStat PhD India) 

Bolla, Jani (MSc Pondicherry, PhD Iowa) 

Bongianino, Umberto, MPhil, DPhil 

Bortone, Pietro, MPhil, DPhil 

Bowden, Thomas, DPhil (MA St Andrews) 

Bruche, Susann (Diplom Leipzig, MCRS, PhD Imperial) 

Cohn, Martin, MA (MSc Denmark, PhD Copenhagen) 

Collins, Katherine (MA, PhD West of England) 

Constantin, Andrei, DPhil (MSc Munich) 

D’Alessandro, William (BA Canisius, MS PhD Illinois) 

Dafinca, Ruxandra, MSc, DPhil (BSc Jacobs Bremen) 

Dutta, Abhishek (BEng Nepal, MSc York, PhD Twente) 

Frampton, Sally (BSc Bristol, MA PhD UCL) 

Fransham, Mark, MSc, DPhil 

Gardner, Matt Hunt (BA King’s, MA Newfoundland, PhD Toronto) 

Georgieva, Antoniya (BSc Technical Univ Sofia, PhD Portsmouth) 

Geurds, Alexander (MA, PhD Leiden) 

Godin, Marie, MSc (PhD London) 

Grecksch, Kevin (MA Leipzig, PhD Oldenburg) 

THE RECORD 


56

Han, Qing (BA Guangzhou, MSc Changchun, PhD Bristol) 

Haruda, Ashleigh (BA Mount Holyoke, MSc UCL, PhD Exeter) 

Hass, Binesh, MSt, DPhil 

Hilkens, Andy (MA Louvain, PhD Gent) 

Lutomski, Corinne (BSc Wayne, DPhil Indiana) 

Marletto, Chiara, DPhil (BA, MSc Turin) 

Martinez-Sanchez, Noelia (MSc Madrid, PhD Santiago) 

Minassian, Angela, DPhil (BA Cambridge, MBBS Imperial) 

Molina-Munoz, Adriana (MA Costa Rica, PhD Illinois) 

Montelongo, Yunuen (MSc Dundee, PhD Cambridge) 

Nimura, Courtney (MA London, PhD Reading) 

Palacios-Gonzalez, Cesar (MPhil Mexico, PhD Manchester) 

Parkinson, Rachel (BSc, PhD Saskatchewan) 

Schmid, Nora (MA, PhD Berlin) 

Shalev, Nir, DPhil (MA Tel Aviv) 

Viney, Tim (MBiol Bath, PhD Basel) 

Williamson, Victoria (BSc, PhD Bath) 

THE RECORD 

Stipendiary Junior Research Fellows 

Daneshmand, Parsa, MPhil, DPhil Assyriology 

Page-Perron, Emilie (BA Quebec, MA Geneva, PhD Toronto) Assyriology 

Shew, Tania, MPhil (BA Sussex, PhD Manchester) Isaiah Berlin 

Junior Research Fellows 

Agrawal, Utkarsh (BA Panjab, MA India, PhD Nottingham) 

Almeida-Warren, Katarina, DPhil (BSc Sheffield, MSc UCL) 

Al-Rashid, Moudhy, MPhil, DPhil 

Araneda Machuca, Gabriel (MA Chile, PhD Innsbruck) 

Arantes, Virginie (MA Liege, PhD Brussels) Wiener Anspach 

Barragan Villanueva, Oscar (MSc Guanajuato, PhD Turin) Dennis Sciama 

Bianconi, Michele, DPhil (BA, MA Pisa) 

Browning, Alex (BA, MA, PhD Queensland) 

Cerveux, Alexandre (BA, MA, PhD Sorbonne) 

Davranoglou, Leonidas-Romanos, DPhil 

Decharneux, Julian (BA, MA, PhD Brussels) Wiener Anspach 

Duan, Baihui (MA South Korea, PhD Barcelona) 

Gao, Min (BA China, MD Beijing, PhD Peking) 

Garcia-Garcia, Carlos (MSc Madrid, PhD Barcelona) 

Hamper, Josie (MA St Andrews, MSc, PhD London) 

Hauk, Cathrin (MSc, PhD Tübingen) 

Herskowitz, Daniel, DPhil (BA Israel, MA Hebrew) 

Hu, Zhiyuan, DPhil 

Im, Becky, DPhil (BSc UCL, MPhil Cambridge) 

57 


Jing, Yifan (BSc, MSc Simon Fraser, PhD Illinois) 

Joyce, Jack (BA, MA York, PhD Loughborough) 

Kelegama, Thiruni (BA Peradeniya, MA London, PhD Zurich) 

Kim, Young Chan, DPhil (MRes Nottingham) 

Krell, Dominik, MSc (BA Berlin, PhD Hamburg) 

Lau, Doreen (BSc Singapore, MA Imperial, PhD Cambridge) 

Linos, Marie, (BA, MA, PhD Brussels) Wiener Anspach 

Metcalfe David, DPhil (MSc Edinburgh) 

Middleton, Steven, DPhil 

Muir, Jack (MA Costa Rica, PhD Illinois) 

Nelson, Thomas, BA, MSt (PhD Cambridge) 

New, Katherine, BA, MSt, DPhil 

Niksaite, Vaida (BA, MA Vilnius, PhD Brussels) Wiener Anspach 

Nozimova, Shahnoza (BA Central Asia, MA Bishkek, PhD George Mason) 

Oncioiu, Sinziana (MSc Sweden, PhD Bordeaux) 

Piron, Anthony (MA, PhD Brussels) Wiener Anspach 

Porqueres, Natalia (BSc, MSc Barcelona, PhD Munich) 

Ramble, Olivia, BA (MA, PhD Paris) 

Robertson, David (BA, MA Sydney, PhD Princeton) 

Robinson, Natasha, MSc, DPhil 

Salazar, Amaia (BA, MA, PhD Madrid) 

Salman, Mootaz (MSc, PhD Sheffield) 

Sarkisyan, Nikolay (MA St Petersburg, PhD Oslo) 

Tadesse, Amde Zafu (BSc, MSc Addis Ababa, PhD Brussels) Wiener Anspach 

Titelboim, Danna (MSc, PhD Israel) 

Votruba, Nicole (BA, MA Munich, MSc, PhD London) 

Wilkinson, Hayden (BSc Queensland, PhD Australia) 

Wu, Wenchuan, DPhil (MSc Tsinghua) 

Ye, Jinhe (BSc Singapore, PhD Notre Dame) 

Zubani, Alessia (BA, MA Venice, PhD Bologna) 

THE RECORD 

Creative Arts Fellow 

Brennan, Tom (BA American Theatre Arts) 

ELECTIONS AND ADMISSIONS 2022 –23 

Governing Body Fellows 

Duyrat, Frédérique (MA, PhD Sorbonne) 

Hanson, (John) Jack, MSt, DPhil 

McNamara, Liam, BA, MSt 

Nicholls, Rebecca, DPhil (MSci Cambridge) 

Piotrkowski, Meron (BA Berlin, MA, PhD Jerusalem) 


58

Emeritus Fellows 

Johns, Jeremy, MA, DPhil 

Nissen-Meyer, Tarje, MA (Diplom Munich, MA, PhD Princeton) 

Supernumerary Fellows 

Bays, Martin, MMath, DPhil 

Gwilym, Stephen, DPhil (MBBS London) 

Hohee, Cho, DPhil (BA, MA Korea) 

Jamil, Nadia, DPhil (MA Edinburgh) 

Kihato, Caroline (BA Nairobi, MSc Witwatersrand, PhD South Africa) 

Kureshi, Yasser (BA Pennsylvania, PhD Brandeis) 

Lachman, Jamie, MA, DPhil (BA Yale) 

Ogude, Helidah (BA Witwatersrand, MS, PhD New York) 

Park, Albert, Bsc, MIT, MPhil (PhD Cambridge) 

Penn-Barwell, Jowan (MB Birmingham, MSc Wales, PhD Newcastle) 

Roberts, Paul, MA (BA Cambridge, MPhil Sheffield) 

Vanderslott, Samantha, MSc (BSc Bath, PhD UCL) 

THE RECORD 

Research Fellows 

Avdokhin, Arkadii (MA Russia, PhD London) 

Banerjee, Abhirup (BSc Calcutta, MStat PhD India) 

D’Alessandro, William (BA Canisius, MS PhD Illinois) 

Dutta, Abhishek (BEng Nepal, MSc York, PhD Twente) 

Frampton, Sally (BSc Bristol, MA PhD UCL) 

Gardner, Matt Hunt (BA King’s, MA Newfoundland, PhD Toronto) 

Han, Qing (BA Guangzhou, MSc Changchun, PhD Bristol) 

Haruda, Ashleigh (BA Mount Holyoke, MSc UCL, PhD Exeter) 

Minassian, Angela, DPhil (BA Cambridge, MBBS Imperial) 

Stipendiary Junior Research Fellows 

Daneshmand, Parsa, MPhil, DPhil Assyriology 

Shew, Tania, MPhil (BA Sussex, PhD Manchester) Isaiah Berlin 

Junior Research Fellows 

Agrawal, Utkarsh (BA Panjab, MA India, PhD Nottingham) 

Almeida-Warren, Katarina, DPhil (BSc Sheffield, MSc UCL) 

Bianconi, Michele, DPhil (BA, MA Pisa) 

Browning, Alex (BA, MA, PhD Queensland) 

Gao, Min (BA China, MD Beijing, PhD Peking) 

Hamper, Josie (MA St Andrews, MSc, PhD London) 

Hauk, Cathrin (MSc, PhD Tübingen) 

Im, Becky, DPhil (BSc UCL, MPhil Cambridge) 

Jing, Yifan (BSc, MSc Simon Fraser, PhD Illinois) 

59 


Joyce, Jack (BA, MA York, PhD Loughborough) 

Krell, Dominik, MSc (BA Berlin, PhD Hamburg) 

Lau, Doreen (BSc Singapore, MA Imperial, PhD Cambridge) 

Niksaite, Vaida (BA, MA Vilnius, PhD Brussels) Wiener Anspach 

Nozimova, Shahnoza (BA Central Asia, MA Bishkek, PhD George Mason) 

Piron, Anthony (MA, PhD Brussels) Wiener Anspach 

Porqueres, Natalia (BSc, MSc Barcelona, PhD Munich) 

Robertson, David (BA, MA Sydney, PhD Princeton) 

Tadesse, Amde Zafu (BSc, MSc Addis Ababa, PhD Brussels) Wiener Anspach 

Ye, Jinhe (BSc Singapore, PhD Notre Dame) 

Zubani, Alessia (BA, MA Venice, PhD Bologna) 

Visiting Scholars in residence during the academic year 2022-23 

Akbar, Shaharzad (MPhil, BA Kabul) 

Anand, Nikhil (BA Reed, MESc Yale, PhD Stanford) 

Arnaut, Fedora (BA Azerbaijan, MA Gazi, PhD Azerbaijan) 

Beattie, Geoffrey (BSc Birmingham, PhD Cambridge) 

Bigg, Charlotte, BA (MPhil, PhD Cambridge) 

Black, Mary (BA, Trinity Dublin, MPH Harvard, MD Trinity Dublin) 

Broadhead, Edwin (BA Mississippi, MDiv, PhD Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, 

PhD Zurich) 

Chester, Diana (BA Mount Holyoke, MA Columbia, PhD Porto) 

Cochrane, Thandeka (BSocSci Cape Town, MPhil Cambridge, MSc Amsterdam, 

PhD Cambridge) 

Culkin, Katherine (BA Middlebury, PhD New York) 

Daneshmand, Mohammad, MPhil, DPhil 

De Koker, Louis (LLB Free State, LLM Free State, LLM Cambridge, LLD Free State) 

De Vita, Lorena (BA Rome, MSc LSE, PhD Aberystwyth) 

Di Chiara, Francesco (MA Palermo, PhD Messina) 

Djagalov, Rossen (BA Williams, PhD Yale) 

Donner, Rebecca (BA Berkeley, MFA Columbia) 

Ferrer, Ada (BA Vassar, MA Texas, PhD Michigan) 

Gandhi, Ajay (BA Alberta, MA McGill, PhD Yale) 

Gualtieri, Claudia (BA Bologna, MScR Leeds, PhD Leeds) 

Harwood, Larry (BS North Carolina, MA Trinity Seminary, PhD Marquette) 

Hembrow, Ian (BSc Reading) 

Hooberman, Lucy, BA, MA 

Jin, Jue (BA Shanghai, MA Shanghai, PhD Shanghai) 

Komisarof, Adam (BA Brown, MA Antich, PhD International Christian) 

Kovalchuk, Kateryna (BA Lviv, MPhil Budapest, PhD Leuven) 

Mahmoudian, Safa (BA, MSc, DPhil Shahid Beheshti) 

Meuret, Isabelle (BA, MA, PhD Louvain) 

Morand, Anne-France, MStud, MLitt (PhD Geneva) 

THE RECORD 


60

Mukherjee, Mitali (BA Delhi, PGDip India) 

Muller, Tobias (BA Munich, MPhil Cambridge, MA Munich, PhD Cambridge) 

Newheiser, David. MPhil (BA Washington and Lee, PhD Chicago) 

Norwood, Tamarin, BA, DPhil (BFA St Martins, MFA Goldsmiths) 

Potenza, Francesca (MA Rome, PhD Rome) 

Quartermain, Thomas, MSt, DPhil (BA California, MA Korea) 

Robertson, Mitchell, MSt, DPhil (BA Melbourne) 

Rodkey, Elissa (BA Gordon, MA York, PhD York) 

Stalla, Heidi, MPhil, DPhil (BA Stanford) 

Stockwell, SeongHee (BA, MA Bond, PhD Queensland, PhD RMIT) 

Tung, Shirley, MSt (BA Berkeley, PhD Los Angeles) 

Ui Chionna, Jackie (BA Dublin, MA Cork, PhD Galway) 

Vertiienko, Hanna (MA Kyvi, PhD Ukraine) 

Yetisen, Ali (BS Arizona, PhD Cambridge) 

THE RECORD 

Graduate students 

Abdul, Adewunmi Oluwaseun (DPhil Earth Sciences (Full-time)) 

Agarwal, Poorvi (EMBA (Jan)) 

Agarwal, Anirudh (MSc Education (Research Design and Methodology)) 

Agon, Roxane Claire Andréa (DPhil Socio-Legal Studies) 

Ahsan, Nawara Faiza (MSc Genomic Medicine) 

Ahuja, Ketan Kamal (DPhil Law (Part-time)) 

Alkhodari, Mohanad A R (DPhil Medical Sciences) 

Ambrosio, Maria Da Graca (DPhil Social Intervention and Policy Evaluation) 

Antoine, Sebastian Joseph (MSc Social Anthropology) 

Ao, Xiang (DPhil Geography and the Environment) 

Arvo, Peter Lewis Eckblad (MPhil Tibetan and Himalayan Studies) 

Ayim, Olivia Vashti (DPhil Atmospheric, Oceanic and Planetary Physics) 

Baracco, Chiara (MSc Mathematical and Theoretical Physics) 

Barucic, Lilli Dalila (MPhil Islamic Studies and History) 

Bellviure Pérez, Joel (MSt Classical Archaeology) 

Berg, Olga (Executive MBA (Jan)) 

Bhargava, Sudeep Solanki (MSc Social Science of the Internet) 

Binti Kamal Koh, Syamilah Heng (MSt Islamic Studies and History) 

Bolte, Lara (DPhil Psychiatry) 

Boyle, Joseph Scott (MSc Biodiversity, Conservation and Management) 

Cameron, Emma Farquhar Young (MPhil Music (Musicology)) 

Canning, Erin Elizabeth (DPhil Engineering Science) 

Cao, Nengzhi (MSt History of Art and Visual Culture) 

Carcano, Leone Giorgio (MSc Mathematical and Computational Finance) 

Caslin, Ellie Jean (MSc Precision Cancer Medicine (Part-time)) 

Chai, Shaokang (DPhil Organic Chemistry) 

Chang, Chih-Wei (DPhil Chemical Biology) 

61 


Chen, Xingyu (MSt History, British and European History 1700–1850) 

Chen, Siyuan (MSc Mathematical and Theoretical Physics) 

Chowdhury, Forhad Uddin Hasan (DPhil Clinical Medicine) 

Chueh, Hung-Ju (DPhil Clinical Neurosciences) 

Colledge, Isobel Florence (MPhil Russian and East European Studies) 

Collett, Max Gordon (MSc Environmental Change and Management) 

Cooper, Hallam (MSc Evidence-Based Social Intervention and Political Evaluation) 

Debo, Brian Murphy (DPhil Clinical Medicine) 

Delattre, Catherine Brennan Flaherty (DPhil Psychiatry) 

Dengu, Pondai Farai (EMBA (Jan)) 

Deva, Zaid Abdul Mohsee Ul Latief (MPhil Law) 

Di Benedetto, Filippo (MPhil Economic and Social History) 

Duan, Haozhe (MSc Radiation Biology (Direct Entry)) 

Dumigan, Matthew Stephen (MSc Russian and East European Studies) 

Elrayah, Alhussein Abdelrahman (MSc Biodiversity, Conservation and Management) 

Elzayat, Haya Sayed Ahmed Fathy (MPhil Development Studies) 

Engel, Katharina (DPhil International Relations) 

Falvey, Brigid Teresa (MSc Global Health Science and Epidemiology) 

Fawal, Ninar (MPhil International Relations) 

Field, Elena Bethany (MSt History, Early Modern History 1500–1700) 

Fleming, Hannah Maree (MSc Clinical Embryology) 

Fortes Brandao, Clara (DPhil Anthropology) 

Fujikake, Aki (Master of Public Policy) 

Giri, Ashish (MSc International Health and Tropical Medicine) 

Goh, En Lin (DPhil Musculoskeletal Sciences) 

Goldie, Alexander David (Auto Intelligent Machines and Systems (EPSRC CDT)) 

Gonzalez Esteban, Cristina (DPhil Archaeology (Full-time)) 

Grabarczyk, Radosław Piotr (DPhil Particle Physics) 

Gracias Baptista, Eduardo Luís (MJur) 

Guevara Becerra, Martha Cristina Abigail (MSc Integrated Immunology) 

Gutiérrez Martínez, Julián Felipe (MSc Sociology) 

Harun, Azhar Bin (Executive MBA (Jan)) 

Head, Samuel Frederick Michael (DPhil History) 

Herchenröder, Tilmann David (MSc Sustainability, Enterprise and the Environment) 

Hickfang, Theo (DPhil Politics) 

Holmquist, Chloe Ray (MSt English (1550–1700)) 

Honda, Trenton (DPhil Primary Health Care (Part-time)) 

Howard, Anthony (MSc Clinical Trials (Part-time)) 

Huang, Yujia (MPhil Economics) 

Iqbal, Noorin (MSc Applied Linguistics and Second Language Acquisition (Full-time)) 

Irlenkäuser, Jonas (MPhil Economics) 

Isik, Merve (MSc Clinical Embryology) 

Ivanova, Radoslava (MSc Radiation Biology (Direct Entry)) 

THE RECORD 


62

THE RECORD 

Iyer, Samyuktha Ramakrishnan (MSc Modern South Asian Studies) 

Jain, Tulika (MSc Economics for Development) 

Jamshidi Yeganeh, Sepideh (DPhil Asian and Middle Eastern Studies) 

Joshi, Shivani (MSc Sociology) 

Kane, Gaurang Ramakant (MSc Mathematical and Theoretical Physics) 

Kapp, Joshua Rainer (MSc Clinical Trials (Part-time)) 

Karthikesan, Dharmaraj (MSc Clinical Trials (Part-time)) 

Kekere-Ekun, Aisha Toluwalope (MSc Global Health Science and Epidemiology) 

Kosche, Jade Christina (DPhil Socio-Legal Studies) 

Koukouravas, Stelios Alexander (DPhil Oncology) 

Krexi, Dimitra (DPhil Medical Sciences) 

Krexi, Lydia (DPhil Medical Sciences) 

Krzyzanska, Katarzyna (MSc Mathematical and Theoretical Physics) 

Lan, Xinhui (DPhil Oncology) 

Leung, Wing Ting (MSc Clinical Embryology) 

Li, Yicong (DPhil Archaeology (Full-time)) 

Li, Junyi (MSc Radiation Biology (Direct Entry)) 

Liang, Lixing (MPhil Economics) 

Lim, Rachyl Rui Qi (MSc Sociology) 

Lin, Shannon (MPhil Social Anthropology) 

Liu, Yaxi (DPhil History) 

Liu, Shumin (MPhil Traditional East Asia) 

Liu, Wanyi (MSc Sociology) 

Lo, Wing Ching (BCL) 

Lowther, Toby Samuel (DPhil Linguistics, Philology and Phonetics) 

Lu, Yifan (MPhil Sociology and Demography) 

Lucenario, Maria Dominique Arada (Master of Public Policy) 

Luo, Yingbo (MPhil Economics) 

Mahmood, Zean Farhan (MPhil Law) 

Makena, Anne (Executive MBA (Jan)) 

Mason, Anna Bronwen (MSc Digital Scholarship) 

Mealiffe, Ryan Preston (MPhil History - Medieval History) 

Mohamed, Sahra Bashir (MSc Precision Cancer Medicine (Part-time)) 

Mozumdar, Nandini (DPhil Clinical Medicine) 

Naik, Jivika (MSc Genomic Medicine) 

Navarro Rosales, Francisco (DPhil Biology) 

O’Neil, Christy Anne (BCL) 

Orazulike, Ngozi Clare (MSc Medical Education (Part-time)) 

Paulus, Estelle Laura Verena (DPhil Geography and the Environment) 

Petrosyan, Eduard (DPhil Oncology) 

Pham, My Khanh (DPhil Medical Sciences) 

Potticary, James Joseph (MSc Energy Systems) 

Probert, Jake (DPhil Population Health (Part-time)) 

63 


Prospero, Lorenza (DPhil Engineering Science) 

Proudfoot, Jack (Future Propulsion and Power (EPSRC CDT)) 

Raad, Tamara (MSc Clinical and Therapeutic Neuroscience) 

Sahajwalla, Tanishka Anil (MSc Law and Finance) 

Salehi Fashami, Amirhossein (DPhil Law) 

Samuel, James Alexander Ronald (MSt History, Medieval History) 

Seaton-Burn, William (DPhil Clinical Medicine) 

Seger, Marcel (DPhil Geography and the Environment) 

Shiva, Kasra (MSt Islamic Studies and History) 

Statheos, Paul Mark (MPhil Cuneiform Studies) 

Sutton, Millicent Mai (MSc Environmental Change and Management) 

Sze, Samuel Tian Hong (MSc(Res) Engineering Science) 

Tarcevski, Andreas (DPhil Paediatrics) 

Tarka, Veronica Mae (DPhil Physiology, Anatomy and Genetics) 

Tartarotti, Mira Susanna (MSc Mathematics and Foundations of Computer Science) 

Tias, Pisca Ayuning (DPhil Geography and the Environment) 

Tiburzi, Andrea (Executive MBA (Jan)) 

Van Assche, Kerlijn Marie-Jeanne (DPhil Clinical Medicine) 

Wang, Chongyao (DPhil Law) 

Wangmo, Singye (DPhil Biology) 

Waugh, Lucy Rose (MSt Korean Studies) 

Wilcox, Eleanor Grace Walsh (MPhil Linguistics, Philology and Phonetics) 

Wu, Haoran (MSc Biodiversity, Conservation and Mgt) 

Wu, Wenhui (MSc Pharmacology) 

Wymes, Samantha (MSt Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies) 

Xu, Tianhuai (MSc(Res) Engineering Science) 

Xu, Xiaomeng (MSc Mathematics and Foundations of Computer Science) 

Xu, Yunbei (MSc Archaeology) 

Yan, Jiani (DPhil Sociology) 

Yeung, Yui Chi Richie (DPhil Computer Science) 

Yiu, Chi Him Kendrick (DPhil Medical Sciences) 

Yu, Yaqi (MSc Digital Scholarship) 

Zhang, Kaiyue (DPhil History) 

Zhang, Shu Yuan (MSc Education (Digital and Social Change)) 

Zhang, Xulin (MSc Radiation Biology (Direct Entry)) 

Zhao, Feiyu (MSc Integrated Immunology) 

Zheng, Ziyue (MSc Applied Linguistics and Second Language Acquisition (Full-time)) 

Zugravu, Anca-Marina (MPhil Development Studies) 

THE RECORD 

Elected Members of Governing Body until Hilary 2024 

Min Gao (JRF) 

Theodor Borrmann (GS) 

Paulo de Souza (GS) 


64

Sylvia Gattas (GS) 

Julián Felipe Gutiérrez Martínez (GS) until Trinity 2023 

Estelle Paulus (GS) 

Elected Members of General Purposes Committee until Hilary 2024 

Min Gao (JRF) 

Nawara Ahsan (GS) until Trinity 2023 

Katerina Levinson (GS) 

Estelle Paulus (GS) 

SCHOLARSHIPS AND PRIZES 2022–23 

Baruch Spinoza Scholarship in Physics 

Zhenlong Li 

Dr Liu Chak Wan Scholarship 

Jiawei Zhang 

THE RECORD 

Jeremy Black Clarendon Scholarship 

Sepideh Jamshidi Yeganeh 

Lorne Thyssen Scholarship in Ancient World Studies 

Gregory Thompson 

Thomas Gavin 

Lorne Thyssen Scholarship in Imperial History 

Euan Huey 

Ken and Veronica Tregidgo Scholarship in Atomic and Laser Physics 

Johannes Van De Wetering 

Oxford Centre for Life-Writing Derrill Allatt ESRC Graduate Scholarship 

Freya Marshall Payne 

Oxford Wolfson Marriott Graduate Scholarships 

Christie Carr 

Elsa Kugelberg 

En Lin Goh 

Fatme (Fatima) Ramadan 

Grant Rowley 

Jade Kosché 

Kirsty Peacock 

Lesley Nelson-Addy 

65 


Melissa Little 

Olivia Gough 

Rebecca Crossley 

Sophie Harbord 

Sriraj Aiyer 

Svenja Arlt 

William Thurlwell 

Oxford Wolfson Reginald Campbell Thompson Scholarship in Assyriology 

Awarded, but the name of the recipient has been withheld 

Andrew Prentice Bursary in Physics 

Ming Zhu 

Wolfson Clarendon Rachel Conrad Scholarship 

Catherine (Brennan) Delattre 

Wolfson Guy Newton Clarendon Scholarship 

Daniya (Dana) Aynetdinova 

Cooper Malanoski 

Veronica Tarka 

Wolfson Harrison UKRC Physics Scholarship 

Joost Wardenier 

Francisco De Paula Rodriguez Montero 

Gavin Lamb 

Radosław Grabarczyk 

THE RECORD 

Wolfson Harrison UKRC Quantum Foundation Scholarship 

Alexander Cowtan 

Alexander (Alex) Koziell-Pipe 

Yui Chi (Richie) Yeung 

Wolfson Khyentse-Pritzker Scholarship 

Yui Cheong (Richards) Chang 

Shuchita Grover 

Scottie Nicholson 

Jiaqi Shao 

Wolfson Scholarship in Tibetan and Himalayan Studies 

Darig Thokmay 


66

THE RECORD 

67 Photo: George Mather 


Degrees 

Start and end Dates 

Aengenheyster, Matthias 

Ahmad, Mirza Rizwaan 

Ahmad, Haseeb 

Aktar, Anjum Lia 

Alkazemi, Badria A A A R 

Almoajil, Hajar 

Abdulhamid S 

Anrod, Reid Allen 

Anscombe, Rachel Anne 

Rachel 

Attard, Megan Jing Hsien 

Babin–Heynard, 

Lila Aurore Julie 

Bartha, Benedek Andras 

Beal, Samuel Jacob 

Bhadauria, Ananya 

Bica, Ioana 

Biering–Sørensen, Tor 

Bílik, Matej 

Bisel, Olivia Louise 

Blythe, Charlotte Emily 

Bolch, Kimberly Blair 

Bonner, Scott Edward 

Brash, Jamie Gregor 

Bretherton, Christopher 

Patrick 

Brooks, Ruthanne Joy 

(2017–23) Environmental Research (NERC DTP) ‘Ocean Heat 

Uptake: Drivers, Variability and Impacts’ 

(2021–22) MSc Modern South Asian Studies 

(2021–23) EMBA (Jan) 

(2021–22) MSc Integrated Immunology 


(2017–23) DPhil Musculoskeletal Sciences ‘Development 

of a core outcome set for lower limb orthopaedic surgical 

interventions in ambulant children and young people with 

cerebral palsy’ 

(2021–22) MSt English and American Studies 


(2021–22) MSc Clinical Embryology 

(2021–22) MSc Comparative Social Policy 

(2020–22) MPhil Tibetan and Himalayan Studies 

(2020–22) MSt History, History of War 

(2021–22) MSc Education (Higher Education) 

(2018–22) DPhil Engineering Science ‘Causal Inference 

Methods for Supporting, Understanding, and Improving 

Decision-Making’ 

(2020–22) MSc Clinical Trials (Part-time) 

(2021–22) MSc Education (Higher Education) 

(2021–22) MSc Sustainability, Enterprise and the Environment 

(2021–22) MSt History, Early Modern History 1500–1700 

(2019–23) DPhil International Development ‘Incorporation 

beyond income: Cash transfers and trajectories of citizenship in 

contemporary Brazil’ 

(2018–22) Interdisciplinary Bioscience (BBSRC DTP) 

‘Understanding extracellular vesicle biology for the 

development of bioinspired nanotechnology platforms’ 

(2021–22) MSt History of Art and Visual Culture 

(2019–23) DPhil Musculoskeletal Sciences ‘Rehabilitation 

After Ankle Fracture Treatment (RAAFT): Facilitating safe 

weightbearing after ankle fracture surgery’ 

(2021–22) MSt Classical Hebrew Studies 

THE RECORD 


68

THE RECORD 

Brown, Daniel Stuart 

Brown, Kaelyn Maia 

Brustad, Lila Raquel 

Buck, Richard Anthony 

Burns, Jamal Terrell 

Cader, Fathima Aaysha 

Cann, Sean Thomas 

Carrascosa Marzo, Rafael 

Carrillo Magna, Francisco 

Javier Marcelo 

Carroll, Gregory David 

Chan, Long Landon 

Chan, Song San 

Chen, Yang 

Chen, Hsintsung 

Chia, Chris 

Chin, Nathan Jun Loong 

Chiu, Alvin Heng 

Christofyllakis, 

Konstantinos 

Civetta, Nicholas Anthony 

Cowzer, Darren 

Cronin, Michael James 

D’Aquila, Matthew Daniel 

De Felice, Giovanni 

De Liedekerke De Pailhe, 

Alexis Emmanuel J 

Dennis, Liam Sharle Meads 

Desebrock, Clea Elizabeth 

Grendon 

Deshpande, Shubham 

Ashish 

Dhesi, Jagdeep 

(2017–22) Interdisciplinary Bioscience (BBSRC DTP) ‘Alkyne 

Probes and Natural Products’ 

(2021–22) MSc Clinical and Therapeutic Neuroscience 

(2021–22) MSc Medical Anthropology 

(2017–22) DPhil Theology (Full-time) ‘Stories Theology Lives 

By: A Narrative and Phronetic Theology of Liberation’ 

(2021–22) MSc Education (Digital and Social Change) 


(2021–22) MSt Slavonic Studies 

(2018–22) DPhil Condensed Matter Physics ‘Powered motion 

for molecular robotic devices via chemical and photochemical 

reactions’ 

(2021–22) Master of Public Policy 

(2020–22) MSc Mathematical Sciences 

(2020–22) MSc Precision Cancer Medicine (Part-time) 

(2021–22) MSc(Res) Oncology ‘Developing recombinant 

overlapping peptides of prostate specific antigen as vaccine’ 

(2021–22) MSc Applied Linguistics and Second Language 

Acquisition (Full-time) 

(2018–23) DPhil Pharmacology ‘Development of Novel 

Quantitative Methods for Monitoring Neurodegenerative 

Phenotypes in Niemann-Pick Disease Type C Mice’ 

(2021–22) MSc Mathematical and Computational Finance 

(2021–22) MSc Law and Finance 

(2021–22) MSc Contemporary Chinese Studies 


(2020–22) MSc Energy Systems (24 Months) 


(2020–22) EMBA (Sep) 

(2021–22) MSt Modern Languages (French and Spanish) 

(2017–22) DPhil Computer Science ‘Categorical Tools for 

Natural Language Processing’ 

(2021–22) MBA 

(2021–22) MSc Energy Systems 

(2015–22) DPhil Experimental Psychology (Direct Entry) ‘Self– 

prioritization in motor responses’ 

(2021–22) MSc Theoretical and Computational Chemistry 

(2021–22) MSc Mathematical Modelling and Scientific 

Computing 

69 


Ding, Nanxi 

Ding, Yifu 

Dong, Shi 

Duan, Chengchen 

Ebeze, Odera Chiamaka 

Eden, Kimberley Amber 

Ee, Joshua Shao Hong 

El Hassan El Rifai, 

Wael Omar 

Elswah, Mona Abdelsattar 

Ibrahim Ibrahim 

Erdal, Erkin 

Erlwanger, Alison Stephanie 

Evans, Robert Philip 

Faghih, Amir Hossein 

Fang, Jiaxin 

Farrar, Olivia Summerville 

Fasano, Eduardo 

Federer, Simon John 

Ferder, Romi 

Ferdinand, Vernil 

Franke, Charlotte 

Friederich, Ethan Thomas 

Gafencu, Grigore–Aristide 

Galdeano Solans, Mateo 

Gapper, Yasmin Nafisa 

Dastgir 

Geddes, Thomas Joseph 

Des Garets 


(2018–22) DPhil Engineering Science ‘Bridging machine learning 

probabilistic forecasting design and power system optimization 

considering uncertainty: A joint chance-constrained 

perspective’ 

(2020–22) MPhil Sociology and Demography 

(2018–22) DPhil Women’s and Reproductive Health ‘Dual 

Functional Theranostic Nanoparticles for Rhabdomyosarcoma 

Treatment’ 

(2020–22) MPhil Development Studies 

(2021–22) MSc Visual, Material and Museum Anthropology 

(2021–22) MSc Education (Research Design and Methodology) 

(2020–22) EMBA (Sep) 

(2017–23) DPhil Information, Communication, and Social 

Sciences ‘Online Tactical Innovation and Stagnation: Insights 

from the Aftermath of the Arab Spring in Syria and Tunisia’ 


(2021–22) MSc Global Health Science and Epidemiology 

(2021–22) MSc Economic and Social History 





(2020–22) MSc Musculoskeletal Sciences 

(2020–22) MPhil Politics: Political Theory 

(2021–22) MSc International Health and Tropical Medicine 

(2021–22) MSc Mathematical and Theoretical Physics 

(2018–22) DPhil History (HSM and ESH) ‘Fevers in the 

Garden. A History of Malaria in Colonial Assam from 1826– 

1939’ 

(2018–22) DPhil Medical Sciences ‘The impact of ageing on 

the human haematopoietic stem cell and memory T cell 

compartments through the lens of single cell transcriptome 

analysis’ 

(2018–22) DPhil Mathematics ‘The geometry and 

superconformal algebras of string compactifications with a 

G-structure’ 

(2021–22) MSt History of Art and Visual Culture 

(2020–22) MSc Sociology (Part-time) 

THE RECORD 


70

THE RECORD 

71 

Geden, Munir Siracettin 

Ghazali, Marc 

Gonçalves De Oliveira, 

Mauro César 

Gonzalez Guerrero, 

Ana Fernanda 

Goohs, Harrison 

Grey, Hannah Charlotte 

Grey, Rhieve–Sheridan 

Samuel 

Gurney, Rhiannon Laura 

Haddad, Ali Abdul–Rehman 

Mahmoud 

Haith, Chelsea 

Hanson, Charlotte 

Adelaide 

Hansrod, Humaira 

Harris, Jordan John 

Harris, Katherine Alicia 

Hasnain, Alia 

Hinrichsen, Laura Jannie 

Mirjam 

Houet, Antoine André A 

Hughes, Austin Tyler 

Hulot, Camille Eva 

Alexandra 

Humberstone, Andrew 

Richard 

Hutchence, Laurence 

Michael Jack 

Hyslop, Andrew Michael 

Ichim, Andrei Abdulah 

Jackson, James Thomas 

(2016–23) Cyber Security (EPSRC CDT) ‘Runtime Protection 

of Software Programs against Control- and Data-Oriented 

Attacks’ 

(2021–22) MSc Social Anthropology 

(2021–22) MSt Diplomatic Studies (Full-time) 


(2021–22) MSt History, British and European History 1700– 

1850 

(2021–22) MSt Jewish Studies 

(2021–22) MSc Evidence-Based Social Intervention and Policy 

Evaluation 



(2020–22) EMBA (Sep) 

(2018–23) DPhil English ‘Spaces of Paradox: The Poetics of 

Disruption in Twenty-First Century Speculative Fiction’ 


(2017–23) DPhil International Development ‘Exploring Agency 

Enactments of Women Farmworkers in South Africa’s Western 

Cape Province’ 

(2021–22) MSt History, Modern British History 1850–present 

(2021–22) MSt Modern Languages (RUS) 


(2016–22) DPhil Oriental Studies ‘Looted Letters: Book 

Culture of Hafsid Ifrīqiya (1229–1574) and Arabic Manuscripts 

in Early Modern Europe after the Sack of Tunis (1535)’ 

(2021–22) MJur 

(2020–22) MPhil Japanese Studies 

(2021–22) MSc Environmental Change and Management 

(2020–22) MSc Teacher Education 

(2018–22) DPhil Archaeology (Full-time) ‘The skill spectrum: 

methods for identifying variable skill-levels amongst handaxemaking 

hominins in the Middle Pleistocene’ 

(2018– 2023) DPhil Engineering Science ‘Force Measurement 

Techniques in Short Duration Hypersonic Facilities’ 


(2021–22) MSt English (1830–1914) 

71 


Jinno, Shogo 

Jockyman Roithmann, 

Andre 

Jungbluth, Anna Laura 

Kadayifci, Nida 

Karpauskaite, Egle 

Kasanga, Chishimba 

Katz Roberts, Lola 

Gertrude 

Kawatani, Megumi 

Kelley, Jessica Rose 

Khaund, Shreya 

Klausmeyer, Eleanor Ruth 

Koussiounelos, Deborah 

Kovacs, Boldizsar 

Kowalski, Rachel Caroline 

Krastev, Pancho Borisov 

Kundi, Brayshna 

Kupka, Danny 

Kwon–Salkin, Sekoah 

Onnuri 

Kyriacou, Basil Demetrios 

Lam, Man-Wah 

Landman, Mattie Susan 

Lang, Paul Frieder 

Langdon, Annabel Mitsuko 

Yorikawa 

Lawson, Adrienn Hai–Binh 

Lazell, Christina Melanie 

Lee, Jing 

Leung, Ka Po 

(2021–22) MBA 

(2017–22) DPhil History ‘Republicanism and the State between 

Brazil and the River Plate: Rio Grande do Sul, 1808–1845’ 

(2017–22) DPhil Condensed Matter Physics ‘Sensitive External 

Quantum Efficiency Measurements for Studying Charge 

Transfer in Organic Solar Cells’ 

(2021–22) BCL 

(2021–22) MSc Social Data Science 

(2021–22) MSc Social Science of the Internet 

(2021–22) MSt English (650–1550) 


(2018–23) DPhil Biochemistry ‘Characterising the molecular 

basis of WDR82 binding in multiple contexts’ 

(2021–22) MSt Global and Imperial History 


(2017–22) DPhil Classical Archaeology ‘Late Bronze Age 

and Early Iron Age Laconia: Settlements, cemeteries and 

sanctuaries (1200–700 BC)’ 


(2016–23) DPhil History (Part-time) ‘Micro-Patterns of 

Violence: Disaggregating Provisional Irish Republican Army 

Activity, 1969–1979’ 

(2020–22) MSc Statistical Science 

(2021–22) MSc Environmental Change and Management 





(2018–23) DPhil Mathematics ‘Modular network comparison 

with application to labour flow networks’ 

(2017–22) Synthetic Biology (EPSRC and BBSRC CDT) 

‘Improving our Mechanistic Understanding of Cell Cycle 

Dynamics’ 

(2021–22) MSt Korean Studies 







THE RECORD 


72

THE RECORD 

Lewin, Thomas David 

Leygonie, Jacob 

Li, Bai 

Liaqat, Numair 

Lim, Soon Tjin 

Lim, Hyun-min 

Liu, Dimin 

Lloyd, Hannah 

Lomas, Aidan James 

William O’Rourke 

Lourenço Baião Dias, Rita 

Louzan, Ignacio 

Lowe, Christopher 

Sebastian 

Luber, Diana Winfield 

Ma, Yue 

Markworth, David Cassian 

Mavrogiannis, Matthew 

McGivern, Alexis Marie 

Mensa–Bonsu, Maame 

Abena Siem 

Merkel, Katharina Christina 

Merle, Quentin Moritz Carl 

Albert 

Michalski, Anton Thomas 

Mills, Cameron James 

Mohiuddin, Mir Abid 

Mukambetov, Aibek 

Muminoglu, Ali Mark 

Muthukumarapillai, 

Premavathanan 

Nasreddin, Nadia 

(2018–23) Interdisciplinary Bioscience (BBSRC DTP) ‘Fastevolving 

homeobox genes in mammalian preimplantation 

development’ 

(2018–22) DPhil Mathematics ‘Differential and Fiber of 

Persistent Homology’ 

(2017–22) DPhil Education (Full-time) ‘Learning to Read the 

Complex Manchu Writing System: A Mixed Methods Study of 

Novice Learners in a Chinese University’ 

(2021–22) MSc Economics for Development 

(2021–22) MSc Clinical and Therapeutic Neuroscience 

(2017–22) DPhil Inorganic Chemistry ‘Exploring the Behaviour 

of Lanthanide-appended Metallocenes and d-f Hybrid 

Complexes’ 

(2020–22) MPhil Economics 


(2021–22) BCL 

(2021–22) BCL 

(2021–22) MSt Modern Languages (FRE and ITA) 

(2020–22) MPhil History, Modern British History 1850–present 

(2021–22) MSt Islamic Art and Architecture 

(2018–22) DPhil Physical and Theoretical Chemistry 

‘Modification of Boron-Doped Diamond Electrodes for 

Application in Electrochemistry’ 


(2020–22) BPhil Philosophy 

(2021–22) MBA 

(2017–22) DPhil Law ‘Customary Law and the 1992 

Constitution of Ghana: A Comparative Theoretical Study’ 

(2019–22) MPhil Evidence-Based Social Intervention and Policy 

Evaluation 


(2020–22) MPhil Economics 


(2021–22) MSc Global Governance and Diplomacy 


(2021–22) MSt Late Antique and Byzantine Studies 


(2018–23) DPhil Clinical Medicine ‘Molecular and Histological 

Characterisation of Colitis-associated Colorectal Cancer’ 

73 


Navarro Rosales, Francisco 

Needham, Heather Sarah 

Thomson 

Negribs, Valters 

Nelis, Basil Leo Peter 

Nguyen–Kim, Michael 

Khuong 

Nomoto, Kyoko 

Ossorio Carballo, Laura 

O’Sullivan, Jennifer 

Parkinson, Madeleine Rose 

Patnaik, Sarita Anna 

Pavlova, Irina 

Pham, Huu Dang Nhat 

Phan, Han Angela Ngoc 

Pienkowski, Thomas 

Pierson, Michael Aaron 

Pietzsch Amora, Raphael 

Pinto De Almeida Lima, 

Barbara 

Polaskova, Marie 

Poletto, Alice 

Poór, Boldizsár 

Proctor, William Henry 

(2021–22) MSc Biodiversity, Conservation and Management 


(2017–23) DPhil Oriental Studies ‘Ascetic Teachings for 

Householder Kings in the Mahābhārata’ 

(2018–22) DPhil Classical Languages and Literature (Full-time) 

‘Feminine Voices of Vengeance in Senecan Tragedy and its 

Reception’ 

(2021–22) BCL 

(2013–23) DPhil Archaeology (Full-time) ‘Dressing as 

horsemen: The universalization of steppe dress in the first half 

of the Tang China (618–755)’ 

(2018–23) DPhil Plant Sciences ‘Analysis of the extracellular 

battlefield of potato late blight disease’ 

(2018–23) DPhil Medical Sciences ‘Mechanisms of disease 

transformation in myeloproliferative neoplasms’ 

(2021–22) MSt Ancient Philosophy 

(2021–22) MSc Refugee and Forced Migration Studies 

(2018–22) DPhil Medieval and Modern Languages (Fulltime) 

‘“Literary studies must be a science” (Yury Lotman): 

representing and interpreting character relationships in Russian 

drama by means of quantitative methods’ 

(2020–23) DPhil Computer Science ‘Enabling human 

physiological sensing by leveraging intelligent head-worn 

wearable systems’ 


(2017–22) Environmental Research (NERC DTP) 

‘Understanding neglected connections between nature, 

conservation, and mental health’ 

(2017–22) DPhil Anthropology ‘Disability’s Costs and Coasts 

in Mombasa, Kenya’ 

(2018–22) DPhil Earth Sciences (Full-time) ‘From atoms to 

landscapes through time: The chemical controls on carbonate 

precipitation and phosphate concentration in alkaline lakes’ 

(2021–22) MSt Medieval Studies 

(2021–22) MSc Psychological Research (Direct Entry) 

(2017–22) DPhil Classical Archaeology ‘Imperial Villas in Italy, 

Antoninus Pius to Maxentius: A Study in Architecture and 

Functions’ 

(2021–22) MSc Advanced Computer Science 

(2021–22) MSt Slavonic Studies 

THE RECORD 


74

THE RECORD 

Qing, Shanlingzi 

Quiroz Fernandez, 

Javiera Ignacia 

Rabin, Molly Andrea 

Tuulikki 

Rajpal, Aditi 

Reyes, Luis Felipe 

Richter, Anton Oli 

Rodríguez Fanlo, Arturo 

Rogova, Tatiana 

Roy, Praveen Kumar 

Ruiters, Emma Lilian 

Russell, Ishbel Sophie 

Salisbury, Callum Ruaraidh 

Salvatori, Tommaso 

Sarkar, Ambika 

Savory, Stephanie Ayse 

Schulte, Rainie Lynn 

Seale, Thalia Eleni 

Shatrunjay, Arjun 

Shaw, Eleanor Caitlin 

Sherif, Sana Mohamed 

Yasser Elsaid Gabr 

Shliakov, Iurii 

Shu, Yu 

Simons, Alexander 

Watkin Bjerve 

Singler, Samuel William 

Siu, Yiu 

Smarrelli, Gabriela Lina 



(2020–23) MSc Applied Linguistics and Second Language 


(2021–22) MSc Theoretical and Computational Chemistry 



(2018–22) DPhil Mathematics ‘Model Theory and Rough 

Approximate Subgroups’ 

(2017–22) Synthesis for Biology and Medicine (EPSRC CDT) 

‘Designing Tandem Catalytic Reductive Functionalisation 

Strategies of Carbonyl Derivatives’ 


(2021–22) MSc Japanese Studies 

(2021–22) MSt Oriental Studies 

(2021–22) MSt Music (Musicology) 

(2018–22) DPhil Computer Science ‘Learning and 

Memorization via Predictive Coding’ 

(2021–22) MSt Study of Religions 





(2017–23) DPhil Materials ‘A new texturing technique for 

silicon solar cells using gas phase etching’ 

(2021–22) MSc Nature, Society and Environmental Governance 


(2018–23) DPhil Materials ‘Nanomanufacturing towards 

Flexible Electronic and Photonic Devices’ 


(2019–22) DPhil Criminology ‘Security Technologies and 

the Global Criminalization of Migration: Midas, the IOM, and 

Outsourcing Border Control’ 

(2016–22) DPhil Oriental Studies ‘Maritime exclusion policy in 

Ming China and Chosŏn Korea, 1368–1450: Dynastic authority, 

national security, and trade’ 

(2018–23) DPhil International Development ‘Essays on Human 

Capital Development and Effective Public Policy Delivery in 

Peru’ 

75 


Smith, Sydney Paula 

Benjamin 

Sooka, Jainisha Navin 

Sourlas-Kotzamanis, Kimon 

Srirangarajan, Arjun 

Staphorst, Luan 

Stavrakakis, Michail 

Stephenson, Hannah Maria 

Storey, Ian Miller 

Storey, Oliver James Daniel 

Stricker, Miriam Katharina 

Strugale, Michael 

Summers, Luke 

Swe, Myo Maung Maung 

Takehana, Mei 

Tax, Jessica Nicky 

Teng, Michael Siyang 

Thind, Puninda Singh 

Toumi, Alexis Naim Hubert 

Trespalacios Leal, María 

Mónica 

Treviño Salce, Maria 

Trinh, Hoai Son 

Ughi, Giuseppe 

Vaiciukynaite, Justina 

Vally, Zahir 

Van Beest, Marieke 

Vasconcelos, Andre 

Antonio 

Vatsa, Divya 

Vernon, Kieran Samuel 


(2021–22) MBA 

(2020–22) BPhil Philosophy 

(2021–22) MSt Linguistics, Philology and Phonetics (AS) 

(2021–22) MSc African Studies 

(2021–22) MJur 




(2018–23) Systems Approaches to Biomedical Sciences (EPSRC 

and MRC CDT) ‘Computational methods for the analysis of 

epigenomic activity in the human immune system’ 

(2018–23) DPhil Earth Sciences (Full-time) ‘Basement geology, 

tectono-stratigraphic and diagenetic evolution of the presalt 

succession in the northern Campos Basin, Brazil’ 

(2021–22) MSt History, Modern British History 1850–present 

(2018–23) DPhil Clinical Medicine ‘Defining empirical 

management of acute febrile illness in Myanmar’ 



(2017–22) DPhil Engineering Science ‘Applications of Timeseries 

Generative Models and Inference Techniques’ 


(2018–22) DPhil Computer Science ‘Category Theory for 

Quantum Natural Language Processing’ 




(2017–22) DPhil Industrially Focused Mathematical Modelling 

(EPSRC CDT) ‘Studies on Neural Networks: Information 

Propagation at Initialisation and Robustness to Adversarial 

Examples’ 

(2020–22) MPhil Russian and East European Studies 


(2018–22) DPhil Mathematics ‘Strongly-Coupled QFTs from 

String Theory’ 


(2021–22) MSc Comparative Social Policy 

(2021–22) MSt Oriental Studies 

THE RECORD 


76

THE RECORD 

Wai, Cheuk Yee 

Waite, Isobel 

Walker, Ryan James 

Wang, Jingsi 

Wang, Xianlingchen 

Ward, Philippe Pierre 

Rainham 

Watts, Aimee Katherine 

Wei, Minhui 

Wiest, Christoph 

Williams, Archie John 

Wolffenbuttel, Alexander 

Romboud 

Woodgate, Samuel James 

Wrightson, Rebecca 

Stevens 

Wuerzinger, Jonas 

Wyatt, Edward 

Xu, Zihan 

Xu, Juntong 

Yang, Yuqi 

Yang, Zhengyuan 

Yang, Jingyi 

Yao, Bohao 

Zeng, Chijing 

(2019–23) DPhil Oriental Studies ‘Sisters in Crimes: Women 

and illicit sexual affairs in late imperial Chinese erotic fiction’ 


(Part-time) 

(2018–23) DPhil Clinical Medicine ‘Can building a community 

of practice improve pharmacovigilance in low-resource 

settings?’ 

(2020–22) MPhil Visual, Material and Museum Anthropology 


(2021–22) MSt History, Modern European History 1850– 

present 

(2021–22) MSc Psychological Research (Direct Entry) 

(2016–22) DPhil Education (Full-time) ‘Investigating English 

Medium Instruction (EMI) Students’ Vocabulary Learning and 

Use of Vocabulary Learning Strategies: A Longitudinal Study in 

China’s Tertiary Context’ 

(2019–23) DPhil Clinical Neurosciences ‘Modulation of basal 

ganglia local field potentials by deep brain stimulation in 

Parkinson’s disease and dystonia’ 

(2020–22) MPhil Islamic Art and Architecture 


(2019–22) MSc Energy Systems (36 Months) 

(2017–22) DPhil Oriental Studies ‘Legibility, Visual Ambiguity, 

and the Patterning of Arabic Script: Epigraphic Ceramics of the 

Early Islamic World’ 

(2018–23) DPhil Particle Physics ‘Of Triggers, Supersymmetry 

and Photons: Triggers for Dark Matter and a Search for Gauge- 

Mediated Supersymmetry Breaking with the ATLAS detector 

at the LHC’ 

(2021–22) MSc Russian and East European Studies 

(2020–22) MPhil Medical Anthropology 

(2020–22) MSc Radiation Biology (Direct Entry) 




(2018– 2023) DPhil Engineering Science ‘Origami- and 

Kirigami-Adapted Thick-Panel Folding’ 

(2018–22) DPhil Statistics ‘Algebraic Properties of Linear 

Structural Equation Models’ 


77 


Zhang, Xinxin 

Zhang, Yuan 

Zhang, Yuxuan 

Zhao, Fangwei 

Zoechbauer, Patrick 

Andreas 

(2017–22) DPhil Organic Chemistry ‘Evolved P450 Mutants as 

General Oxidation Catalysts for Target Synthesis via Early- 

Late-Stage Hydroxylation’ 



(2021–22) MSc Social Science of the Internet 

(2021–22) MSc Advanced Computer Science 

THE RECORD 


78

THE RECORD 


79 


Personal News 

Appointments and Awards 

Ruben Andersson (GBF 2016–) was awarded a Leverhulme Major Research Fellowship 

for 2023–26 for work on the expansion of global security agendas in times of crisis. 

Eduardo Benitez-Inglott y Ballesteros (GS 2019–) was elected a Postgraduate 

Member of the Royal Historical Society. 

Abhirup Banerjee (RF 2023–) was elected a Royal Society University Research Fellow. 

Cristián Bonacic (GS 1996–2001, MCR 2009–) was awarded a prize by the Pontifical 

Catholic University of Chile and CMPC Maderas in recognition of three decades of work 

protecting nature in Chile and Latam. 

Alexander Brunner (GS 2022–) represented Oxford University at the global Hult Prize 

competition in Lisbon this year, which aims to reward social entrepreneurship. His startup, 

appliqué, co-founded with Khansa Maria (Harris Manchester), aims to produce technology 

to improve online shopping for the visually impaired. The company was also chosen as one 

of twenty rising startups for the EnSpire Oxford #StartedinOxford Demo Night. 

PERSONAL NEWS 

Matthew Costa (GBF 2015–) was elected a Fellow of the International Orthopaedic 

Trauma Association in late 2022. 

David Cranston (GS 1983–86, MCR) was appointed Emeritus Associate Professor of 

Surgery in the Nuffield Department of Surgery at Oxford, and Emeritus Fellow of Green 

Templeton College. 

David Deutsch (GS 1975–79, JRF 1979–80, MCR 1980–2001, RF 1987–94, HF 2016–) 

was awarded the 2023 Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics, together with Charles 

Bennett, Gilles Brassard and Peter Shor, for ‘foundational work in the field of quantum 

information’. 

Elena Draghici-Vasilescu (MCR 2012–) was elected a Fellow of the Royal Historical 

Society and was appointed Visiting Professor in Byzantine culture at Macquarie University, 

Sydney (Australia). She also curated the art exhibition ‘Byzantium Then and Now’ at 

Wolfson. 


80

Anke Ehlers (SF 2013–) was awarded the International Society for Traumatic Stress 

Studies Lifetime Achievement Award in November 2022. 

Tristan Franklinos (SF) was elected a Fellow of the Società Internazionale per lo Studio 

del Medioevo Latino for his international contribution to the study of medieval Latin texts. 

Barbara Harriss-White (EF) was appointed a Distinguished Research Fellow at the Max 

Weber Forum for South Asian Studies, New Delhi (India), from 2023 until 2027; Chair of 

the Young Scholars’ Seminar in Agrarian Studies in India, Foundation for Agrarian Studies, 

Bangalore; and Commissioner of the Food Systems Economics Commission (Potsdam 

Institute for Climate Impact Research / EAT-Lancet Commission on Food, Planet, Health). 

Mark A Hill (RMCR 2016–19, MCR 2019–) was elected a Fellow of the Institute of 

Physics and Engineering in Medicine, and was made an honorary Member of the Royal 

College of Radiologists. 

PERSONAL NEWS 

Christopher Hodges (MCR 2011–, SF 2014–) was appointed Chair of the Horizon 

Compensation Advisory Board, which advises Ministers on the compensation schemes for 

former postmasters and postmistresses arising out of the Post Office Horizon IT scandal. 

Caroline Wanjiku Kihato (SF 2023–) has curated an exhibition at La Biennale 

Architettura 2023 entitled You Will Find Your People Here, in collaboration with pianist Mareli 

Stolp (South Africa), composer Clare Loveday (South Africa) and artist Sedinam Awo 

Tsegah (Ghana). The project is supported by the Wits-Oxford Mobility Governance Lab. 

Young Chan Kim (JRF 2020–) was awarded a grant by the Medical Research Council to 

develop serological assays against typhoid and paratyphoid fever; and a grant by the Medical 

and Life Sciences Translational Fund to develop a vaccine against Chagas disease. 

Ilya Kuprov (RF 2010–11, MCR) has been appointed Professor of Physics at the 

University of Southampton. 

David Lewis (HF 2016–) was made CBE in the New Year Honours 2023. 

Chenying Liu (GS 2021–) was awarded a highly commended prize (Runner-Up) in the 

Peter Watson Competition organized by the Engineering Integrity Society. The award aims 

to support young engineers at the start of their career. 

Yi Lu (JRF 2020–) has been offered the post of Assistant Professor of Modern Chinese 

History at Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire (USA). 

Andrew Mackintosh (MCR 1985–) was elected a Fellow of the Royal Academy of 

Engineering. 

81 


Freya Marshall Payne (GS 2020–) has been awarded the inaugural Orwell Prize for 

Reporting Homelessness. The Orwell Prizes are the most prestigious prizes for political 

writing in the UK. 

Beata Martin-Rozumilowicz (GS 1993–2000) was appointed Senior Advisor and 

Deputy Chief Observer in the EU Election Observation Mission to the Zimbabwe general 

election, 23 August 2023. 

Francisco Mora (GS 1974–78, MCR 2012–) was appointed an Honorary Member of the 

Ateneu Cultural Ciutat de Manises [School of Art, Music, Dance, Theatre and Cinema] in 

Valencia (Spain) for his contribution to the development of education and educators. 

Heather L Munro (GS 2012–15) has been appointed a Lecturer in Social Anthropology 

in the Department of Theology and Religious Studies at King’s College, London. 

Shrenik Nalupogu (MCR 2019–) has had a book commissioned by Penguin Random 

House, provisionally titled Merchants of Maesolia. 

Mircea Negru (VS 2001, MCR) was appointed a member of the Romanian National 

Committee of Archaeology, Associate Lecturer at the University of Craiova, and Scientific 

Researcher at the Central Research Institute, University of Bucharest. 

Paul Newton (GS 1979–84, 1986–89, MCR 1989–) was elected a Distinguished 

International Fellow of the American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene. 

PERSONAL NEWS 

Ayo Oguntade (GS 2020–) graduated from the two-year World Stroke Organization 

Inaugural Future Stroke Leaders Programme, a competitive fellowship to raise the next 

generation of stroke researchers and physicians. He was selected for this programme in 

2020. 

Martin Ovens (VS 2005–7, MCR 2007–) has been selected as the incoming Editorin-Chief 

of Culture and Dialogue, an international peer-reviewed journal of cross-cultural 

philosophy and humanities published by Brill, having previously served as Associate Editor 

and (currently) Editor. 

Jonathan Pila (GBF 2010–), together with his colleagues Jacob Tsimerman (Toronto) and 

Ngaiming Mok (Hong Kong), received one of the ‘Frontiers of Science Awards’ announced 

at the inaugural International Congress of Basic Science in Beijing in July 2023. 

Barry Potter (GS 1977, JRF 1980, MCR 2016–21) was awarded an honorary Doctor 

of Science degree by the University of Bath in 2022 for his work in Chemical Biology 

and Medicinal Chemistry. He was also elected to an Honorary Fellowship of the British 

Pharmacological Society. Honorary Fellows are elected for life in recognition of sustained 


82

excellence and leadership in science, healthcare, and public service. 

David J Roberts (RMCR 2013–15, MCR 2017–22) was elected a Fellow of the Academy 

of Medical Sciences. 

Alan J Ross (GS 2005–11; MCR 2011–) received tenure at Ohio State University and was 

appointed Associate Professor in the Department of Classics. 

Marya Sabir (GS 2019–) received a Young Investigator Award at the 18th Annual 

WORLDSymposium, a multidisciplinary forum for discussing the latest advances in the basic 

science of lysosomal biology, translational studies, and clinical applications for lysosomal 

diseases. 

Erica Sheen (JRF 1982–86, VS 1998, MCR 1986–) has been appointed Professor of 

Literature and Film in the Department of English and Related Literature at the University of 

York. 

PERSONAL NEWS 

Daniel Wojahn (GS 2019–) has been awarded a 2023 Robert H N Ho Family Foundation 

Dissertation Fellowship in Buddhist Studies. Ten Fellows at universities in Hong Kong, 

the United Kingdom and the United States, were awarded $30,000 each for dissertation 

fieldwork, archival research, and writing. The Fellowships are administered by the American 

Council of Learned Societies. 

Jonathan Wolff (GBF 2016–) was elected a Fellow of the British Academy. 

Quan Zhang (RMCR 2009–) was appointed Associate Professor of Endocrine Cell 

Physiology at Oxford University. 

83 


Books published by Wolfsonians 

Ruben Andersson (GBF 2016–) 

Geoffrey Beattie (VS 2023–) 

Steven A. Beebe (VF 1993, 2005, 2009, 

2015, MCR) 

— 

With David Keen, Wreckonomics: Why it’s Time 

to End the War on Everything (Oxford: Oxford 

University Press, 2023) 

Doubt: A Psychological Exploration (Abingdon: 

Routledge, 2022) 

With Susan J. Beebe, Public Speaking: An 

Audience-Centered Approach. Twelfth Edition 

(Boston: Pearson, 2023) 

A Concise Public Speaking Handbook. Sixth 

Edition (Boston: Pearson, 2023) 

Elleke Boehmer (GBF 2007–) 

Carol Brown (GS 1996–98 

and 2012–17, MCR) 

With Shaun A. Johnson, The Audacious 

Experiment: The Mandela Rhodes Story (Cape 

Town: Oxford University Press, 2023) 

Ethical Dilemmas in Educational Research: 

Considering Challenges and Risks in Practice 

(Maidenhead: Open University Press, 2022) 

PERSONAL NEWS 

Geoff Cottrell (JRF 1981–86, RF 1986–93, 

MCR 1993–) 

L S Cousins (MCR 2001–07 

and 2009–15, SF 2007–09) 

David Cranston (GS 1983–86, MCR) 

Ilya Kuprov (RF 2010–11, MCR) 

Partha Mitter (MCR) 

Observational Astronomy: A Very short 

Introduction (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 

2023) 

With Sarah Shaw (MCR), Meditations of the 

Pali Tradition: Illuminating Buddhist Doctrine, 

History, and Practice, ed. Sarah Shaw (Boulder, 

Colorado: Shambala Publications, 2022) 

Peter Morris and his Legacy to Transplantation 

(Upper Heyford: Words by Design, 2022) 

Spin: From Basic Symmetries to Quantum Optimal 

Control (New York: Springer, 2023) 

With Parul Dave Mukherji and Rakhee Balaram, 

20th Century Indian Art (London and New York: 

Thames and Hudson, 2022) 


84

Francisco Mora (GS 1974–78, MCR 2012–) 

NEUROEDUCADOR: Una nueva profesión 

(Madrid: Alianza Editorial, 2022) 

Mircea Negru (VS 2001, MCR) 

Thomas J Nelson (JRF 2022–) 

Olivera Petrovich (GS 1981–88, MCR 

1989–) 

ROMULA II, Cercetările arheologice din anul 

2013 / Report on the Archaeological Research 

from 2013 (Cluj–Napoca: Casa Cărţii de Ştiinţă, 

2022) 

Markers of Allusion in Archaic Greek Poetry 

(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2023) 

Developmental Psychology and Young Children’s 

Religious Education (Abingdon: Routledge, 2022) 

Jonathan Pila (GB 2010–) 

Point-Counting and the Zilber-Pink Conjecture 

(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2022) 

PERSONAL NEWS 

Philomen Probert (GB 1999–) 

John Sellars (JRF 2004–7, 

MCR 2007–) 

With Stephanie Roussou, Ancient and Medieval 

Thought on Greek Enclitics (Oxford: Oxford 

University Press, 2023) 

With C R Hogg, Barlaam of Seminara on Stoic 

Ethics (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2022) 

Helen Lawton Smith 

(GS 1984–90, MCR 1990–) 

Norman Solomon (MCR 1996–) 

The Geography of Academic Entrepreneurship: 

Spin-offs, Firm Growth and Regional Impact 

(Cheltenham: Edward Elgar, 2023) 

Making Sense of ‘God’: What God-Talk Means and 

Does (Eugene, Oregon: Wipf and Stock, 2023) 

Robert S D Thomas (VS 1998–99, 

2002–03, MCR 2005–) 

Christopher Whelan 

(MCR 1977–) 

Merryn Williams (GS 1970–71, 

MCR 1971–) 

With Nathan Sidoli, The Spherics of Theodosios 

(Abingdon: Routledge, 2023) 

The Bodyguards of Lies: Lawyers’ Power and 

Professional Responsibility (London: Bloomsbury, 

2022) 

After Hastings (Nottingham: Shoestring Press, 

2023) 

85 


Stephen Wilson (MCR), translator 

Hubert Zawadzki (GS 1968–73, 

JRF 1973–76, MCR 1976–) 

David Zeitlyn (SF) 

Albert Memmi, Térésa and Other Women 

[Térésa et Autres Femmes] (Market Harborough: 

Troubadour, 2023) 

With Irena Protassewicz, Róże pogryzę z 

kolcami cierni ... Wspomnienia wojny i pokoju / 

Though the rose thorn wounds ... memoirs of war 

and peace (Warsaw: Neriton, 2022) 

An Anthropological Toolkit: Sixty Useful Concepts 

(New York and Oxford: Berghahn, 2022) 

PERSONAL NEWS 


86

PERSONAL NEWS 

87 

COLLEGE RECORD Photo: John 2022/23 Cairns

Births 

To Roger Ciza (GS 2022–): a daughter, Ciza Kaza Michaella Eliora, on 6 June 2023. 

To Etienne Hanelt (GS 2017–) and Hansol Hanelt: a son, Perseus Linus, a brother for 

Ulysses and Callista, on 1 August 2023. 

To Ignacio Ros (GS 2019–): a son, Sebastián Andrés, on 17 August 2022. 

Marriages 

William Proctor (GS 2021–22) to Ksenia Ananyeva on 14 July 2023. 

Sam Williams (GS 2013–15) to Nisha Ramisetty on 31 March 2023. 

Golden Wedding Anniversary 

Merryn Williams (GS 1970–71) and John Hemp: fifty years on 14 April 2023. 

Deaths 

Maxine Backus 

(GS 1971) on 13 January 2022, aged 71. 

PERSONAL NEWS 

Simon R Barker 

(GS 1979–82) on 15 August 2022, aged 67. 

Colin Hastings Barlow 

(VF 1990, VS 1999–2000, MCR 2000–23) on 11 November 2022, aged 89. 

Kiyoko Hanaoka 

(GS 1982–95, MCR 1996–2023) on 25 January 2023, aged 79. 

William Kelly 

(GS 1972–75) on 13 July 2023, aged 73. 

Alex Orenstein 

(VF 1987, MCR 1988–) in June 2018, aged 82. 

John Henry Peters 

(GS 1968–74) on 3 November 2022, aged 76. 

Ellen Elizabeth Rice 

(JRF 1978–82, GBF 1988–2020, EF 2020–23) on 5 April 2023, aged 71. 


88

Obituaries 

Kiyoko Hanaoka 

(1943–2023) 

Graduate Student 1982–95, MCR 1996–2023 

There were many remarkable facets to the life of Kiyoko Hanaoka and, despite having 

known her well for four decades, there were some that I only became aware of in preparing 

this obituary. 

PERSONAL NEWS 

She was a scholar and teacher as well as working for a number of years for her father’s 

trading company. Her impressively broad range of intellectual interests embraced Japanese 

and Chinese painting, Eastern ceramics, Japanese poetry and aesthetics. She had a real 

talent for organising exhibitions which brought together her scholarship, her feel for art 

and, above all, her understanding of the needs of others. By every account she was a 

wonderful teacher. Her energy was striking right to the end. 

Everyone appreciated Kiyo’s kindness and gentleness. She was courageous and independent, 

charming and calm with a wonderful sense of humour which somehow reflected the depth 

of her feeling for life. She had a gift for friendship maintaining contacts with a vast range 

of people. Whilst her Japanese identity was very much a part of her, she could relate to 

anyone no matter what their background. This made her well-suited to Wolfson College 

with its immense diversity of members. 

Kiyoko Hanaoka was born on 24 January 1943 in Tokushima, Japan. In 1966 she completed 

a BA in History and Aesthetics at Kwansei Gakuin University in Kyoto. From 1974 to 

1981 she undertook research and teaching on Art History and Eastern Ceramics in 

Japanese universities. In 1981 she came to Wolfson to work on a doctorate on Chinese 

ceramics. She had a long association with the Eastern Art Department of the Ashmolean 

Museum where she contributed through research, cataloguing, organising exhibitions and in 

numerous other ways. She taught Japanese language and literature at St Clare’s College and 

continued to support the family business in Japan. She even found time in her late 40s to 

take a Master of Studies in Visual Art. 

I first met Kiyo in 1983 after I had left Oxford when I was visiting her partner, David Finn, 

also a Wolfsonian. Like everyone else, I immediately felt at ease with her. After David’s 

89 


premature death in 1987 we remained in close contact. In fact, she came to know my late 

mother because of their shared artistic enthusiasms. This was the first and only time that a 

friend of mine became a genuine friend on equal terms of either of my parents. 

Kiyo’s passing has left a gap that can never be filled in the lives of the people who knew 

her and the institutions she was a part of. As well as the marvellous memories, she has left 

contributions to those lives and institutions which preserve her unique qualities and will 

always be greatly appreciated. 

John Cubbon (GS 1979–81) 

Alex Orenstein 

(1936–2018) 

Visiting Fellow 1987, MCR 1988–2018 

Alex Orenstein, Professor of Philosophy at 

the Graduate Center and Queens College 

of the City University of New York, died 

in June 2018 at the age of 82. Alex had a 

close and enduring association with Wolfson 

College which began in 1987 when he 

was elected a Visiting Fellow. He remained 

a Member of Common Room until his 

death, and for nearly thirty years spent a 

substantial amount of each academic year in 

Oxford and Wolfson. Though in many ways 

a quintessential New Yorker, Alex made 

Wolfson and Oxford his second home, both 

intellectually and socially. 

Alex Orenstein, 1936-2018 / Photo: Claire Parker 

PERSONAL NEWS 

Alex Orenstein was born in New York City on 5 March 1936, and earned an AB from 

Hunter College in 1956. From 1957 to 1960 he was a Lecturer in Philosophy at Hunter 

College, and then worked for three years as a computer programmer and systems analyst. 

He returned to academia in 1964 with a graduate assistantship at New York University 

and as an Instructor in Philosophy at Drew University and then at Long Island University 

1965–67. In 1968 he was appointed Lecturer in Philosophy at Queens College and 

then Assistant Professor. He completed his PhD at NYU in 1972 and was promoted to 

Associate Professor at Queens College. In 1974 he became a faculty member of the PhD 

Program in Philosophy of the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. In 

1981 he was promoted to Professor of Philosophy at Queens College, a post he held until 

retirement in 2011, at the age of 75. 


90

Internationally recognized, Alex Orenstein published extensively on his wide-ranging 

philosophical interests, encompassing the philosophy of logic and language, epistemology 

and metaphysics, and including determinism, scepticism, fictional entities, and the 

ontological argument. He developed striking ideas on ontology and the interpretation of 

quantifiers, and in 1978 published a book, Existence and the Particular Quantifier, a subject 

to which he returned throughout his career. He developed original and challenging views 

on the relationship of Aristotelian and medieval logic to Fregean and post-Fregean logic. 

He was a significant expert on the philosophy of W V Quine, on which he published two 

books, in 1977 and 2002. At the time of Quine’s ninetieth birthday, he co-edited Knowledge, 

Language and Logic: Questions for Quine, which included replies by Quine, and was published 

in 2000. His last publication, in 2017, was an article ‘Quine and Consciousness’. He also 

energetically pursued interests outside philosophy, including cinema, literature, music and 

art. He loved animals, especially cats. 

PERSONAL NEWS 

Alex Orenstein was a valued member of the philosophy community in Oxford, both as 

a productive colleague and as a generous and considerate friend. In 2005 he met Claire 

Parker at a dinner party in Wolfson. They embarked on a transatlantic relationship, shared 

many interests, and enjoyed holidays together in Europe and Egypt. They were married 

in New York in March 2010, which they celebrated with friends and family in a party 

at Wolfson that summer. Their transatlantic relationship did not sustain their marriage, 

however, and they divorced the following year. 

Alex continued his pattern of spending substantial periods of time in Oxford. In 2015 

he underwent treatment for cancer, from which he afterwards suffered ‘brain fog’, to his 

great distress, though he managed to get to Oxford that summer. This was his last visit. 

He hoped to come again in the summer of 2016, but was too ill to travel. He remained 

in touch with friends in Oxford and New York until the summer of 2017, after which 

communication ceased. Friends then had no information about Alex until, by dint of 

strenuous effort in 2021, they learned that he had been suffering from dementia, possibly as 

a result of a brain tumour, and had been looked after by his two sisters in Las Vegas, where 

they lived, and that he died in June 2018. He is fondly remembered and greatly missed. 

Daniel Isaacson (EF) 

(This obituary was submitted to last year’s Record, but inadvertently omitted) 

91 


John Henry Peters 

(1946–2022) 

Graduate Student 1968–74 

John Henry Peters, general counsel and 

later CEO of Zoetrope Studios, died from 

brain cancer (glioblastoma multiforme) on 

the evening of Thursday, 3 November 2022. 

He was at home in San Francisco, in the 

company of his wife and three daughters. 

He was 76. 

John Henry Peters, 1946–2022 

Photo: Laura Peters 

Educated under the supervision of Isaiah 

Berlin and A J Ayer at the University of 

Oxford and then at Yale Law School, Peters 

was hired as the first general counsel of 

Zoetrope Studios in 1980. Following the 

studio’s acquisition of Desilu Studios in Los 

Angeles and the production of One From 

the Heart, Peters accepted the position of 

CEO. He oversaw the studio from 1983 to 1991, guiding it through financially turbulent 

times and facilitating its operation during the production of The Cotton Club, Peggy Sue Got 

Married and several other films directed by Francis Ford Coppola among others. 

PERSONAL NEWS 

Peters was born on 18 April 1946 in Alexandria, Virginia, the second son of Roger and Mary 

Lou Peters. He and his brothers Roger and Edward, and his sister Catherine, grew up in 

South Bend, Indiana, where his father taught constitutional law at the University of Notre 

Dame. 

Early on, Peters distinguished himself intellectually as a National Merit Scholar and earned 

a place in the first class of the newly-created New College of Florida for his undergraduate 

study of philosophy. He continued his philosophical studies at the University of Oxford 

as a Fulbright Scholar, where he joined the first group of students at Wolfson College. He 

studied under A J Ayer and Isaiah Berlin, whom he had admired as an undergraduate, before 

returning to the USA and graduating from Yale Law School. 

After law school, Peters joined Zoetrope Studios in San Francisco, where he managed the 

international and domestic distribution of Zoetrope’s film library, directed all studio business 

affairs, liaised with labour unions, and oversaw all legal services for Zoetrope and its several 

subsidiaries. He then moved to Los Angeles with his family to become the CEO of Epic 

Productions, a role that he carried until he sold the company on behalf of Credit Lyonnais 

in 1998. 


92

Peters and his family enjoyed life in the Los Angeles area, living in Studio City and then 

Calabasas. It was there that he turned their 2.5 acre hillside home into Headwaters 

Vineyard, which produced hundreds of bottles of cabernet, pinot noir, viognier and 

chardonnay. 

In 2014, John and Laura moved to Sausalito, a step forward in their long-term plan to 

return to San Francisco. There he enjoyed hiking in the Marin Headlands, taking the ferry 

into the city, enjoying the local opera and jazz scene, and lots of time spent reading. 

Peters was an avid hiker throughout his life and active in local ecological restoration efforts, 

reflected by his receipt of the Carl Gibbs Environmental Excellence Award from the City of 

Calabasas in 2006. 

Travel was another of Peters’ lifelong interests. He had a special love of Hawaii, where he 

spent time solo, as a couple with Laura, and as a family with their children. When their 

children moved abroad to Sweden, Germany, England, China and Japan, he spent time 

travelling with them. 

PERSONAL NEWS 

In September 2021, Peters was diagnosed with Grade 4 glioblastoma multiforme. The 

talented team of medical professionals at the University of California, San Francisco, and 

Marin General Hospitals gave him excellent treatment and developed a strong, trusting 

relationship with him and Laura. True to form, Peters handled the entire process stoically 

and calmly, never once complaining. 

Peters died peacefully at his home in San Francisco on 3 November 2022, in the house 

where he and Laura were married. He was surrounded by his daughters and wife, and 

donated his body to the Willed Body Program of the University of California, San Francisco, 

to support new generations of doctors and scientists. At Wolfson a bench has been 

dedicated to his memory in Berlin Quad. 

Peters is survived by his loving wife Laura, his daughters Hana, Claire and Rebecca; their 

partners, Jan Brockhaus, Anthony Di Franco and Stephen Honan; his grandchildren, his 

sister Catherine Graham and brother Edward Peters, as well as nieces and nephews. He is 

also survived by his first car, a 1974 Volkswagen Beetle named Sancho. Sancho remains part 

of the family, now in Alexandria, Virginia, living with Rebecca and her husband Stephen. 

Throughout his life, John Peters built lasting friendships and a sense of community wherever 

he was. He will be celebrated for his integrity, sense of humor, kindness to all people, and 

his deep connection with people from each chapter of his life. His fondness for cooking and 

sharing love through food will continue to be cherished by those who love him. 

Laura Peters, Hana, Claire and Rebecca Peters 

93 


Ellen Elizabeth Rice 

(1952–2023) 

Junior Research Fellow 1978–82, Research Fellow 

1982–88, Senior Research Fellow and member of 

Governing Body 1988–2020, Appeals administrator 

for the Wolfson College Development campaign 

1988–94, Domestic Bursar 1994–2004, sometime 

Dean of Degrees, sometime Fellow Librarian, and 

Fellow Archivist until retirement in 2020, Emeritus 

Fellow 2020–23 

Ellen was born in Altoona, Pennsylvania, on 19 

November 1951. Her father Phil was a school 

teacher and basketball coach; her mother, 

Anita worked as an administrator for a range of 

organisations. 

Ellen Elizabeth Rice, 1952–2023 

Photo: Jim Kennedy 

Between 1965 and 1969, she attended the Ellis School in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and 

there began her lifetime fascination with the ancient world of Greece and Rome. Between 

1969 and 1973 she attended Mount Holyoke College in South Hadley, Massachusetts, 

gaining BA Summa Cum Laude in Classics, with a major in Latin and Greek (the compulsory 

science course was in geology). A visit to Cambridge after graduation led to a successful 

application to Newnham College, to which she was admitted in 1973, gaining BA in Classics 

in 1975. One of her tutors was the redoubtable Joyce Reynolds, and Saturday morning 

classes with her on epigraphy led to a long relationship with Greek inscriptions. In 1975 she 

began doctoral research in Somerville College, Oxford, the fourth female-only institution at 

which she studied. Her thesis topic was the analysis of a fragmentary text of a larger work 

about ancient Alexandria by the Hellenistic author Kallixeinos of Rhodes. It described a vast 

and spectacular procession staged by Ptolemy II Philadelphus, the pharaoh of Ptolemaic 

Egypt from 284 to 246 BC. Ellen’s conclusions were published in 1983 by Oxford University 

Press under the title The Grand Procession of Ptolemy Philadelphus. The last part of her thesis 

was completed after her election, in 1978, to a Junior Research Fellowship at Wolfson 

College, Oxford, an institution that she would serve in diverse roles until retirement in 

2020. 

PERSONAL NEWS 

Elements present in Kallixeinos’ text included many curiosities that were discussed and 

explained, including a cast of thousands: maenads, satyrs, and the rest; tableaux, automata, 

a giant phallus etc. The birds and animals fascinated Ellen: asses, bears, camels, cattle, dogs, 

elephants, giraffes, goats, horses, lynxes, onagers, oryx, peacocks, Saiga antelope, sheep, and 

a single rhinoceros. The elephants intrigued Ellen: surely not elderly survivors of Alexander 

the Great’s army (he died in 323 BC), but what else? A possible solution lay in descriptions 

of what might have been elephant-training facilities in northern Sudan. Such is the folly of 

youth that we took off in the spring of 1979 to Khartoum, and, with Sudanese colleagues, 


94

visited sites by the Nile in the ancient Kingdom of Meroe, specifically the site of Mussawarat 

es Sofra, with a great enclosure and carvings of elephants, originally thought to be a training 

area for the beast (not so, we concluded: the entrances were too narrow), but now, alas, 

interpreted as a walled garden. 

This trip, our first (and nearly last) was followed, during most Easter vacations, with trips 

related to Ellen’s research interests, across mainland Greece, Turkey from the Aegean Shore 

to the Syrian border, but notably to ancient Rhodes, and also to Cyprus, Crete, France, 

Italy, and Albania. Sometimes the two of us, but frequently with friend and colleague John 

Penney (they shared the driving; I cowered in the back, attempting to navigate). 

PERSONAL NEWS 

In the late 1990s, Ellen was approached by Sutton Publishing to contribute biographies of 

Alexander the Great and Cleopatra to their Sutton Pocket Biographies series. Alexander was 

first published in 1997, with a second edition in 2004; there was a Greek version, one with 

a cover at least in Chinese, and a version published in Portuguese in Rio de Janeiro in 2005; 

in all there were seven editions. Cleopatra was published in 1999. Otherwise there were 

biographies in Who was Who in the Greek World, publications on ancient Rhodes (notably 

the grottos), texts of Rhodian family monuments, and innumerable reviews. 

To return to Wolfson. Ellen was successively a Junior Research Fellow and then Senior 

Research Fellow, and was elected to the Governing Body in 1988, where she served until 

2020: 32 years in all. Of these six were devoted to the College Development Campaign, 

with ten as Domestic Bursar, presiding over the running of everything from the gardening 

staff, day nursery and catering, to accommodation. As successive Bursars and Presidents 

learnt, she was a woman of firm principle. There were other contributions, as Dean of 

Degrees, student advisor, member of every committee from Academic Policy (which she 

chaired) to Wine, and organiser of lecture series and editing the results: Revolution and 

Counter-Revolution (1991) and The Sea and History (1995). She was Senior Pro-Proctor 

during Jeremy Black’s term as Senior Proctor (1995–96); such was the excellence of her 

Latin pronunciation that she became part of the cast of the proctorial training cassette. Her 

last contribution, extending to retirement, was as Fellow Archivist. 

College responsibilities did not preclude other contributions to University life: tutoring, 

lecturing (the Alexander the Great option), acting as assessor and examiner in Ancient and 

Modern History, and (unlikely as it may seem) as a member of the University Delegacy of 

Military Instruction. 

We met on her first evening in Wolfson on 25 October 1978, and our friendship, and then 

marriage, lasted for nearly forty-five years. 

A full and busy life, cut short. 

Jim Kennedy (EF), 3 June 2023 

95 


MEMORIES OF WOLFSON 

Photo: WOLFSON.OX.AC.UK 

George Mather 

96

Memories 

From Tibet to Oxford 

by Darig Thokmay (GS 2018–) 

Greetings. I am Darig Thokmay, a DPhil student committed to the in-depth exploration of 

Tibetan and Chinese History. My life narrative unfolds from eastern Tibet – Amdo, where I 

was born under Chinese occupation. My story echoes many Tibetans’ courageous narrative 

as I fled my homeland as a political refugee. I braved the towering, frost-kissed peaks of the 

Himalayas, a treacherous trek to freedom on foot, an odyssey of survival and hope. 


The dreams I nurtured in the verdant 

expanse of my father’s farm fields in the 

Tibetan countryside found their fulfilment 

within the intellectual walls of Oxford 

University. A dream that seemed so distant 

beneath the vast Tibetan skies has assumed 

a tangible form here in Oxford. 

The University has been my intellectual 

abode for four memorable years, learning 

and engaging with various scholars. The 

sun is swiftly setting on this chapter of my 

journey: within two months I will finish my 

thesis and bid farewell to my remarkable life 

in Oxford. 

Photo: Phuntsok Dhundop 

My College years are richly embroidered with countless memorable and transformative 

experiences. Every thread of camaraderie, every hue of learning and pattern of growth 

bears testimony to the nurturing environment fostered by the College and its dedicated 

staff. Their unyielding support and friendship have woven a cocoon of warmth around me, 

fostering my personal and academic growth. 

In gratitude, I dedicate these words to each College member whose unwavering 

commitment has breathed life into my years here. You have turned my Oxford journey into 

a mesmerising dance of memories, each step steeped in meaning and filled with significance. 

Thank you for weaving my College years into an unforgettable narrative. 

97 


From Uruguay to Oxford 

by Edith Sim (GS 1973-76, HMCR 2021–) 

The Bob Sim Uruguay Award was established at Wolfson in 2021 to commemorate the 

collaboration between the late Bob Sim (an alumnus) and the University of the Republic 

of Uruguay. It was officially inaugurated in April 2022 by the Uruguayan Ambassador, at a 

memorial dinner in Wolfson. One of its first recipients in 2022 was Dr. Álvaro Díaz, also 

an alumnus, who is now a professor in Montevideo. The other two recipients were Ana 

Ferreira and Florencia Irigoín, Uruguayan academics who had collaborated with Bob Sim. 

In 2023, Mariana Suárez received the Award. She is a graduate student of Álvaro Díaz and 

has already spent time in the UK, working with Professor Judi Allen in Manchester on a 

joint project on the proliferation of macrophages in the context of so-called type 2 immune 

responses, such as those mounted against worm infections. 

In June, Mariana visited Oxford and 

resided fruitfully in Wolfson where she 

was hosted by Edith Sim (HMCR) and 

Professor Christina Redfield (GBF), both in 

College and on a visit to the Biochemistry 

Department. She met other members 

of the College, including the President, 

at a Thursday dinner. She gave talks on 

her research to the Nuffield Department 

of Medicine and the Department of 

Pharmacology. Her trips included a visit to 

Bourton-on-the-Water, where she enjoyed 

the model village. Other highlights were 

punting on the Cherwell with Milan Fowkes 

wielding the pole, a concert in Wolfson, and 

Mariana Suárez (L) and Edith Sim (R) / Photo: Edith Sim 

dinners at famous spots which included the 

Trout Inn and the Victoria Arms. This memorable interlude of science, Wolfson memories 

and warm sunshine, culminated in a final dinner with other Spanish-speakers and Professor 

Ken Reid FRS, a former colleague of Bob Sim. 


Wolfson in History and Today 

by Philomen Probert (GBF), who spoke at this year’s Iffley Dinner which celebrates the origins of 

Wolfson 

You know you’re getting old when you’re asked to give the Iffley Dinner speech – you’re 

suspected of knowing something about the history of the College. It’s a great honour, but 

it’s also a bit scary, because looking around the room I can see plenty of people who 


98

know a good deal more about the history of the College than I do: the two authors of 

the wonderful book about the College’s first fifty years; the author of the wonderful 

book about the Meads across the river; the architect who designed a large portion of the 

buildings we enjoy today; people who were at 60 Banbury Road; people with personal 

connections to the College, going back decades; people with personal connections to Isaiah 

Berlin … I’ve learnt a great deal from many of you over the years, and I hope you’re not 

going to find this like one of those exam scripts where you get your own words repeated 

back to you in a rather garbled form. 

But I’d like to start by mentioning Ellen Rice, who sadly passed away recently. She came to 

Wolfson as a Junior Research Fellow in 1978, and when I came to the College in 1999 she 

was a Governing Body Fellow and Domestic Bursar. On my first day at Wolfson she said to 

me: ‘Welcome to Wolfson. This is a nice college.’ That was a lovely thing to hear on my first 

day, and I’ve often thought it’s surprisingly true, and I’ve been asking myself quite how we 

manage to have such a genuinely nice college. 


I don’t think there’s any one thing, and I’m not going to try to mention everything. I won’t 

mention the egalitarian ethos, the international outlook, the democratic governance, the 

participation of students in the governance of the College … I’m not sure the College’s 

motto is the key thing – humani nil alienum, ‘nothing human is alien’ – because I’m not sure 

how much difference mottoes really make to the feel of a place. 

Incidentally, as a classicist I can’t really read that motto without thinking of its original 

context in a comedy by the Roman playwright Terence. The character who says it has just 

been accused of poking his nose into things that are none of his business, and he delivers 

this off-the-cuff retort: I’m a human, there’s no such thing as human affairs that are none of 

my business. But the practice of quoting this line out of context starts already in antiquity 

– it’s quoted by Cicero, it’s quoted by Seneca – and over the centuries it’s been used and 

re-used in many different ways. Sometimes it stands for something like brotherly love 

towards fellow humans: St Augustine links it to the Christian concept of doing unto others 

as we would have them do unto us. Sometimes it stands for the idea that we shouldn’t be 

too judgemental – we should take all human behaviour in our stride. Sometimes it stands 

for the idea that we all have human failings. In Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment there’s a 

character who quotes the line to excuse his own appalling behaviour: I’m a human – what 

do you expect? To the founding Fellows of Wolfson it seems to have meant something like 

We support the study of Humanities subjects. And it stands to reason that it’s not all about 

Terence, if we consider the history of human habitation in this area. 

Our species arrived in Britain around 40,000 years ago; there were Neanderthal humans 

before that (I’m not going to go back to Homo heidelbergensis, that’s too long ago) – but 

it was cold then. And yet it wasn’t desperately cold. It wasn’t ice everywhere: there was 

grassland, there were large herds of grazing animals. But then around 25,000 years ago, it 

got really cold – too cold for humans, and they disappeared from Britain. Around 15,000 

99 


years ago they perhaps tried to come back, but that didn’t really work for long. But then 

around 12,000 years ago, the ice melted. In this area, it released a layer of limestone gravel; 

and on top of this, over the centuries the river Cherwell deposited sediment from the 

Cotswolds, making the slightly alkaline alluvial soil which supports the grasses and flowers 

that thrive on the Meads. (In a couple of weeks the buttercups should be in flower.) And 

with the warmer weather, humans found their way back, and in due course there’s evidence 

from the Neolithic Period and the Bronze Age of human activity near here. The University 

Parks were a Bronze Age cemetery, it seems. 

But if we fast-forward to the Roman period, this wasn’t a Roman site. I’m drawing now on 

a lecture at Wolfson by Martin Henig, ‘Were there Romans at Wolfson?’ It turns out there 

were Romans in Oxfordshire at least: I once had the privilege of seeing the Roman villa 

at North Leigh with Susan Walker, when we had an Away Day nearby for the Governing 

Body, and some of us sneaked off in one of the breaks to look at the villa. But there were 

no Romans at Wolfson, only evidence that the river was in use; so if they were at Wolfson, 

they were probably punting past it. But they wouldn’t have stopped here, because there 

was no punt harbour in those days. In fact, even centuries later, if you look at Alison 

McDonald’s beautiful book about the Meads, there is a map of Marston from 1605, which 

shows our bend of the Cherwell and the fields on the other side – but no punt harbour. It 

was part of Powell and Moya’s design for the College when it came here. 

When Wolfson moved to this site in 1974, it was radical and ahead of its time. In 2023 

it’s difficult – or at least I find it difficult – to picture the scepticism Isaiah Berlin faced for 

his belief in graduate education in Oxford and in embracing the whole range of academic 

subjects, including the natural sciences. Despite having the humanities in its motto, the 

natural sciences were to be a key part of the whole operation. 


A challenge which an institution faces that was ahead of its time in the 1960s is one that 

the London Underground also faces. In 1863, London opened the first underground railway 

in the world. Today, London has a tube system with rather old infrastructure. Some of it’s 

been upgraded over the years; some of it was going to be upgraded before the Second 

World War, and then the war got in the way; some of it is still desperately in need of 

upgrading. Until recently we had college buildings consisting to an alarming extent of singleglazed 

windows, put in at a time when energy was cheap and it wasn’t yet clear that life on 

this planet faces a serious threat, this time not from things getting too cold but from things 

getting too warm. I’m very proud of the decarbonisation work the College has done, and of 

everybody who has put up with inconvenience while that work has been going on. To me 

that’s a sign of a college that keeps on caring, and taking the bull by the horns, and not only 

when it’s convenient to do so. 

The writer finished by toasting the memory of Iffley and the future of Wolfson. She is indebted to 

the sources below, and to conversations with members of Wolfson; and also (for the afterlife of 

the line of Terence) with Aneta Kliszcz at the Jesuit University Ignatianum in Kraków. 


100

R Beckley and D Radford, 2012. ‘Oxford archaeological resource assessment 2011: 

Neolithic to Bronze Age’. Version 28/1/2012. 

L Hendry, ‘Human evolution: first Britons’. (accessed 14 April 2023) 

H D Jocelyn, 1973. ‘Homo sum: humani nil a me alienum puto (Terence, Heauton 

timorumenos 77)’. Antichthon 7, 14–46. 

J McAlhany, 2014. ‘Crumbs, thieves, and relics: translation and alien humanism’. Educational 

Theory 64, 439–61. 

Alison W McDonald, 2009. A history and ecology of North and South Meads. Oxford: 

Wolfson College. 


G Masefield, letter of 14 September 1966. College Archives. 

Oxford University Museum of Natural History and 

(accessed 14 April 2023) 

John H W Penney and Roger S O Tomlin, 2016. Wolfson College, Oxford: the first fifty years. 

Oxford: Wolfson College. 

101 




Photo: Judith Palmer 102

Byzantium Then and Now 

by Elena Drăghici-Vasilescu (MCR) 

Other Contributions 

Byzantium Then and Now is the art exhibition I curated at Wolfson between 23 April and 

24 June 2023, with works by the artists Aleksandras Aleksejevas, Christabel Anderson, 

Irina Bradley and Elena Narinskaya. Most of their pieces are made in techniques inherited 

from Byzantium, such as painting on wood panel or making icons out of metal. Ivory also 

was used in the Eastern Roman Empire (AD 330–1453), and examples can be found in 

museums and art galleries around the world, but now that elephants are protected, there 

was no ivory in the exhibition, only paper, wood and metal. 

OTHER CONTRIBUTIONS 

The Archangel Gabriel, egg tempera and ‘shell gold’ on paper, by Christabel Anderson 

Photo: Elena Draghici-Vasilescu 

The Byzantines used the same visual motifs to decorate not only their houses, their shrines 

and public places, but also their manuscripts. They ‘illuminated’ them, sometimes with 

letters which are ‘historiated’ or ‘inhabited’, examples of which were in the exhibition. It 

was impossible to include frescoes and mosaics, for obvious reasons, despite these being 

favourite Byzantine media, but many of their visual themes are shared by ‘post-Byzantine’ 

art, making them familiar to anyone who came to the exhibition. 

103 


At the formal opening, it was mentioned that the display was very suitable for teaching 

purposes. Most of the icons were at eye-level, and could be examined closely so as to 

observe the brush-strokes and the individual style of each artist. The artists who once 

worked – like those who are still working – in accordance with Byzantine manuals 

(hermeneias) are called ‘iconographers’. But while their work is guided by a written typicon 

which they follow strictly, their individual styles are still quite distinctive. 

I might add to the exhibition a few remarks about the art of the Byzantine Empire and of 

what specialists call ‘Byzantium beyond Byzantium’. Many of the pigments used in ‘Meta- 

Byzantine’ or post-Byzantine painting are obtained in traditional ways: either from plants 

or from the soil – from stones such as lapis lazuli, which from very early in history has 

been ground up to make the colour ultramarine. The ancient Egyptians used it before 

the Byzantines, and it is still used by iconographers today. But it is very expensive, so in 

Byzantium the colour is usually seen in royal foundations or in those established by other 

rich patrons. This can be seen in Göreme, Cappadocia, a Byzantine province from the 

fourth century until the eleventh, where I did a few years’ research. In Göreme there are 

two churches called Tokalı – the Old Tokalı and the New – both dating from the tenth 

century. They stand next to each other, but by comparing the two, it becomes obvious 

that the New Tokalı was erected by imperial initiative: not only were gold and silver added 

to its wall-paintings, but it was embellished with generous quantities of lapis lazuli. In fact 

inscriptions there indicate that the Emperor Nikephoros II Phokas (963–69) and his family 

funded the decoration, which may well have the work of iconographers drawn from the 

capital itself, from Byzantium. Nikephoros was born in Cappadocia in 912, and in 945 

achieved high office under the Emperor Constantine VII Porphyrogenitus (913–59) as 

strategos of the Anatolikon Theme. 


The exhibition at Wolfson attracted many visitors – often specialists – from Europe as far 

as Athens, from various cities of the USA, from Quebec in Canada, and of course the UK 

and Oxford. A school in Birmingham sent fifteen pupils and their teacher, and my own 

students in the Faculty of History came, not to mention others from Wolfson itself and the 

University’s Byzantine Society. In some weeks I was addressing large and small groups at the 

exhibition almost every day, and often I met artists and art historians, and colleagues in my 

own field of Byzantine and medieval culture, who provided me with scholarly discussion of 

great value. 

May I suggest for further reading two of my own books, Between Tradition and Modernity: 

Icons and Iconographers in Romania (2009) and Glimpses into Byzantium. Its Philosophy and 

Arts (Oxford, 2021); and my paper ‘Shrines and Schools in Byzantine Cappadocia’ in Journal 

of Early Christian History, 9.1 (2019), 1–29. I have also posted a film of the exhibition: The 

exhibition of Post Byzantine icons ‘Byzantium then and Now’ 2023 – YouTube . 


104

Celsius at Wolfson 

by Ian Hembrow (VS) 

Two images of Wolfson will linger from the past year: the punt harbour baked dry by the 

scorching summer heat of 2022, and the buildings cloaked in scaffolding during the net zero 

transformation. 


Above: The Punt Harbour in August 2022 

Photo: Ian Hembrow 

Both images signal the dramatic climate 

change happening here on our doorstep 

and everywhere else in the world. And 

both are connected to why I found myself 

studying at Wolfson: Celsius. 

Most people know about the United 

Nations’ target to limit the increase in 

average global temperatures to no more 

than 1.5 degrees Celsius above preindustrial 

levels by 2050. But what else do 

we know about the person behind this 

unit of measurement, whose name is now 

stamped on the future of humanity? 

Left: Anders Celsius aged 22, newly appointed as 

professor of astronomy. Portrait by Olof Arenius, c.1730 

Photo: Wikimedia Commons 

105 


Who was Celsius? 

What do we know about him? Until recently, my answer would have been ‘not very much’. 

I knew there once was someone called Celsius, just as there was a Fahrenheit. But that was 

about all, until I came across the former observatory of Professor Anders Celsius 

(1701–44) in the centre of Uppsala in southern Sweden. When my friend pointed out the 

squat, yellow building standing at an angle to the modern street, it stopped me in my tracks. 

I resolved there and then to find out more about this little-known man with the wellknown 

name. 

Uppsala is much like Oxford – a compact, 

historical city dominated by its university. 

This is where Celsius was born, worked 

for most of life, and died from tuberculosis 

aged just 42. He was the third generation 

of scientists to hold the professorship 

of astronomy at Uppsala University, 

but his academic success was far from 

guaranteed. His family lost their home and 

most of their possessions when the city 

was engulfed in flames in 1702, although 

crucially the precious books belonging 

to Celsius’ grandfather were saved. They 

became the foundation for his later 

education. 


The young Celsius was a precocious talent. 

During my research, I saw his geometry 

exercise book from when he was 16. The 

pages are covered in exquisite, curling text 

and pin-sharp, quill pen diagrams. At 21, he 

began taking daily measurements of sun, 

rainfall and wind. This started the Uppsala 

Weather Series, which has continued 

uninterrupted ever since. Three centuries 

later, it’s one of the world’s longest data 

sequences, and arguably the origin of 

climate science. 

A page from the 16-year-old Celsius’ geometry exercise 

book, Carolina Rediviva Library, Uppsala. 

Photo: Ian Hembrow 

A royal breakthrough 

Academics today will empathise with the struggles of Celsius’ early career. Paid, permanent 

positions were hard to come by, and even when he was appointed professor in 1730, 

he had to take on extra teaching and other jobs to get by. But his big break came in 


106

1732 when he departed for a scientific tour of Europe. His mission was to visit the great 

astronomical observatories of Germany, Italy, France and Britain, and then return with the 

knowhow to create something similar in Uppsala. 

In Rome, Celsius met Pope Clement, and in London he worked at Greenwich Royal 

Observatory with Sir Edmond Halley. But it was at l’Académie des Sciences in Paris that he 

made his most important connections. The charismatic young Swede caught the attention 

of King Louis XV. The king had just commissioned an expedition to the Arctic to help settle 

one of the key scientific debates of the age – the exact shape of the Earth. The idea was to 

compare measurements taken in the far north with those from another expedition, which 

had already set off for equatorial South America. 


An undertaking like this needed highly skilled and physically courageous scientists, and 

Celsius was exactly the right person, in the right place at the right time. In 1737, he 

returned to Sweden having proved that the Earth is not a perfect sphere but slightly 

flattened at its poles. This had profound implications for calendars, navigation, trade and 

empires, and thanks to the gift of a lifetime pension from a grateful Louis XV, it secured his 

reputation and future. 

Celsius here and now 

Celsius’ most famous invention – his one-hundred-point ‘centi-grade’ temperature scale – 

came almost at the end of his life. And he did not live to see it become the internationally 

recognised standard unit we use today. It is also a curious fact that his original version was 

inverted – with zero degrees as boiling and 100 as freezing. Exactly who decided to turn it 

the other way up, or why, is much disputed. 

What we can see and know for sure, though, is that Celsius and what he represents are 

with us here and now. The name and legacy of this modest and mild-mannered young 

Swede resonate around the place where we live and learn. 

Ian Hembrow’s biography CELSIUS – A Life And Death By Degrees is due for publication by 

The History Press in autumn 2024. 

107 


The Jungle Book illustrated 

If you go into the Library from the Marble Hall, you will see a series of framed lithographic 

prints hanging on the wall to your left. They have been there on long-term loan from the 

family of Ben Simpson (MCR 1987–), a loan recently extended by agreement with his 

daughter Helen. 

Ben writes: 

‘Throughout my childhood, it had been my pleasure and privilege to listen to stories taken 

from Kipling’s Jungle Book; at an early age I was introduced to the dramatic illustrations 

of those stories, created by the Detmold Brothers, twins who exhibited at the Royal 

Academy at the age of 13. Their talents, and Kipling’s stories, were chosen by my mother, 

who purchased a portfolio containing the prints in the late 1940s, to soften the harshness 

of other tales of India, told to me as an infant, by an Anglo-Indian child-minder. I hope that 

my family copies of the Detmold Brothers’ Jungle Book lithographs may be displayed in the 

College Library for a considerable time to come.’ 

And here is a summary of the entry in the Allgemeines Lexikon der bildenden Künstler, based 

on a translation by Professor Benito Müller (SF): 

Charles Maurice Detmold and Edward Julius Detmold were English graphic artists, twins, 

born on 21 November 1883. Because of their father’s illness, they grew up in the care 

of their uncle, Dr E B Shuldham, who had acquired a notable collection of Japanese 

woodblock prints of plants and animals. This encouraged the twins to begin drawing 

animals and plants at a very early age, and resulted in their debut at the age of 13 at the 

Royal Academy and the Royal Institute of Watercolour Painters, with nature studies in the 

Japanese style. Subsequently they learned the techniques of etching and printing in colour 

from copper plates. 


In 1898 they published their first sequence of colour etchings of animals and flowering 

plants in the Japanese style. These were much admired and quickly went out of print. 

They achieved real success in 1900 in a special exhibition at the gallery of the Fine Art 

Society in London. In later works the influence of Albrecht Dürer becomes apparent. The 

watercolour illustrations for Kipling’s Jungle Book were published in 1903 by Macmillan as 

coloured lithographs, making the twins ‘notoriously popular’. These illustrations, despite a 

certain colourfulness and fantasy in inventing tropical jungle scenery, still possess an intrinsic 

charm and display the masterly craft and high technical standard of their previous work. 

Maurice Detmold, probably the more gifted of the two, killed himself in 1908 at the age 

of 25 by inhaling chloroform. Edward Detmold went on illustrating books, notably Aesop’s 

Fables, and Maeterlinck’s Hours of Gladness and the Life of the Bee. He worked on animal 

compositions and nature impressions, but almost exclusively in coloured lithography. In 

retirement his eyesight began to fail, and he suffered from severe depression, finally shooting 

himself in 1957. 


108

The Bunker 

by Nicholas Márquez-Grant (MCR) and Liz Baird (Archivist) 

In ‘Remembering where the bomber crashed’, the Record for 2014 (pp. 36–42) described 

the unveiling of a plaque to commemorate the crash of a World War II bomber on the 

site of the Auditorium. Building and maintenance work nearby in 2022 has now uncovered 

another reminder of the War, an underground air-raid shelter or bunker in the garden of 

14 Chadlington Road. Overall it measures 8.50 by 5.50 m, with its concrete asphalt-coated 

roof projecting 0.50 m above the ground. 


Photo: Nicholas Márquez-Grant 

The entrance is to the right, by a flight of 

concrete steps; in the walls on either side 

can still be seen the plank-marks left by the 

timber framing into which the concrete was 

poured. 

Photo: Nicholas Márquez-Grant 

109 

These steps lead to a small lobby with 

store-room and toilet, and then to the 

main room with an exit-shaft at the far end. 

Overall, this bunker (to dignify it by the 

term) resembles the design of an air-raid 

shelter published in 1938 by the newlycreated 

Air Raid Precautions Department, 


which has suggested that it was built in the very late ’30s, when the threat – and fear – of 

war with Hitler’s Germany was much increased. But the sophisticated internal fittings 

suggest it was not just a shelter. Its main, concrete-built room not only had a wooden floor, 

it was neatly panelled in wood, with shelves and built-in desks. It even had electrical lighting. 


Old Wolves visit the bunker / Photo: Nicholas Márquez-Grant 

Like the pottery found on a Roman site, there is even a hint in the archaeology of the 

bunker as to how it might have been used – a wooden crate stamped with ‘J B Kind. 

Boxmaker. Burton-on-Trent’, a company which during the War made boxes for ammunition 

and other military material. It is tempting to see the bunker, not as an elaborate shelter 

for the two elderly ladies who then lived at 14 Chadlington Road, but as a well-protected 

underground office for some branch of military intelligence. 

The jury is still out on this, but meanwhile LiDAR laser scanning has been done, and the 

College maintenance staff has secured the site, removing a small quantity of asbestos and 

making it weather-proof. Perhaps it will now acquire a new, peacetime role; not to the 

extent of becoming a tourist attraction like Bletchley Park, but as a safe store, maybe for 

wine or some of the College archives. 

Dr Nicholas Márquez-Grant (GS 1999–2006) is Senior Lecturer in Forensic Archaeology at 

Cranfield University, where he is working with Maria Cunningham, also of the University, to 

publish a full account of the bunker. 


110

Christmas Cards for Prisoners 

by Helen Kosc (GS) 

‘The mood and temper of the public in regard to the treatment of criminals is one of the most 

unfailing tests of civilization of any country’ (Winston Churchill, as Home Secretary in 1910) 

In July 2023 there were more than 80,000 inmates in UK prisons and more than 11 

million persons with a criminal record. Crime rates in England and Wales continue to 

drop, according to the Office for National Statistics (2022), but according to the Ministry 

of Justice (2021), the prison population has risen by 74% in the last thirty years and is 

projected to reach 97,500 by July 2025. 


In working for a DPhil in Sociology, I have investigated the resettlement journeys of 150 

prison-leavers over 18 months, a long-term ethnographic study in collaboration with the 

Ministry of Justice and the office of the Police and Crime Commissioner. My research 

has made me a firm advocate of prison reform, to make it an environment that prepares 

inmates for their eventual resettlement into the community. In more than seven years of 

volunteer experience of Canadian and British prisons, I have seen the impact that human 

kindness can have in an isolated, lonely space like prison. For prisoners to know that 

someone cares and is willing to volunteer their time goes a long way to help them realize 

their own worth as members of the community and, even more importantly, to enhance 

their potential for a successful reintegration. 

This prompted me to organize an event 

in which members of the University could 

volunteer a bit of their time to show 

kindness to those in prison. For prisoners, 

as for many of us, Christmas can be an 

especially difficult and lonely time of the 

year. What better way, then, of showing 

someone in prison that someone is still 

thinking about them, than by sending a 

Christmas card from the University of 

Oxford; by showing that they have not been 

forgotten by the world’s brightest minds 

and researchers? 

On Wednesday 7 December 2022, I 

organized an event for Oxford students 

from different colleges and disciplines to 

come together to create Christmas cards 

for the inmates of H M Prison at Bullingdon. 

My own research and volunteering had 

Photo: Helen Kosc 

111 


given me contacts there, and I gained permission from the Governor. This event was the 

first of its kind at Oxford and took place in Wolfson, where it was supported by the Social 

and Cultural Committee. It was a great success, with staff and students making more than 

three hundred Christmas cards sure to put smiles on the faces of those in need. Many of 

those who came expressed their joy in being able to give time to a charitable activity and to 

get together for a good cause. 

Photo: Helen Kosc 

These cards were distributed to Bullingdon 

inmates next week, and I learned of their 

heart-warming reception by prison staff as 

well as by the recipients themselves. I cannot 

overstate the impact of receiving a thoughtful 

Christmas card on a day when you feel 

most alone. I hope this event will become 

a tradition at Wolfson as it becomes ever 

more urgent to support those in custody, a 

tradition that I hope will extend in future to women prisoners as well as men. 

This heart-warming event left everyone feeling grateful; those who gave and those who 

received, they both felt the spirit of Christmas. Thank you, everyone who volunteered your 

time, and the College for making it possible. The message of the cards is simple: everyone 

can use a bit of kindness. 

The Marsh Project 

by Alison McDonald (MCR), Timothy King (MCR) and Konradin Eigler (GS) 


Storing and sequestering carbon while increasing biodiversity – this is the aim of the Marsh 

Project which has been jointly run by the Green Team and Members of Common Room 

since May 2022. The Marsh is an area of about 3,140 m2 of grassland owned by Wolfson 

College and located between the river Cherwell, the harbour and the barbecue area. Over 

the past few years, the area has not been managed. Before this year, it was last cut in 2015, 

which is why it has recently been covered by tall, rank vegetation. 

We worked on the hypothesis that the Marsh area – just like North and South Mead 

which are also owned by Wolfson – could historically have been MG4 grassland. This was 

confirmed by analysis of the soil which revealed low phosphate levels. The combination of 

regular flooding and management to maximise productivity (hay-cut in Summer, aftermath 

grazing by young cattle or sheep until the end of October) makes MG4 floodplain meadows 

into a habitat for rare specialist species. Many of these sites have disappeared since the 

nineteenth century because of enhanced drainage, ploughing, fertilisation and the reduction 

in hay-cutting. It is estimated that only 1,500 ha of intact MG4 land remain in Britain, but 

there are now several schemes to regenerate them, particularly along the Thames and 

Cherwell in Oxford. 


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We estimate tentatively from our analysis of the soil that the carbon stored in the Marsh 

amounts to about 58 tonnes. Reintroducing traditional management will help to prevent 

this carbon from being released into the atmosphere and encourage a considerable 

increase in species richness. Since the College has already committed considerable funds 

to implement an annual hay cut from this July onwards, we are all the more enthusiastic 

to continue our work over the next year. This includes the transfer of hay with ripe seeds 

from South Mead which will be strewn over the Marsh to reintroduce MG 4 species. 

The Green Team will monitor the progress of the project and announce volunteering 

opportunities so that the entire community can help restore this rare piece of land. 

Sources and Further Reading 

R.G. Jefferson and C.E. Pinches, ‘The Conservation of Flood-plain Meadows in Great Britain. 

An overview’, Fritillary. The Journal of the Ashmolean Natural History Society of Oxfordshire and 

the Berkshire, Buckinghamshire and Oxfordshire Wildlife Trust 5 (2011), 11–24. 

A. McDonald, A History and Ecology of North and South Meads (Wolfson College, Oxford 

2009). 

K. Reiss, Towards Creating a Model County for Ecosystem Restoration. Examining the Carbon 

Storage Potential of Floodplains in Oxfordshire (MSc thesis, Department of Geography and the 

Environment, University of Oxford 2021). 

E. Rothero, S. Lake and D. Gowing (eds.), Floodplain Meadows – Beauty and Utility. A 

Technical Handbook (Milton Keynes 2016). 

113 


The Legal Fight for Clean Rivers 

by Carolyn Roberts (MCR 2009–) 

Looking out from Wolfson Harbour on a sunny day, watching the punts go by in leisurely, 

disorderly fashion and the dragonflies dipping over the surface of the Cherwell, you 

would be forgiven for assuming that the College has preserved its natural surroundings in 

pristine condition. But in 2022 alone, 25 sewage discharges were recorded just 25 miles 

upstream at Banbury Sewage Treatment Works – and this is to speak only of those that 

Thames Water has disclosed to the public. As a water and environment consultant with a 

deep passion for rivers, I have been investigating and researching the condition of Britain’s 

watercourses for years. As has been widely reported, our rivers are in a deplorable state, 

both ecologically and chemically. And I am now at the forefront of a class-action lawsuit 

against six of the UK’s largest water companies, aimed at seeking justice for their customers 

and redress for alleged environmental damage. 



Water is life. Rivers are the basis of many ecosystems and underpin biodiversity; they are 

of fundamental environmental importance. But to my mind, rivers are also part of our 

natural heritage. They belong – or they should belong – to everybody. In my view, they 

are part of something that we should all be able to enjoy in common ownership. As a 

child, I lived on the edge of a city and I played in rivers without any serious consequences, 

swinging out across the water on ropes, without caring whether I put my head below the 

water. Nowadays, it’s hard to imagine people allowing their children to do that, and this 

sad change is the result of a disregard for our shared environment by key actors including, 

allegedly, the UK’s largest water companies. 

The problem is not a new one, and progress has been made since the days when 

Britain was known as the ‘Dirty Man of Europe’. In the 1960s, our water was in a much 

worse condition owing largely to industrial pollution from factories and mines, which 


114

was subsequently regulated by European legislation. As a result, pollution in UK rivers 

today stems primarily from two other sources: sewage discharges and agricultural runoff, 

including fertilizers and chemical effluent from farms. The privatisation of the water 

companies in the late 1980s was expected to generate investment to address these issues, 

but this was limited, and progress stalled after about five years. Forty years on, with a 

growing population and increased water usage in households, we are generating more 

sewage than ever before and attempting to handle the problem with twentieth-century 

infrastructure. Meanwhile, climate change has begun to generate drought events that are 

exacerbated by persistent, unaddressed leakage in our supply networks, whereas extreme 

rainstorms are severely stressing our sewerage system. 


Against this backdrop, activists and academics including myself have begun to fight for 

change. The recent national conversation over water quality was kick-started in Oxfordshire 

by Professor Peter Hammond and WaSP (Windrush against Sewage Pollution) when they 

monitored the deterioration of the River Windrush, which winds its way past Burford 

and Witney before joining the Thames above Oxford. Their dedicated work attracted 

media attention and, before long, legal firms interested in pursuing a test case. This is 

approximately where I come in: I was approached by Leigh Day and Matrix Chambers 

to act as the Class Representative in a legal action against six of the largest English water 

and sewerage companies, who are accused of polluting our rivers by allowing untreated 

sewage to spill into them. I will allege that bill-paying households have been (and continue 

to be) overcharged for sewerage services as a result of these companies misleading 

their regulators, OFWAT and the Environment Agency, about the number of pollution 

incidents since 2015 involving the discharge or spill of raw sewage into the environment at 

wastewater works. 

I have long advocated better protections for our rivers, but when I first became involved in 

this legal case, I naïvely assumed that it would link river pollution with the perpetrators of 

the pollution, on the grounds of environmental harm. But the difficulty of proving harm to 

the environment means that the case will proceed instead within the frame of competition 

law, since the privatised water companies are effectively monopolies: customers cannot 

choose their supplier. Sewage spills are most likely to occur after heavy rainfall, but 

preliminary analysis suggests that there is widespread contamination even in dry conditions, 

that some of the monitoring equipment is not functioning as intended, and consequently 

many spills are not being reported. Our case alleges that the named water companies have 

misled the regulators and failed their domestic customers; and if we succeed, money will be 

refunded to those customers. 

The water companies still talk about the need for customers to trust them, but this trust 

has to be earned. In recent years, people in the UK have increasingly begun to understand 

our natural environment as common property and a shared heritage: this is partly thanks 

to Sir David Attenborough and other environmentalists, but also due to our spending 

more time in nature, particularly in the wake of the pandemic. We have seen increased 

115 


concern about air quality in our cities and water quality of our rivers and coast. The water 

companies have, I believe, underestimated the strength of public feeling, the desire to 

protect what should rightly be common property, and indeed the contempt the public 

feels towards those who infringe upon and injure that common property. I have been 

delighted by the universal support I have received from family and friends who know of my 

involvement in the case. But my long-term wish is, quite simply, that children should be able 

to paddle in streams without their parents having to think too much about whether it is 

safe to do so. I would like our rivers to be sparkling and full of life, for all to enjoy. 

Carolyn Roberts is a water and environment consultant, the first Frank Jackson Professor 

of the Environment at Gresham College, London (2014–18) and former Director of the 

Environmental Sustainability Knowledge Transfer Network at Oxford, who will represent 

the interests of the customers of these water companies. She is passionate about rivers, 

and determined that our children’s heritage should be better protected. The case is 

supported by legal teams at London-based solicitors Leigh Day and counsel at Matrix 

Chambers, with data analytics services from AlixPartners. Funding is being provided by 

Bench Walk. Professor Peter Hammond, mathematician and AI researcher, is providing 

specialist advice. 




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EDITTOR’S NOTE 

117 Photo: John Cairns 


Editor’s Note 

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This Record covers the academic year from 2022 to 2023. 


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Wolfson College, Linton Road, Oxford OX2 6UD 

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College Record 2022/23

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