Somerville College Report 2024

College Report

2023-2024

Visitor, Principal, Fellows, Lecturers, Staff

Visitor

The Rt Hon The Lord Patten of Barnes, CH, PC, Chancellor of the University

Principal

Jan Royall, Baroness Royall of Blaisdon, PC, MA, (BA Lond)

Vice-Principal

Lois McNay, MA, (PhD Cantab), Professor of the Theory of Politics, Shirley Williams Fellow in Politics and Tutor in Politics

Fellows

Prateek Agrawal, (B.Tech Bombay, PhD Maryland), Associate Professor of Physics and Tutor in Physics

Daniel Anthony, MA, (PhD Lond), Professor of Experimental Neuropathology and Tutor in Medicine

Jonathan Burton, MA, (PhD Cantab), Professor of Organic Chemistry, Sue and Kevin Scollan Fellow and Tutor in Chemistry

Dan Ciubotaru, (BSc, MA Babes-Bolyai, PhD Cornell), The Diana Brown Fellow and Tutor in Pure Mathematics; Professor of Mathematics

Robert Davies, DPhil, (BSc Toronto, MSc Ottowa), Associate Professor of Statistics and Tutor in Statistics

Julie Dickson, MA, DPhil, (LLB Glasgow), Professor of Legal Philosophy and Tutor in Law

Samantha Sebastian, (PhD Sydney), Associate Professor in Music and Tutor in Music

Beate Dignas, MA, DPhil, (Staatsexamen Münster), Associate Professor of Ancient History, Barbara Craig Fellow and Tutor in Ancient History

Emily Flashman, DPhil, (BSc Soton), Associate Professor in Molecular Plant Sciences and Tutor in Biology

Christopher Hare, BCL, (Dip. D’Etudes Jurid. Poitiers, MA Cantab, LLM Harvard), Associate Professor of Law and Tutor in Law

Michael Hayward, MA, DPhil, Professor of Inorganic Chemistry and Tutor in Chemistry

Michelle Jackson, (BSc PhD Lond), Associate Professor of Zoology and Tutor in Biology

Simon Robert Kemp, BA, MPhil, (PhD Cantab), Associate Professor in French and Tutor in French

James Ravi Kirkpatrick, BPhil

MA DPhil (BA R’dg, MLitt St And), Fixed-Term Fellow in Philosophy

Robin Klemm, (PhD Dresden), Associate Professor in Medicine and Tutor in Medicine

Margaryta Klymak, (MSc Edin, PhD Dublin), Tutor in Economics

Markos Koumaditis, Additional Fellow, (BA Ionian, MA RHUL, PhD KCL) FCIPD, Human Resources Director

Renaud Lambiotte, (MPhys PhD ULB Brussels) Professor of Networks and Nonlinear Systems and Tutor in Mathematics

Louise Mycock, (BA Durh, MA PhD Manc), Associate Professor of Linguistics and Tutor in Linguistics

Karen Margrethe Nielsen, (Cand mag, Cand philol Trondheim, MA, PhD Cornell), Associate Professor of Philosophy and Tutor in Philosophy

Natalia Nowakowska, MA, MSt, DPhil, Professor of Early Modern History and Tutor in History

Patricia Owens, (BSc Brist, MPhil Cantab, DPhil Aberystwyth) Professor of International Relations and Tutor in International Relations

Luke Pitcher, MA, MSt, DPhil, (PGCert Durh), Associate Professor of Classics and Tutor in Classics

Charlotte Potts, DPhil, (BA Victoria New Zealand, MA UCL), FSA, Sybille Haynes Associate Professor of Etruscan and Italic Archaeology and Art, Katherine and Leonard Woolley Fellow in Classical Archaeology and Tutor in Classical Archaeology

Elena Seiradake, (PhD Heidelberg), Professor of Molecular Biology and Tutor in Biochemistry

Francesca Southerden, BA, MSt, DPhil, Professor of Italian and Tutor in Italian

Charles Spence, MA, (PhD Cantab), Professor of Experimental Psychology and Tutor in Experimental Psychology

Fiona Stafford, MA, MPhil, DPhil, (BA Leicester), FRSE, FBA, D. Litt (Leic), Professor of English Language and Literature, Tutor in English Literature

Almut Maria Vera Suerbaum, MA, (Dr phil, Staatsexamen, Münster), Associate Professor of German and Tutor in German

Annie Sutherland, MA, DPhil, (MA Cantab), Professor of Medieval Literature, Rosemary Woolf Fellow and Tutor in English

Benjamin John Thompson, MA, DPhil, (MA, PhD Cantab), FRHistS, Associate Professor of Medieval History and Tutor in History and Associate Head (Education), Humanities Division

Damian Tyler, Additional Fellow, (MSci, PhD Nott), Professor of Physiological Metabolism

Konstantina Vogiatzaki, MA, (Master's NTUA, PhD Imp), Associate Professor of Engineering Science, Tutor in Engineering Science

Philip West, MA, (PhD Cantab), Associate Professor of English, Times Fellow and Tutor in English

Faridah Zaman, (BA, MPhil, PhD Cantab), Associate Professor in History and Tutor in History

Noa Zilberman, MA, (BSc, MSc, PhD Tel Aviv), Fellow of the Alan Turing Institute, Associate Professor of Engineering Science, Tutor in Engineering Science

Professorial Fellows

Colin Phillips, BA, (PhD MIT), Professor of Linguistics

Stephen Roberts, MA, DPhil, FREng, FIET, FRSS, MIOP, RAEng-Man Professor of Machine Learning

Steven Simon, MA, (PhD Harvard), Professor of Theoretical and Condensed Matter Physics

Iyiola Solanke, Academic Bencher, Honourable Society of the Inner Temple (BA Lond, MSc, PhD LSE), Jacques Delors Professor of European Law

Administrative Fellows

Sarah Butler, (BA Leeds, MA UCL, MCLIP), Librarian and Head of Information Services

Sara Kalim, MA, Director of Development

Andrew Parker, MA, (BA Liverpool), ACMA, Treasurer

Stephen Rayner, MA, (PhD Durh), FRAS, MInstP, Senior Tutor, Tutor for Graduates and Tutor for Admissions

Senior Research Fellows

Amalia Coldea, (MA, PhD Cluj-Napoca)

Stephanie Dalley, MA, (MA Cantab, PhD Lond), FSA

Colin Alexander Espie, (BSc MAppSci PhD DSc(Med) Glas), CPsychol, FMedSci, FBPsS, FRCGP(Hon), FAASM, Professor of Behavourial Sleep Medicine

Sir Marc Feldmann, (BSc, MBBS Melb, PhD WEHI), AC, MD, DMSc, FAA, FMedSci, FRCP, FRCPath, FRS, Emeritus Professor of Cellular Immunology

Manuele Gragnolati, MA, (Laurea in Lettere Classiche, Pavia, PhD Columbia, DEA Paris)

Sarah Gurr, MA, (BSc, PhD Lond), ARCS, DIC, Professor of Molecular Plant Pathology

John Ingram, (BSc KCL, MSc R'dg, PhD Wageningen NL)

Joanna Innes, MA, (MA Cantab)

Muhammad Kassim Javaid, (BMedSci, MBBS, PhD Lond), MRCP, Professor of Osteoporosis and Adult Rare Bone Diseases

Patricia Kingori, (BA, MSc RHUL, MSc UCL, PhD LSHTM), Professor of Global Health Ethics

Philip Kreager, DPhil

Simon Kyle, (MA, PhD Glasgow), Professor of Experimental and Clinical Sleep Research

Aditi Lahiri, CBE (BA, MA, PhD Calcutta, PhD Brown)

Catherine Mary MacRobert, MA, DPhil

Nicholas McKeown, (BEng Leeds, MS, PhD University of California, Berkeley)

Boris Motik, (MSc Zagreb, PhD Karlsruhe), Professor of Computer Science

Frans Plank, (Statsexamen Munich, MLitt Edin, MA Regensburg, DPhil Hanover)

Philip Poole, (BSc, PhD Murdoch)

Mason Porter, MA, (BS Caltech, MS, PhD Cornell)

Franklyn Prochaska, (PhD Northwestern University), FRHS

Tessa Rajak, MA, DPhil, FSA

Owen Rees, MA, (PhD Cantab), ARCO, Professor of Music

Alex David Rogers, (BSc, PhD Liv)

Rajesh Thakker, MA, DM, (MA, MD Cantab), FRS, FRCP, FRCPath, FMedSci

Renier van der Hoorn, (BSc, MSc Leiden, PhD Wageningen)

Roman Walczak, MA, (MSc Warsaw, Dr rer nat Heidelberg)

Stephen Weatherill, MA, (MA Cantab, MSc Edinburgh)

Jennifer Welsh, MA, DPhil, (BA Saskatchewan)

Matthew John Andrew Wood, MA, DPhil, (MB, ChB Cape Town), FMedSci

Senior Associates

Aaron Maniam, MPP, MA, DPhil, (MA Yale)

Jane Robinson, BA

Susan Thomas, (BA Manc, MA Liv)

Alexandra Vincent, (BA, MSc Open)

Research Fellows

Naveed Akbar, (BSc, MSc, PhD Dundee) FHEA, Associate Professor of Cardiovascular Science

Siddharth Arora, DPhil, (BTech DAIICT India), Healthcare/ Energy

Charlotte Doesburg, (BA Groningen, MA Helsinki, PhD UCL), Music Leverhulme Research Fellow

Pelagia Goulimari, (BA, MPhil Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, MA Essex, PhD Southampton), Feminist Studies

Jim Harris, (BA, MA, PhD Courtauld Institute of Art, Lond), Ashmolean

Radhika Khosla, BA, MPhys, (PhD Chicago), Conservation Biology

Dan Rogers, (MEng, PhD Imp Lond), Engineering

Byrony Sheaves, DPhil, (BSc Cardiff, D.Clin.Psy Institute Of Clinical Psychiatry), Experimental Psychology

Justin Sirignano, (BSE Princeton, PhD Stanford), Mathematics

Junior Research

Fellows

Dania Albini, (BA, MSt Parma, PhD Swansea ), Zoology

Sophie Arana, (BA FU Berlin, MSc Radboud, PhD International Max Planck School), Psychology

Maria Caiazza, DPhil (BA, MSc Pisa), Medicine

Joanna Demaree-Cotton, BA, BPhil (PhD Yale), Philosophy

Susan Bilynskyj Dunning, (BA Seattle Pacific, MA, PhD Toronto), Classics

Giuseppe Gava, (MEng, MRes PhD Imp Lond), Medicine

Tin-hang Hung, DPhil, (BSc CUHK), FLS, Biological Sciences

Andrea Kusec, (BA Toronto Metropolitan University, MSc McMaster University, PhD Cantab), Medicine

Elizabeth Mary MacGregor, (BA, MPhil Cantab, PhD Sheff), Music

Jay Patel, DPhil, (MChem Warw), Physics

Amanda Rojek, MSc, DPhil, (BM, BCh Queensland), Medicine

Marion Schuller, DPhil, (BSc, MSc Ludwig-Maximilians), Medicine

Thomas Siday, (MPhys York, PhD UCL), Physics

Emma Soneson, (BS, BS Yale, MPhil PhD Cantab), Psychology

Jemima Tabeart, (MMath Bath, MRes Imp/R'dg, PhD EPSRC R'dg), Mathematics

Jessica Thompson, (BA McGill, MA Dartmouth College, PhD Montreal), Psychology

Bjorn Vahsen, MSc (DM Georg-August ), Medicine

George Ward, (BA, MSc UCL, MS, PhD MIT Sloan School of Management), Economics

Silvia Zanoli, (Bachelor's and Master's Degree Universita degli Studi di Milano, PhD Max Planck Institut fur Physik), Physics

Rocco Zizzamia, MPhil, DPhil (Bachelor of Soc. Sci., BA University of Cape Town), Economics

British Academy Fellows

Vilija Velyvyte, MJur, MPhil(RES), DPhil, (BA, MJur Mykolas Romeris), Law

Ammar Azzouz, (BA Al-Baath University, Syria, MSc Salford, PhD Bath), Geography

Early Career Fellows

Aradhana Cherupara Vadekkethil, BCL, MPhil, DPhil (BA, LLB National Law University Delhi), Law

Jacqueline Siu, (BSc, UBC, PhD Cantab), Medicine

Career Development Fellow

Fay Probert, (BSc, MSc, PhD Warwick), Chemistry

Emeritus Fellows

Margaret Adams, MA, DPhil

Pauline Adams, MA, BLitt, (Dipl Lib Lond)

Lesley Brown, MA, BPhil

Marian Ellina Stamp Dawkins, CBE, MA, DPhil, FRS

Karin Erdmann, MA, (Dr rer nat Giessen)

Barbara Fitzgerald Harvey, CBE, MA, BLitt, FBA, FRHistS,

Judith Heyer, MA, (PhD Lond)

Julianne Mott Jack, MA

Carole Jordan, DBE, MA, (PhD Lond), FRS

Norma MacManaway, MA, (MA, MPhil Dublin, DEA Paris)

Anne Manuel, MA, (LLB Rdg, MA, MSc, PhD Bristol)

Helen Morton, MA, (MSc Boston, MA Cantab)

Hilary Ockendon, MA, DPhil, (Hon DSc Southampton)

Josephine Peach, BSc, MA, DPhil

Stephen Guy Pulman, MA, (MA, PhD Essex), FBA

Frances Julia Stewart, MA, DPhil, FAcSS

Richard Stone, MA, DPhil, FREng, FSAE, FIMechE

Angela Vincent, MA, MB, BS, (MSc Lond), FRS, FMedSci

Foundation Fellows

Lord Glendonbrook, CBE

Sir Geoffrey Leigh

Vicky Maltby, MA

Robert Ng

Lord Powell of Bayswater, KCMG, OBE

Mr Gavin Ralston, MA

Wafic Rida Saïd

Peggie Rimmer, DPhil

Kevin Scollan, MA

Susan Scollan, MA

Gopal Subramanium, SA, Bencher (Hon.), Gray’s Inn.

Honorary Fellows

Kiri Jeanette Te Kanawa, DBE, AC ONZ, Hon DMus

Carolyn Emma Kirkby, DBE, OBE, MA, Hon DMus, Hon DMus Bath, Hon DLitt Salf, FGSM

Hazel Mary Fox (Lady Fox), CMG, QC, MA

Averil Millicent Cameron, DBE, MA, DLitt (PhD London), FBA, FSA

Baroness O’Neill of Bengarve, CH, CBE, MA, (PhD Harvard), Hon DCL, FBA, Hon FRS, FMedSci

Kay Elizabeth Davies, DBE, CBE, MA, DPhil, FRS, Hon DSc Victoria Canada, FMedSci

Baroness Jay of Paddington, PC, BA

Irangani Manel Abeysekera, MA

Paula Pimlott Brownlee, MA, DPhil

Julia Stretton Higgins, CBE, MA, DPhil, Hon DSc, FRS, CChem, FRSC, CEng, FIM, FREng

Doreen Elizabeth Boyce, MA, (PhD Pittsburgh)

Ruth Hilary Finnegan, OBE, MA, BLitt, DPhil, FBA

Janet Margaret Bately, CBE, MA, FBA

Margaret Kenyon, MA

Clara Elizabeth Mary Freeman, OBE, MA

Jenny Glusker, MA, DPhil

Ann Rosamund Oakley, MA, (PhD Lond), Hon DLitt Salford, AcSS

Baroness Lucy Neville-Rolfe, DBE, CMG, MA

Judith Ann Kathleen Howard, CBE, DPhil, (BSc Bristol), FRS

Victoria Glendinning, CBE, MA

Nicola Ralston, BA

Antonia Byatt (D.16.11.2023), DBE, CBE, FRSL, BA

Anna Laura Momigliano Lepschy, MA, BLitt

Rosalind Mary Marsden, DCMG, MA, DPhil

Harriet Maunsell, OBE, MA

Hilary Spurling, CBE, BA

Catherine Jane Royle de Camprubi, MA

Nancy Rothwell, DBE, BSc, DS, (PhD Lond), FMedSci, FRS

Baroness Shriti Vadera, PC, BA

Elizabeth Mary Keegan, DBE, MA

Carole Hillenbrand, CBE, OBE, BA, (BA Cantab, PhD Edin), FBA, FRSE, FRAS, FRHistS

Angela McLean, DBE, BA, (MA Berkeley, PhD Lond), FRS

Michele Moody-Adams, BA, (BA Wellesley, PhD Harvard)

Judith Parker, DBE, QC, MA

Esther Rantzen, DBE, CBE, MA

Caroline Barron, OBE, MA, (PhD London), FRHistS

Emma Rothschild, CMG, MA

Venkatraman Ramakrishnan, Kt, (BSc Baroda, PhD Ohio), Nobel Laureate, FRS (President)

Tessa Ross, CBE, BA

Joanna Haigh, CBE, MA, DPhil, FRS, FRMetS

Akua Kuenyehia, BCL, (LLB University of Ghana)

Baroness Wolf of Dulwich, DBE, CBE, BA, MPhil

Lorna Margaret Hutson, BA DPhil Oxf, FBA

Caroline Mary Series, CBE, BA, (PhD Harvard), FRS

Sacha Romanovitch, MA

Alice Prochaska, MA, DPhil, FRHistS

Margaret Casely-Hayford, CBE, MA

Dame Elan Closs Stephens, DBE, BA

June Raine, DBE, CBE, BA, MSc BMBCh, MRCP

Clair Wills, BA, DPhil, HMRIA

Farhana Yamin, BA

Julia Yeomans, BA, DPhil, FRS

Bolanle Awe, DPhil (MSt St And)

Afua Kyei, MChem

Patricia Davies (Owtram), BLitt

Simon Russell Beale (Sir), CBE (BA Cantab)

Stipendiary

Lecturers

Alastair Ahamed, BA, BCL, Law

Jonas Antor, (BSc, MSc Bonn, MASt Cantab), Mathematics

Alice Barron, DPhil, (BA Nott, MMus Royal Academy of Music), Music

Eleanor Bath, DPhil, (BA, BSc New South Wales), Biological Sciences

Jacob Bird, MSt, DPhil, (BA Cantab), Music

Richard Brearton, MPhys, DPhil, Physics

Felicity Brown, DPhil, (BA, MA Cantab, MA Birm), English

Simon Cassidy, MChem, DPhil, Chemistry

Esther Cavett, (BMus Lond, PhD KCL), Music

David Chapman, (BA, MSc, PhD Cantab), Engineering Science

Vilma de Gasperin, DPhil (Laurea Padua), Modern Languages

Clea Desebrook, MSc, DPhil, (BA Manc), Psychology

Andrew Elliott, MPhil, DPhil, (BA Cantab), Economics

Kamel El Omari, (BSc Paris VII, MSc, PhD Paris VI), Biochemistry

Rachel Exley, (BSc Leeds, PhD Paris XI), Medicine

Lillian Fontaine, DPhil (BA Sydney), Modern Languages

Charlotte Hemmings, BA (MA, PhD SOAS), Linguistics

Matthew Hosty, BA, MSt, DPhil, Classics

Kenneth Hughes, MPhys (PhD Imp), Physics

Catherine Jenknison, DPhil (BA Columbia University in the City of New York, MLitt St And), History

Quentin Miller, DPhil, (BMath Waterloo, Canada), Computer Science

Ain Neuhaus, MA, DPhil, BMBCH, Medicine

Naomi Petela, MBioChem, DPhil, Biochemistry

Chloe Pieters, (BSc LSE, MA Birk, Lond), History

Clare Rees-Zimmerman, (MA, MEng, PhD Cantab), Engineering Science

Nisha Singh, MSc, DPhil, Medicine

Graeme Smith, MPhys, DPhil, Physics

Stephen Smith, BA, MPhil, (MA Open, PhD RHUL), Classical Archaeology

Kerstin Timm, PhD Cantab, Medicine

John Traill, DPhil (BA, MMus UEA), Music

Damian Tyler, (MSci, PhD Nott), Medicine

Timothy Walker, MA, MHort, Plant Biology

Amina Zarzi, (BA, MA Constantine), French

Yifan Zhang, MPhil, (BSc, BA Xiamen University China, MSc Warwick), Economics

Retaining Fee Lecturers

Susan Anthony, MBBS, MRCP, FRCR, Medicine

Richard Ashdowne, MA, DPhil, Linguistics

Vilma de Gasperin, DPhil, (Laurea Padua), Modern Languages

Departmental Lecturers

Helen Flatley, (BA, MPhil Cantab, MA American University of Paris), History

Hannah Laurens, BPhil, (BA Birk, MA Bern, PhD St And), Philosophy

Dean Sheppard, MChem, DPhil, Chemistry

College Lecturer

Hanne Eckhoff, (Cand. Mag. Cand. Philol. Doctor artium Oslo), Russian

Lecturer in Medicine

Helen Ashdown, BMBCh (MA Cantab) MRCP, MRCPG, DCH PGDip (Health Res), Janet Vaughan Tutor in Clinical Medicine

Academic Office

Lucy Young, (BA Aberystwyth), Academic Registrar

Joanne Ockwell, (BA, MA University of Gloucester), Welfare Support and Policy Officer

Victoria Wilson, Scholarships and Funding

Saphire Richards, Graduate and Tutorial Officer

Access and Outreach

Hannah Pack, (MA Cantab, PGCE Oxford Brookes), Access and Outreach Officer

Margaret Thatcher Scholarship Trust

Jessica Mannix, (MA St And), Campaign Director

Claire Cockcroft, MA (PhD Cantab), Director of the Thatcher Scholarship Programme

Oxford India Centre

Radhika Khosla, MPhys, (PhD Chicago), Research Director

Siddharth Arora, DPhil, Programme Director

Neeraj Shetye, (BA SNU, MSc SOAS), Partnerships and Communications Manager

Library

Susan Elizabeth Purver, MA, Assistant Librarian

Matthew Roper, MA, (MA Durh), Library Assistant

Development Office

Clare Finch, Deputy Development Director

Rebecca Coker, (BA Durh, MPhil Cantab), Senior Development Executive

Lisa Gygax, MA, Joint Secretary to the Somerville Association

Jackie Watson, MA, (MA Birk, PhD Birk), Joint Secretary to the Somerville Association

Jackie Yip, (BA Cardiff), Regular Giving and Alumni Relations Executive

Communications

Matt Phipps, (BA York, MPhil Cantab), Communications Manager

Em Pritchard, (BA York, MA York), Communications Office r

Conferences and Catering

Dave Simpson, Catering and Conference Manager

Treasury

Damian Clements, College Accountant

Porters’ Lodge

Mark Ealey, Lodge Manager

Chapel

Arzhia Habibi, (BA Notts, IMICS National Chengchi University), Chapel Scholar and Director

William Dawes, (PGDip RAM, BMus Edin), Director of Chapel Music

Estates

Steve Johnson, Estates Manager

Gardens

Alastair Mallick, Head Gardener

Housekeeping

Teresa Walsh, Housekeeping Manager

Nursery

Karen Hopkins, Nursery Manager

Chris Bamber, Systems Manager

Principal’s Report

As we ready ourselves for the new academic year, and my last as Principal, it is a privilege to look back on the one that came before.

It has been another excellent year in the life of Somerville, during which our time-honoured values of academic excellence, diversity, and innovation have set new benchmarks for success among both individuals and community alike.

In the JCR, our undergraduates once again distinguished themselves academically, with a third of all finalists achieving firsts and 93% of students achieving a First or 2:1. Individual successes have been particularly noteworthy, with Final Honour School prizes awarded in Classics, English, German, Chemistry, Medicine, Law, and Biochemistry. Such recognition underscores the diverse strengths of our student community, and you can review the complete list of this year’s prize-winners in the Academic Report section.

The Somerville MCR likewise remains an academic powerhouse, especially, it seems, in the fields of law, public policy and engineering. Two of our BCL students, Anshul Dalmia (2023) and Ramakash Gujuluva Suriaprakash (2023) were recognised for their performances in the BCL, while Miral Shehata (2023, MSc Economics for Development) received the Benno Ndulu Prize for Best Examination in Quantitative Methods. Of particular note is doctoral student Sawsan El-Zahr (2023, DPhil Engineering), whose work on greening the internet was recognised by the Internet Research Task Force and received

the Applied Networking Research Prize before winning the Dyson Sustainability Award at this year's STEM for Britain competition.

All of these achievements are particularly impressive given that Somerville student numbers have been at a record high over the past two years. Closer inspection reveals that these numbers represent only a small increase on previous years, but they nonetheless reflect the continued high demand for a Somerville education and the concomitant strain it places upon our resources as we seek to ensure that every student has the space and support to excel in their chosen fields. It’s all a very long way from the baker’s shop above which Somerville’s first twelve students were required to attend their lectures back in 1879.

If there is a common thread linking the students of 1879 and those of today, it is the fact that they came here with a determination to learn, and have always received steadfast support in that goal. It is gratifying, then, to see our academics receive continued recognition for their teaching. Of particular note is Professor Noa Zilberman, who was not only appointed as Fellow to the Alan Turing Institute this year, but also received an MPLS Teaching Award for Outstanding Research Supervision. Also noteworthy is the shortlisting of the Somerville Skills Hub, led by Dr Claire Cockcroft, in the Support for Students category of this year’s Vice-Chancellor’s Awards. The Skills Hub is a unique resource within the Oxford student community, providing our students with a termly toolkit to thrive academically, emotionally and in their future careers.

BARONESS JAN ROYALL

Our academics continue to receive recognition for their research. In the King’s Birthday Honours, our Senior Research Fellow Professor Rajesh Thakker was made an OBE for services to Medical Science and to People with Hereditary and Rare Disorders. Two of Somerville’s Senior Research Fellows, Professor Sir Marc Feldmann and Professor Tony Bell, received Royal Society medals in recognition of their contributions to the fields of immunology and high energy astrophysics, respectively. Professor Julie Dickson, meanwhile, was awarded the Alice Tay Book Prize for Excellence in Legal Theory for her book, Elucidating Law (Oxford University Press, 2022).

Further congratulations are due to our Lord and Lady MacNair Early Career Fellow in Law, Dr Aradhana Cherupara Vadekkethil, who co-authored a report on academic freedom across the Global South which was presented to the UN’s Human Rights Council in June 2024. We are also proud of former JRF Dr Shobhana Nagraj, whose campaign for tackling child food poverty across Oxfordshire, which has involved many Somerville colleagues, received a Community Partnership Award at this year’s Vice-Chancellor’s Awards.

Finally, in discussing our SCR, I must take a moment to recall our celebrations for International Women’s Day, which this year fell on the same date as the Dorothy Hodgkin Memorial Lecture in the sixtieth anniversary year of Dorothy Hodgkin receiving her Nobel prize. We marked this special occasion with a lecture by Professor Irene Tracey, Vice-Chancellor of the University, and a delightful commemorative film featuring Somerville’s biochemists past, present and future, which you can view on the Somerville College YouTube page. The SCR also benefitted in 2024 from the arrival of our new Professorial Fellow in Linguistics, Professor Colin Phillips, whose inaugural lecture was the first to be held at Somerville in several years.

Our academic policy, led by Senior Tutor Dr Steve Rayner, is geared both to releasing the potential of Somerville students and widening the opportunities for access to the University, particularly among underrepresented communities. Clear progress is being made in this work, with 73.4% of our admissions coming from state schools in the years 2021-23, compared to the university average of 68%. We recognise, however, that school type is an imperfect marker for disadvantage, which is the key focus our access work seeks to redress. As such, our Access team remains focused on finding new ways to attract students with the highest academic potential from Minority Ethnic and non-traditional backgrounds, Free School Meal students and those from regions of low progression to university.

Among several new Access initiatives focused on these student groups is the introduction of open days events curated for specific minority audiences, such as Young Carers and BAME students. These have provided a valuable addition to our existing strategies, including our work with Somerville’s regional link areas and partnerships with outreach organisations such as Target Oxbridge, which works with Black and mixed-race students with Black heritage to increase their chances of getting into Oxford and Cambridge. This year, I am delighted to say, one of our Target Oxbridge students, Sam Ajakaiye (2020, History and French), achieved a First. Speaking about his

PROFESSOR NOA ZILBERMAN (L) WITH HER DOCTORAL STUDENT

SAWSAN EL ZAHR AND UNIQ+ STUDENT OZLEM KESGIN

achievement, Sam said, "My degree result was proof that I can thrive whilst embracing every part of my culture and identity.”

Another great initiative Somerville is working with is the University of Oxford’s new Astrophoria Foundation Year Programme, which seeks to equip students with academic potential who have experienced severe personal disadvantage with the skills and self-belief to study at Oxford. Last year, Somerville was one of ten participating colleges in Astrophoria’s inaugural year, and welcomed two students to the foundation programme in History and PPE. We will welcome another two students to the programme in the coming academic year.

One of the key means by which Somerville creates equality of opportunity is through scholarships. The Margaret Thatcher Scholarship Trust was established in 2013 to create a living legacy for Britain’s first woman prime minister by offering scholarships to the best students from around the world, irrespective of ideology, discipline or background. In this its tenth year, the Trust was able to appoint its fiftieth scholar thanks to the continued, transformative support of its patrons, donors and friends, some of whom I was able to catch up with during a visit to South East Asia earlier this year. The meeting was a happy reminder that, with every year that passes, the MTST realises more fully its founding vision of creating a body of scholars that will go into board rooms, courts, governments and universities, to change the world for the better.

The Oxford India Centre for Sustainable Development has also gone from strength to strength this year. Like the MTST, it appointed its fiftieth scholar in 2023-24, and we are currently in the process of inaugurating several new scholarships, including an exciting gift agreement with Amee Parikh of Amansa Capital that will bring four new scholars into the OICSD. Alongside the exceptional research our OICSD scholars produce, these ever-expanding partnerships are a token of the enduring bond between Somerville and India. That connection received a particularly joyful boost in December, when the Somerville College Choir embarked on a tour of India. I was fortunate to watch (and hear!) as our Choir wowed audiences in Delhi, Goa and Mumbai with recitals of traditional Christmas music alongside several workshops for local children’s charities.

It’s hard to believe that Somerville has been an official College of Sanctuary since 2021. In that time, this programme has grown exponentially. Last year, the University of Oxford followed Somerville’s example to become a University of Sanctuary. Here at Somerville, our tally of Sanctuary Scholars rose to eight in 2023-24, including students from Ukraine, Sudan, Ethiopia and Afghanistan. Thanks to the extraordinary philanthropy of Peggie Rimmer, next year will see our cohort of Sanctuary Scholars rise to twelve. I am deeply indebted to our Development Director, Sara Kalim, and her team, through whose tireless efforts these opportunities become realities.

Life within the JCR and MCR always reflects the irrepressible vitality of Somerville. This year, we had a record number of sporting Blues in College, as well as Varsity victory in ballroom dancing! Two Somerville poets were shortlisted for the Jon Stallworthy Prize, and two of our photographers claimed first and second place in the University's Sustainability Photographer of the Year competition. On a more serious note, it was inspiring to see our MCR organise a concert in aid of Save the Children’s humanitarian relief efforts for Gaza.

Our alumni community was just as buoyant this year. We held fantastic events such as our wonderful Family Day in September and perhaps our best ever Supporters’ Lunch, featuring showcases from our brilliant Junior Research Fellows, while also making time for the annual Commemoration and an unforgettable Memorial Service to our friend and colleague Liz Cooke. Somervillians also came together around vital causes,

such as our crowdfunder to support the St Paul’s Nursery (a treasured resource for our academics with children).

As I look to the year ahead, I must give a special vote of thanks to all of my colleagues here at Somerville. This great college will need to come together in order to meet the challenges as well as the opportunities that the future holds. We couldn’t possibly do that without this brilliant and close-knit community, nor without the expert financial management of our Treasurer Andrew Parker, who has doubled our endowment over the past decade, from £50m in 2014 to £99m this year.

All of this places us in an excellent position to launch the RISE campaign in the next academic year. Organised around the four pillars of resilience, inclusivity, sustainability and excellence, RISE will provide the blueprint for us to create the Somerville of tomorrow, a college rooted in our enduring values, but prepared to rise and meet the challenges of the future.

Our college’s future is bright, then. But it is worth remembering that such progress is only possible through the continued support of you, the Somerville community. Your dedication, creativity, and care for this place have always made Somerville stronger. As we move forward, I have no doubt that you will once again be the guiding spirit ensuring that this college remains a beacon of academic excellence, inclusivity, and innovation for generations to come.

JAN ROYALL , Baroness Royall of Blaisdon, Principal of Somerville

SOMERVILLE COLLEGE CHOIR'S INDIA TOUR, DECEMBER 2023

Treasurer’s Report

At the time of writing, we are still some way away from having a final result for 2023-24 and we do not yet have confirmed valuations for our investments, but we do know enough to say with some confidence that 2023-24 is going to be a very good year for the college financially.

This assessment is driven by two things. Firstly, the cost pressures that we have been struggling to contain over the last couple of years are receding, and secondly, and perhaps more significantly, the support we have received from our alumni and friends, always a distinguishing feature of Somerville, has been unusually strong this year.

To take the easing of cost pressures first: general inflation, which peaked at 10% in October 2022, has fallen to 2%. During the period of maximum pressure we were careful to do as much as we could to insulate our students from the impact of these cost increases. The increases in student rent and food costs that we put through at Somerville were among the lowest of all the colleges. The pressure on utility costs which had taken our costs from £250k to £750k over the last couple of years is easing, and next year our utility bill will be around £400k. Strengthening of asset values moved the USS defined benefit pension scheme from a large deficit to a large surplus, allowing us to release the £2m provision against future contributions we had been required to hold and leading to a significant reduction in employer and employee contributions into the scheme. Similarly, our endowment investment with Newton increased over the 12 months by 11% from £37.4m to £41.8m. We do not yet have the year valuations from Oxford University Endowment Management but a similar movement in our investment with them would increase our total endowment by £8-9m. We have also had our college houses valued this year and they have increased in value by £0.8m.

A positive picture for this year – but underlying pressures remain. UK tuition fees have been frozen since 2017 and are now worth 40% less to us in real terms. This is not sustainable. The pressure on academic salaries and workload, and the inequity in college provision across Oxford is ever present, and tuition fees from overseas students remain a significant part of our income. Our numbers remain robust but other institutions are experiencing reducing numbers of overseas students. We also face very major costs, as yet unfunded, if we are to move our college buildings to a net carbon position by 2040.

This has been an exceptional year in terms of the support we have had from alumni and friends. Last financial year finished with a gift of £0.9m from Dr Peggie Rimmer to be used to set up a sanctuary fund to support displaced academics and

scholars. Peggie followed that up this year with a gift of her flat on Banbury Road, worth £1m. We are indebted to her. The year also brought news of a £3m legacy from the estate of our alumna Dr Christian Carritt, which will be used to support History teaching, music provision and medical scholarships at Somerville. We have also heard recently of a £0.5m legacy from Dr Trevor Hughes, husband to Catherine Hughes, and a long term friend and supporter of Somerville. We expect to receive this legacy in 2024-25.

Finally, and perhaps most significantly, some time ago we identified the pressing need for more tutorial rooms and spaces for group study as well as a proper long term home for the Oxford India Centre for Sustainable Development. We have recently been fortunate to have secured the agreement of a major donor which will enable us to fulfil this aspiration and we hope to be able to make an official announcement about this very soon.

ANDREW PARKER

August 2024

ANDREW PARKER, COLLEGE TREASURER. PHOTO: JOHN CAIRNS

Fellows’ and Lecturers’ Activities

Classics

This year, Beate Dignas has been working and published on processes of Heroization in 4th century Greece and Asia Minor, with special focus on the relationship between Hermias of Atarneus and Aristotle. She has been collaborating with K. Sekita (Tel Aviv) on a volume called Gods in Translation and with Stéphane Benoist (Lille) on Memory, Traces and Identity. She has established joint research projects with colleagues in both the Humboldt and Freie Universität in Berlin, on Religion and Social Cohesion and Religious Diversity and Cross-Cultural Integration respectively.

This year, Luke Pitcher addressed a conference in Kalamata on the treatment of war in Appian’s Roman History, and one in Leuven on Appian and the ancient tradition of exemplarity. He has also published reviews of new texts of Arrian and the Greek fragmentary biographers.

Charlotte Potts recently presented papers on ‘Gods and Mortals / Religion’ at the Reconsidering Ancient Rome conference in Rome, and ‘Domestic and Religious Architecture’ at the Material Interactions in the Mediterranean Iron Age conference in Athens. She co-edited From the Palatine to Pirro Ligorio: Architectural, Sculptural and Antiquarian Studies in Memory of Amanda Claridge (1949-2022), a Journal of Roman Archaeology Supplement, alongside Glynn J. C. Davis, Janet DeLaine, and Zena Kamash. Her article ‘An External View: Architecture and Ritual in Central Italy’ was published in The Stuff of the Gods: The Material Aspects of Religion in Ancient Greece

Engineering

Stephen Roberts’ interests continue to lie in the theory and methodology of intelligent algorithms for large-scale, real-world problems. He continues as lead of the Schmidt AI in Science Programme, as co-Director of the Oxford ELLIS unit and co-I on a new Centre for Doctoral Training in AI for Climate & Environment - Intelligent

Earth CDT. He has contributed work to ten publications this year, including Tackling Climate Change with Machine Learning, Journal of Financial Data Science, Nature Machine Intelligence, and Algorithmic Finance

This year, Noa Zilberman was named a Turing Fellow, and received a MPLS Award for Outstanding Research Supervision. She started a joint UKRINSF grant on Carbon-Aware Networks (as Principal Investigator), exploring sustainable computing infrastructure. Noa organized the Carbon Aware Networks workshop in Oxford, which was partly hosted in Somerville. She also started a new project funded by the Royal Academy of Engineering, under the Visiting Professors programme, which takes a vertical approach to embedding sustainability within the computing curriculum, with a secondary goal to recruit, retain and promote women in computer engineering. The paper ‘Planter: rapid prototyping of in-network machine learning inference’ (led by Noa’s PhD student Changgang Zheng, Jesus) was selected as Best of Computer Communications Review and invited for presentation in ACM SIGCOMM 2024. The paper ‘Exploring the Benefits of Carbon-Aware Routing’ (led by Noa’s PhD student Sawsan El-Zahr, Somerville) won IRTF Applied Networking Research Prize and its poster presentation in STEM for Britain won the Dyson Sustainability Award. Noa contributed to fourteen publications this year, and also released seven open-source projects for the research community’s benefit.

English

Annie Sutherland enjoyed a term’s sabbatical at the beginning of the year, which she used very happily to begin work in earnest on an edited collection of essays on the body in medieval literature and culture, under contract with CUP. She also wrote a journal article on a thirteenth-century manuscript central to her work on prayers for anchoritic women. This was a revealing and exciting enterprise, and she is

looking forward to the publication of the article by Boydell and Brewer next year. In terms of undergraduate teaching, Annie has particularly enjoyed lecturing on the topic of medievalism (i.e., postmedieval responses to the medieval world) and has taken great pleasure in supervising a number of thoughtful and original final-year dissertation students from a variety of colleges. The high point of the year, however, has been the Development Office’s successful campaign to raise funding, in partnership with the English Faculty, to fully fund a 3-year DPhil studentship in medieval literature at Somerville. At a time when Humanities funding is so seriously stretched, this is a wonderful achievement. And it is made all the more special by the fact the monies contributed by the English Faculty originate from a substantial bequest by Professor Anne Hudson, Annie’s own DPhil supervisor, and a remarkable advocate for the value of the Humanities in the life of the university.

History

Natalia Nowakowska has continued working on her new history of the Jagiellonian dynasty (1380s-1590s), who ruled much of Central and Eastern Europe in the Renaissance period. In this academic year, she undertook further research trips to Cracow, and to the Podlasie region on the Poland/ Belarus border, where she was able to visit dynastic sites, historic Orthodox churches and Tartar villages. Natalia also gave a public lecture on the Jagiellonians to the Historical Association (Reading branch), filmed in Paris with Canal Plus for a documentary on Cracow’s Wawel palace, and contributed to a BBC Radio 4 programme on post-election Poland.

Law

Julie Dickson has continued with her research on the methodology of legal philosophy. She gave presentations on aspects of her work at workshops and conferences in Oxford and Lisbon during the academic year 2023/24.

The International Association for the Philosophy of Law and Social Philosophy awarded her the Alice Tay Book Prize for Excellence in Legal Theory for her book, Elucidating Law (Oxford University Press, 2022). The prize was awarded at the World Congress of the Philosophy of Law in Seoul in July 2024.

Linguistics

Louise Mycock has continued her activities with the international network Syntax Beyond the Canon, contributing a chapter titled '"Tis goodly language this, what would it mean?" Demonstrative ProTags in the History of English', written with Sharon Glaas (University of Birmingham) to the edited volume Non-Canonical English Syntax: Concepts, Methods, and Approaches This volume, containing network members’ research, is scheduled to be published by Cambridge University Press in 2025. The research carried out in collaboration with UNIQ+ interns Dylan Ryder and Dan Street in 2023 has been written up. Louise’s paper, co-authored with Sharon Glaas, titled ‘The Demonstrative ProTag Construction in Social Interaction: a Historical Perspective’ is currently under review. Louise also gave a presentation of her research on ‘meaningless’ pronouns to school students who attended a training session for the UK Linguistics Olympiad this year. Over the summer she is working on her monograph on ‘wh’questions and investigating discourse markers and their development in spoken and written language further. She has also participated in the College Open Days.

This was an important transitional year for Colin Phillips, as he shifted from directing a research centre that spans 15 departments within one university, to building a research team that spans two continents. It has worked well so far, with increasing cross-talk and collaboration between the nodes in Oxford and Maryland. One highlight of this is the new summer research internship programme that Colin started in summer 2024, with support and encouragement from Claire Cockcroft of the Somerville Skills Hub. The programme serves the hunger for research experiences from Oxford undergraduates, allowing students from different courses and stages to collaborate on psycholinguistic

research. The programme received key support from Maryland PhD students in Colin’s team who spent a chunk of the summer in Oxford, helping to train and mentor Oxford students. Another research highlight was Colin’s inaugural lecture (‘Now you say it, now you don’t’), held at Somerville in early June, which brought together themes — and brought together people — from throughout his career. In the past year Colin held a couple of notable research-related roles. He is continuing as editor of the journal Annual Review of Linguistics, part of the prestigious Annual Reviews family of journals. In spring 2024 he completed his term as Chair of the Linguistics & Language Science section of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Colin will be taking on the role of department head in the Faculty of Linguistics, Philology, and Phonetics. In this role, he is looking forward to supporting the department’s move into the new Schwarzman Centre for the Humanities, right next door to Somerville, which will create many new opportunities for research. In October, Colin gave three talks in Korea, including as a keynote speaker at the Applied Linguistics Association of Korea. In January he and his students gave a talk at the Linguistic Society of America in New York City about their research carried out on the museum floor at Planet Word Museum in Washington DC. They also spoke about another arm of this research at the LingO conference in Oxford in June. In May, Colin was involved in four presentations at the Human Sentence Processing Conference at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, USA. A highlight of this was his talk ‘Janet Dean’s Path to Psycholinguistics’, based around findings in Somerville College’s archives about alumna Janet Dean Fodor, one of the world’s leading psycholinguists, and a mentor of his, who passed away in late 2023. In March he gave a talk at an Oxford workshop about the link between linguistics and computer science, whilst last November, in the ‘now for something completely different’ department, Colin gave a talk called ‘Lessons from two very different initiatives’ at an interdisciplinary event in Maryland on the broad theme of ‘belonging’; this talk was a synthesis of lessons learned from his community building efforts in academia and in community health.

Mathematics

In 2023-24, Dan Ciubotaru has continued his research in representation theory, partially funded by an EPSRC New Horizons grant. He published three papers: ‘A nonabelian Fourier transform for tempered unipotent representations’, with A.-M. Aubert and B. Romano, to appear in Compositio Math; ‘The wavefront sets of unipotent supercuspidal representations’, with L. Mason-Brown and E. Okada, twenty pages, to appear in Algebra and Number Theory; and ‘Some unipotent Arthur packets for reductive p-adic groups’, with L. Mason-Brown and E. Okada, to appear in IMRN. He has also submitted four more preprints (arXiv) for publication. Dan’s former postdoc and collaborator, Lucas Mason-Brown, has secured a highly competitive University Research Fellowship at Oxford and several tenuretrack jobs in the UK and the US. He will start as an assistant professor at UT Austin in July 2024. One of Dan’s DPhil students graduated in August 2023 and he is now a postdoc in Hong Kong. Dan is currently supervising three DPhil students, including one jointly with a colleague at University of Padova. He has supervised four master’s dissertations this year, and one of these students will start a funded PhD in Germany. Dan has reported on his research results at conferences in Hong Kong, Manchester, Bath, Cluj-Napoca, and York. Unfortunately, he is at the point in his career where his administrative burden seems to be increasing exponentially, so he can only hope that he’ll be able to continue his research programme at the same rate in the near future.

Renaud Lambiotte often jokes that his current research interests are those of his DPhil students. The last academic year was difficult in many ways, but also very successful for his students, hence indirectly for him. At the end of last year, John Pougué-Biyong successfully defended his DPhil, and he is now Head of Data at Kamoa, a startup in the field of microcredit in Africa, in a wonderful example of using data science for the common good. A couple of months ago, Renaud’s student Shazia’Ayn Babul received the Bertalanffy Doctoral Student Award for her recent work on the (positive) impact of Low Traffic Neighbourhoods on urban mobility. There were also plenty of interesting, stimulating discussions on topics as

diverse as entropy production in the human brain and obscure (but fun) problems on the structure of hypergraphs.

Modern Languages

Simon Kemp has continued as Admissions Director for the Modern Languages Faculty, managing the transition to a new format and provider for the university’s admissions tests. As Opportunity Oxford coordinator for the Humanities Division he has been busy adapting and updating the bridging course for the 2024 undergraduate cohort, including a new module on the uses and dangers of generative AI in academia. On the research side, he published an article earlier this year on France’s newest Nobel laureate, Annie Ernaux: ‘Perspective and Sexual Politics in Mémoire de fille’ in French Cultural Studies

For Almut Suerbaum, after three years as Faculty Board Chair for Modern Languages, it was a pleasure to return to teaching, especially teaching in person and seeing a new generation of first year students settle into their course and life at Somerville. At the same time, the experience was useful for chairing the faculty’s Athena Swan equality charter application and convening a working party about conditions of Early Career Researchers. Hybrid modes allowed Almut to attend various meetings of the Göttingen Academic of Sciences who had elected her to a fellowship by correspondence. But for creative interchange, meeting in person remains key, and Somerville is a stimulating base for interdisciplinary research such as a workshop on medieval music manuscripts or the colloquium of the Somerville Medieval Research Group on ‘Post-Human approaches to Pre-Modern Culture’ which Almut convened in June. In July, a Mercator visiting professorship at the LMU Munich allowed her to reconnect with medievalist colleagues and post-docs working on religious song. Almut also presented at the Lyric Communities conference at Christ Church, the Women Read Differently conference in Freiburg, the International Graduate Colloquium in Geneva, and on ‘Greenness’ in Hildegard of Bingen and Konrad of Megenberg in Munich.

Music

Samantha Sebastian published a chapter titled ‘War and conflict in resettlement contexts: Music in children’s everyday lives’, written with Kathryn Marsh, in the Oxford Handbook of Early Childhood Learning and Development in Music . Samantha discussed this area of work at the Endangered Voices event in College, as part of a series of talks following the Yazidi Women’s Peace Choir performance. She also published ‘Building bridges: Translating refugee narratives for public audiences with arts-based media’, written with Rosebud Campion, in the Journal of Intercultural Studies. This was a writeup of a project with an Oxford-based school, led by Cayenna PonchioneBailey. Samantha also published ‘Voicing voicing: Attuning to the material in studio recording the Lullaby Choir’ in Music Education Research. As the Academic Lead of Access & Outreach at the Music Faculty, Samantha has worked together with the new Access & Outreach Administrative Officer in generating a music teachers’ mailing list, and trialling a few new Facultyspecific events, including the Music Experience Day and school visits by performing undergraduates. Her ‘Music in the Community’ course continues to work with Turtle Key Arts and Sing Inside, and they have developed a new partnership with Music at Oxford. Samantha is also on the inaugural Steering Committee for the University’s new Performance Research Hub. She delivered the conference paper ‘Setting works for diversity: Courtney Pine in the curriculum and the classroom’ at the 36th World Conference of the International Society for Music Education, Helsinki, Finland.

Philosophy

James Ravi Kirkpatrick has had a busy year of research, publishing five papers in leading philosophy journals, with a focus on the meaning of generic generalisations. He also has a slew of further work in the pipeline, including work on dual character concepts, quantification in natural language, and issues in the ethics of AI. Most excitingly, he is currently investigating the reasoning capacities of large language models like ChatGPT and hopes to publish his findings shortly.

Sadly, this is also James’s last year at Somerville. He is excited to announce that he will be taking up a Departmental Lectureship in Philosophy of Language at the Faculty of Philosophy and Magdalen College. He is excited to begin this new chapter, which would not have been possible without the support and encouragement of his colleagues at Somerville, as well as the keen intellect of his students, both past and present. Thank you, Somerville, for providing such a stimulating and academically engaging environment over the last five years!

Politics

This year, Patricia Owens finished her book Erased: A History of International Thought Without Men, which will be published by Princeton University Press in January 2025. She was excited to first present the book at the Oxford Meeting Minds Festival and then later talks in Cambridge, Copenhagen, LSE, and the Institute for Historical Research. Patricia was honoured to join the Executive Board of the Oxford Initiative Global Women’s Narrative Project, which held its summer training in Somerville College.

Junior Research Fellows’ Activities

As always, a particularly vibrant part of the Somerville College Community is our collection of Junior Research Fellows, who are pursuing postdoctoral research in a huge range of topics. The following report attempts to summarise some of this fascinating work.

Maria Caiazza works in the Department of Physiology, Anatomy and Genetics, using stem cell models of Parkinson’s disease to understand how calcium behaves inside cells since calcium is central to cell function. Maria is working with AstraZeneca to find treatments that can help nerve cells in Parkinson’s patients function normally again.

Andrea Kusec works in the Translational Neuropsychology group in the Nuffield Department of Clinical Neurosciences. Andrea’s research focuses on developing accessible mental health interventions for adults with various types of brain injury, such as stroke, trauma or brain tumours. A recent paper from Andrea and her team showed that standard ‘talking therapy’ for depression can be less effective with brain injury patients because of the impact of the injury on memory and attention. The paper went on to show that adjustment to the standard therapy could significantly improve the outcomes for these patients.

Elizabeth MacGregor is our Joanna Randall MacIver JRF, working in Music Education. Elizabeth is pursuing a project focusing on how the way that music is taught in schools can have long-lasting impacts on students. These impacts can be highly detrimental if the student’s experience is characterised by experiences of failure, disappointment and exclusion in the music classroom. Elizabeth is hoping to develop a music pedagogy that is sensitive to this music vulnerability.

Amanda Rojek works in the Pandemic Sciences Institute, part of the Nuffield Department of Medicine. Amanda’s work aims to improve the agility of the clinical science response during disease outbreaks to improve patient survival and public health responses. Amanda has studied diseases such as Ebola, Nipah Virus Disease, and Monkeypox. In particular, Amanda is leading work to implement the first global harmonised trial for Ebola treatments across twelve countries in Africa with the World Health Organisation.

Emma Soneson works in the Department of Psychiatry, in the section focusing on Child and Adolescent Psychiatry. Emma focuses on ways to try to reduce the incidence, prevalence and impact of child and adolescent mental health difficulties. Emma is especially interested in public health approaches, the intersections between education and mental health, and ways in which we can support schools to take a central role in mental health promotion and prevention.

Jessica Thompson works in the Department of Experimental Psychology. Jessica is working on developing a formalism to develop computational theories of human cognition. Notably, Jessica has been focusing on visual relational reasoning, which is the way the brain interprets visual information to draw conclusions about the relationships between objects. Jessica

has developed an AI model based on our understanding of the human/primate relational reasoning which successfully accounted for the results in a new eye-tracking experiment.

Björn Vahsen works in the Nuffield Department of Clinical Neurosciences. Björn models Motor Neurone Disease (MND) in a dish using human stem cells. In particular, Björn has been studying the role of brain immune cells, microglia, in the commonest genetic form of MND. Amongst other awards, Björn received the Felgenhauer Research Award 2023 for young Neuroscientists from the German Neurological Society in November 2023.

George Ward is our Mary Ewart Junior Research Fellow. George is an economist. His work focuses on worker and workplace wellbeing, including measures of job satisfaction, happiness, stress, and purpose/meaning. George is writing a book, co-authored with Jan-Emmanuel De Neve, entitled Why Workplace Wellbeing Matters, which will be published by Harvard Business Review Press in the Spring of 2025. George also studies the impact of negative emotions on shaping populist beliefs and voting intentions.

Sylvia Zanoli is a theoretical physicist working in the field of collider phenomenology. The main goal of Sylvia’s research is improving the accuracy of theoretical predictions of particle interactions at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) in order to obtain cutting-edge results that can be directly compared to data. In the next few years, the LHC will undergo a substantial improvement, which will lead to experimental data with an unprecedented level of precision. Correctly interpreting the upcoming data will be possible only if precise and realistic theoretical predictions are available. Sylvia is working to help provide those predictions.

Rocco Zizzamia works in the Economics Department. Rocco is using experimental methods to test the effectiveness of various innovative economic or behavioural interventions around the world. One project aims to test whether it is more efficient and effective to provide anticipatory support for people in disaster-prone areas rather than rely on emergency relief (often in kind rather than cash) after a disaster occurs. Rocco’s team is studying the impact of anticipatory cash transfers in the Jamuna River Basin in Bangladesh, where flooding is likely to occur in the forthcoming monsoon season. Rocco has also evaluated the impact of an unconditional cash transfer programme undertaken in response to severe flooding in Pakistan in 2022. Other projects relate to the impact of repeated rejection on job searching in South Africa and Group Coaching projects in Bangladesh, Uganda and the Philippines.

DR STEVE RAYNER, Senior Tutor

JCR Report

The Junior Common Room (JCR) at Somerville College has experienced an exhilarating and productive year, marked by academic excellence, community engagement, and a variety of extracurricular activities. Our commitment to fostering a supportive and inclusive environment has driven numerous initiatives and events that have enriched the college experience for all our members.

We began the academic year by warmly welcoming our new students with a Freshers' Week packed with induction activities and social events designed to help them settle in, make friends, and become acquainted with college life. Since then, the JCR community has organised and participated in a wide variety of social events and activities – including BAME and LGTBQ+ formals, our JCR Pride week, termly welfare weeks, and bops, garden parties and pub quizzes organised by our JCR entertainment team. Excitingly, plans for the Somerville-Jesus College Ball are underway, with the ball committee already hard at work and planning to announce the ball theme in Michaelmas 2024.

The JCR also launched several impactful charity and environmental initiatives. During Green Awareness Week, we introduced a new recycling scheme, promoted water-saving practices, encouraged sustainable eating, and supported the Somerville-wide carbon survey that gathered information on the consumption of carbon by individual members in our community. During our JCR Arts week, we hosted our first Arts concert raising funds for Crisis in Oxford, and our JCR Charities Ballot has supported a wide variety of charities this year including the Palestinian Children’s Relief Fund, Oxford Mutual Aid and Kenyan women’s rights charity Usikimye.

Our annual JCR Access Roadshow was a success, and alongside our BAME open day, and the work of JCR access ambassadors throughout the year reflect our unwavering commitment to improving access at Somerville and Oxford. In particular, we have introduced new suspended students and class JCR officers, who have worked to build their respective communities in College.

On the sporting field, hockey, football, rounders, netball, rowing and cricket teams have had an active year. With highlights including Cuppers wins, Summer VIIIs, and annual sports day held at Girton College, Cambridge, there has been great enthusiasm amongst students in repping the black and red for the Ville. Sporting endeavours have been supplemented by the

GORDON, JCR PRESIDENT

completion of our gym renovation. Our JCR and Terrace have also received updates, all with the aim of enhancing the already warm and welcoming environment for socialising.

Finaly, as the President of the JCR, I am filled with immense gratitude and pride as I reflect on the incredible achievements and experiences of the 2023/24 academic year and therefore am deeply appreciative of the wonderful committee of officers, whose hard work, dedication, and creativity have been instrumental in realising our collective vision this past year. Equally, I want to express my sincere thanks to the college staff whose support and guidance have been invaluable, ensuring that we could achieve our goals and create a nurturing environment for all students. In the face of challenges which have threatened to polarise our community, the strength of the bonds within our JCR has been displayed. This year has been a testament to the vibrancy of our community, and our shared commitment to making Somerville a place where everyone feels valued and inspired.

MADDIE GORDON, JCR President

MADDIE

MCR Report

The 2023-24 academic year has marked significant and positive developments for the MCR. Despite starting with a small committee of continuing graduates, we kicked off the year with a highly successful Freshers' Week. Events included online info sessions, the ‘Friends at Somerville’ scheme, an Oxford walking tour, and a ‘Barbie-Heimer’ themed BOP. This diverse, friendly, and social culture quickly attracted an enlarged, cohesive committee team. Collaborating with senior College administrators and the wider Somerville Association, we significantly improved the college life of many Somervillians throughout the year.

The vibrant atmosphere of the MCR was maintained throughout the year with various activities such as Second Desserts after each guest night, Wine and Cheese nights, and celebrations of numerous ethnic festivals (Diwali, Lunar New Year, Eid). We fostered friendly bonds with other colleges through exchange formal dinners, brunches, and wine tastings. A particular highlight was our annual grand exchange trip with Girton, our sister college at Cambridge.

Somervillians continue to excel in the areas beyond social lives. The Academic Symposium tailored for the MCR provided an inviting platform for students to showcase their outstanding academic achievements and hone their presentation skills. Our students’ enthusiasm for music shone brightly, with many participating in open mic nights, karaoke nights, and the inaugural piano lesson scheme. The Charity Concert was a

pinnacle event, showcasing students’ musical talents and raising thousands for Save the Children.

The MCR continued its efforts to foster a supportive, inclusive, and accessible environment through welfare and EDI initiatives. Schemes like prescription reimbursement/subsidizing provided economic relief for students needing medications. Welfare massages and welfare animal visits were introduced to soothe students during stressful times. Importantly, after years of planning and COVID-related interruptions, the completion of the lift project outside the Margery Fry House made our common room more accessible, benefiting all Somervillians in the future.

During times of humanitarian crises in the conflict in Gaza, the MCR demonstrated remarkable solidarity and compassion. We managed to pass statements of support and organize various donation initiatives for Gaza. The courage and empathy shown by Somervillians truly embodied the spirit of Somerville and will contribute to a better world in the future.

I am genuinely grateful for the exceptional teamwork of the MCR committees and the tremendous support of each MCR member during my tenure. Together, we have created a vibrant, supportive, and inclusive community that not only excelled in social and academic endeavours but also demonstrated strong moral and humanitarian values.

DAVID (ZHEYI) CAO, MCR President

Library and Archives Report 2023-2024

Our Spaces

Most of us remember our favourite place to study when we were at university and our favourite texts, and it is quite probable that Somerville’s current students will have similar recollections in the future. What is becoming apparent is that the way in which students learn and study is changing and so those recollections might be quite different to ours. Today’s student is as likely to study in a shared space as in their room, with many favouring the focused peace and motivational setting of the library. During 2023-24 the library altered its environment to adapt to these changing needs, and will continue to do so as space and funds permit. With 104 seats for potentially over 700 students, space in the library was always at a premium, so we increased that number by 13% to 118: still not enough but heading in the right direction. We also doubled the number of group study rooms (to two!) to support the desire of students to study in collaboration with their peers, and increased the number of individual study carrels so that they could as easily avoid their peers. Finally, we created a relaxed café-style seating area in the library loggia where students can catch up with each other, or study without formality.

To help members of the Somerville community, and our visitors and guests, engage more effectively with the library, we launched our new website, which can be found at https:// library.some.ox.ac.uk. While it will continue to be developed as we identify new ways to support our users, it already contains a good deal of practical information as well as providing an insight into our collections.

Our Collections

Significant work continues in making available our archives and special collections to a wider audience. During the summer of 2023 we moved our artworks and chattels collections catalogue into a new format which will allow us to share information about our collections more easily with those who may be interested. Many of our collections remain accessible only as physical, print items, and we are working hard to ensure that records of these are made as useful as possible to potential researchers. In the longer term we would like to explore the possibility of digitising materials in the different collections so they can be viewed from anywhere in the world. At the moment, digitisation of our collections happens only upon request.

We reached a significant milestone in the Mill Marginalia Online project, which provides a digital edition of all marks and annotations in the books of the John Stuart Mill Collection. We completed the scanning for marginalia of volumes in the collection, thanks to the efforts of our enthusiastic volunteer, Emma Sherratt (Modern Languages, 1991). Professor Albert Pionke, Project Director, visited in March 2024 to photograph the remaining marginalia, and these will be added to the online collection in the near future.

Another collection to which we have turned our attention is the Mary Somerville Shell Collection. We received the shell collection complete with beautiful cabinet as a donation in 2017, and since then it has been situated either in the Mary Somerville Room or the Principal’s office. During Trinity Term we successfully advertised for the role of a Shell Collection Cataloguer, and the collection is now being carefully listed, photographed and described by Will Adams, a Glasgow University MA student, who has worked on a similar collection in the past. Over the next year or so, we hope to reveal more of this collection to the public, as it is a wonderful example of a collection of British natural history objects assembled by a knowledgeable and enthusiastic collector.

It is not unusual for Somerville to be approached with requests for the loan of our artworks, and this year we have lent from our collection Patrick Heron’s The Red Table to Charleston in East Sussex for their exhibition Matthew Smith: Through the eyes of Patrick Heron. Our artworks form an important part of our history as a college and, as with all our special collections, we afford them the care they need to preserve them for future generations. This year we have conserved The Devil Sowing Tares, attributed to Abraham Bloemaert, and a portrait of Mary Somerville by a littleknown artist, Ubaldo Albanesi.

As ever, we note our gratitude to our alumni who continue to be unstintingly generous in their gifts to the library and archives. Of the 1,625 items we added to the library collection, 221 were gifts, many publications donated by their

MARY SOMERVILLE'S SHELL COLLECTION

Somervillian authors, and a significant donation of Classics texts from Jane Everson (Medieval and Modern Languages, 1974). We also received a donation of ceramics from Ann Squires (English, 1962) and a collection of the works of Victor Hugo from Sarah Danby (Modern Languages, 1970), both donated on the understanding they would raise funds for the college.

In terms of usage of the various collections, we had 53 enquiries from external readers about material held in our library collection, of whom 24 visited the library in person to consult material. We also lent 7,427 items during the year, with term-time loans remaining low at almost two-thirds of what they were pre-pandemic. This perhaps reflects another shift in how students study, with many students as happy consulting online texts as printed. Our archives welcomed 42 visitors (18 to the archives, and 24 to the special collections) and answered 160 enquiries (102 about the archives and 58 about the special collections). Both figures are significantly up on the previous year’s statistics, with an increase of over 50% in visitor numbers and a 40% increase in enquiries – increases with which we are very pleased.

Our Events

Having the new exhibition space in the library has proved a delight. We have been able to present a wide range of exhibitions, from the Mary Somerville through Portraiture, ably researched and beautifully curated by our colleague Matthew Roper, to the fun and light-hearted Somerville in Film and Fiction. We also hosted an exhibition of the work of Somervillian Fanchon Fröhlich (B Litt, 1949), curated by Terry Duffy, CEO of BADA. A record of all our exhibitions is held on

our website, with many of the exhibitions reproduced fully in digital form. We also mounted several exhibitions outside of the library in support of the many events hosted by the college, including a well-received exhibition about Dorothy Hodgkin, when we celebrated the 60th anniversary of her being awarded the Nobel Prize.

In our continued promotion of one of our most treasured collections, the John Stuart Mill Library, we hosted several open days and private viewings of the collection, welcomed supporters of the library to Tea with Mill and were honoured that historian Catherine Hall delivered the 2024 John Stuart Mill Lecture.

Throughout the year, we welcomed alumni and visitors, providing them with tours of the college, of the library and of the artworks. Finally, in September 2023 we supported the opening of the college as part of Oxford Open Doors Day, something which we will be repeating this coming year. All events, we hope, promote the current role of the college, and highlight its impressive history to an ever-larger audience.

Our Staff

Once more all of our achievements reported above would have been impossible without the dedication, knowledge and hard work of our library and archives team, namely Susan Purver, Assistant Librarian, Matthew Roper, Library Assistant, and Kate O’Donnell, Archivist. My thanks to them for another successful year.

SARAH BUTLER, College Librarian

List of Library Donors 2023-2024

Pauline Adams (Emeritus Fellow)*

Brigid Allen (Sturdy, History, 1963)* (in memory of Liz Cooke)

Allen, S.J. (DPhil History, 1985)*

Anonymous donors

Jennifer Barlow and family

Hilary Bee (Britten, PPE, 1973)*

Barbara Bleiman (English, 1973)*

Bodleian Library Publishing

Sarah Chambers (Horton-Jones, English and Modern Languages, 1987)*

Christ Church College Library

Sarah Danby (Sherrard, Modern Languages, 1970)

Louise Dennis (Sellers, Maths and Philosophy, 1989)*

Aavika Dhanda (DPhil Zoology, 2019)

Terry Duffy* (including book about Fanchon Frohlich)

Esperanto-Asocio de Britio (books by Marjorie Boulton in celebration of what would have been her 100th birthday)

Sheena Evans* (biography of Janet Vaughan)

Jane Everson (Mellor, Medieval and Modern Languages, 1974)

Ather Farouqui

Green Templeton College Library

Lorna Hutson (English, 1976)*

Hazel Jones (Pharmacology, 1959)

Francesca Kay (English, 1975)*

Racha Kirakosian (DPhil Medieval and Modern Languages, 2010)*

Meriel Kitson (De Laszlo, Medicine, 1968)*

Amine M’Charrak

Karen Margrethe Nielsen

Rosie Oliver (Rogers, Maths, 1976)*

Oxford India Centre for Sustainable Development

Joanna Parker (Martindale, English, 1970)

Margarita Pavlova

Regents Park College Library

Jane Robinson (English, 1978)*

Margaret Rustin (Barrett, Lit. Hum., 1961)*

St Antony’s College Library

David Sleeman

Fiona Stafford*

Madhura Swaminathan (MPhil, DPhil Economics, 1982)*

Halina Szulakowska (books by her late sister and alumna, Urszula)

Peter Turner

Decarno Wallace (History, 2021)

Jackie Watson (English, 1986 & College Alumni Officer)*

Jane Wickenden (Stemp, English, 1980)

Noa Zilberman

* Indicates donor’s own publication

Photo

The Somerville Association President’s Report 2023-2024

Honouring the life and legacy of Liz Cooke, Secretary of the Somerville Association 1990 – 2024, at her memorial in April 2024, remains one of the most important occasions of the past year. Both Hall and Chapel were at full capacity as Somervillians across years, subjects and geographies came together, along with Liz’s family, to remember and give thanks for Liz’s enormous contributions towards building and growing the Somerville Association. Alongside the outstanding and deeply moving formal tributes, each of the many attendees animatedly shared their personal recollections in more intimate conversations. I was awestruck by the breadth and depth of Liz’s Somerville connections. It is befitting that the legacy of this exceptional woman will include a History Fellowship at Somerville in her name in perpetuity.

The annual Commemoration Service, remembering Somervillians who have recently died, is a special duty that I have the honour of fulfilling as President of the Somerville Association. This event truly embodies the spirit of ‘once a Somervillian, always a Somervillian’ and is a powerful reminder of how fortunate we are to belong to a lifelong community that shares values of excellence, tolerance and inclusivity. The 2024 Commemoration Service was particularly poignant as we remembered and gave thanks for the life of Elizabeth Cooke (History, 1964) along with forty-eight other Somervillians. Jackie Watson (English, 1986), Somerville’s newly appointed Alumni Relations Officer, delivered an address that expertly provided an insight into the lives of each of these extraordinary women. Jackie’s experience in higher education, connections with the Somerville community and tremendous enthusiasm have already made her a huge asset for the Somerville Association and I remain grateful for her support, friendship and guidance.

Thanks to the dedication and enthusiasm of Lisa Gygax, Joint Secretary, our committee members, the Chairs of the various SA Groups and their respective committees, the Somerville Association remains in good health and fine spirit. Our events that encompass a wide range of themes continue to attract Somervillians across generations and subjects. Through events and numerous communication channels we ensure that alumni remain engaged and informed of the many facets of life at Somerville. I warmly encourage you to attend events

as they are a fun and effective way of continuing to benefit from being a member of our amazing community. I remind you of the availability of financial assistance to facilitate event attendance and advise you to enquire at the time of event booking should you wish to utilise this. On the 21st September 2024, coinciding with the University’s Meeting of Minds weekend, we will celebrate 30 years of admitting men at our now traditional Somerville Association Formal Dinner in Hall, followed by a bop.

None of this would be possible without the generosity and support of our college, particularly our outstanding Principal, Baroness Jan Royall, our Fellows, and Sara Kalim and her wonderful alumni relations team. On your behalf I offer each of them our warmest appreciation.

DR NERMEEN VARAWALLA (1989, Clinical Medicine)

DR NERMEEN VARAWALLA

Somerville Association Officers and Committee as of March 2024

President

Dr Nermeen Varawalla (1989), elected 5 March 2022

Joint Secretaries

Lisa Gygax (1987)

Jackie Watson (1986)

Committee Members

David Blagbrough (2008, PPE)

Chris Broughton (2014, Modern Languages)

Clare Latham (1985, PPE)

Hilary Manning (1977, History)

Judy Moir (1974, Jurisprudence)

Virginia Ross (MCR, 1966)

Joe Smith (2013, Modern Languages)

Zoe Sprigings (2004, History)

Fellows Appointed by the College

Luke Pitcher

(Fellow and Tutor in Classics)

Francesca Southerden (Fellow and Tutor in Modern Languages)

Fiona Stafford (Fellow and Tutor in English)

Benjamin Thompson (Fellow and Tutor in Medieval History)

Horsman Awards

The Alice Horsman Fund was established in 1953. Alice Horsman (1908, Classics) was a great traveller who wished to provide opportunities for former Somerville students. The award’s purpose is (a) to provide alumni with opportunities to travel in order to broaden their experience of other countries or carry out research and (b) to support alumni in a significant career change. Applications are accepted each term. More details are on the Somerville website or from the Scholarships and Funding Officer (scholarships.funding.officer@some.ox.ac.uk).

The Somerville Senior Members’ Fund

This Fund is intended to facilitate attendance at College events for alumni who would otherwise be unable to attend for financial reasons, by subsidising event tickets and travel. Please do not hesitate to call upon the Fund, for yourself or a friend. We are always grateful for donations to this Fund. Applications for grants should be addressed to development.office@some.ox.ac.uk

Life Before Somerville: Anne Emerson (1974, Oriental Studies)

A Village Girl Takes an Unusual Path to Oxford (Or, How the Impact of Luck Can Match that of Privilege)

Fortune found me, at the age of eleven, in our local village school under the drill-sergeant tutelage of Miss Linford.

It was Miss Linford’s determination, drilling us ‘to the test’, that enabled me and my twin Gill to pass the eleven-plus, that infamous screening exam, created to determine what sort of High School English children would attend. Sadly, its attempt to stream young people into academic or vocational settings often seemed to have the unintended result of turning students of the former into snobs and of the latter into rejects. Either way, Gill and I passed the eleven-plus first and second in our district (though we were not told in which order), and each received a government scholarship to the best independent (private) girls’ school in Bedfordshire.

This school, unlike a more-typical English High school, expected to prepare its best students for the exclusive Oxbridge entrance examinations. However, my mother was, at the time, concerned that we would not get to know boys in a classroom situation. The rationale for girls’ schools has been, and probably still is, that they should learn academics free from the competitive and dominant behaviours of boys. No doubt her concerns explain why, when we were about fourteen, our mother suggested that Gill and I should ‘get out a bit.’ I did; Gill did not. She became scholarly and a patient, accuratelydrawing artist, winner of awards for art and design.

I joined the village youth club, and became interested in kayaking. Bedfordshire Youth Services taught several minicourses in kayaking, to a broad cross-section of Bedfordshire youth, mostly boys. I spent many weekends and some evenings in my kayak, taking on enjoyable but increasingly challenging activities which, unknown to me, were preparing me for certification as a British Canoe Union Assistant Instructor. Academically, as my out-of-school time became well-occupied, I learned to cut corners, game the system, and avoid homework; not a good way to become competitive for University entrance.

Kayaker Anne gained both some street smarts and a personal admiration for the youth leader’s methods. (His nickname was Copper, for his reddish hair). He displayed much common sense in working with young people. For example, he asked me to do the scary things first. Then the boys could not chicken out.

By now, I was not behaving like a typical ambitious student, but I did still imagine that I might achieve as my father, a Cambridge graduate, had done. Having developed confidence and a somewhat adventurous spirit, I applied to work away from home the summer after I had turned eighteen and before

I was to apply for University entrance. My new employer was the Butlins holiday camp in Minehead, Somerset, where the Great British Public still repaired for a week’s rest and recreation. They hired me as a barmaid in the main ballroom, and so began a long summer of experiences that have stayed with me ever since.

There were parties with pick-up guitar, conversations with two girls from New Zealand who were working their way around the world, and one particularly memorable incident in which I was required to attend an intervention to rouse a consistently tardy colleague. When the unlocked door swung open, it revealed her in her nightgown, completely unembarrassed to be greeted by all her colleagues while her beau sat up in bed beside her, and much of my school-girl innocence evaporated! Having enjoyed something of a drifter’s life all summer, autumn found me no longer eager to pursue conventional success. I told my parents I wanted to work my way around the world instead. I thought I would learn more that way than I would learn at university. Next thing I knew, my teachers (now, who told my teachers?) were on a campaign to persuade me to change my mind. I said no to applying for my intended programme at the Sorbonne (Philosophy, Psychology, and Physiology, in High School French? I don’t think so!). But ‘Oriental Studies’ appealed, and so I duly applied to all five universities offering the subject, which included both Oxford and Cambridge.

ANNE (LEFT) AND HER TWIN GILL (RIGHT) AS CHILDREN

In those days, the two universities still set their own joint entrance exams. Applying to study Oriental Studies, Arabic (a culture and language) with preparation in science subjects (Mathematics, Physics, Chemistry) was somewhat unusual. For someone to apply whose academics were more in the nature of ‘gaming the system’ than truly solid was even more unusual. If one believes that an Oxford education was what I needed at the time (debatable), then I truly was lucky with the way it turned out.

In preparation for the Oxbridge Physics entrance exam, I decided to learn the basics and wing it from there. In the exam room, I spent an hour calculating the pressure of a gas from first principles (molecules bouncing off walls-type-thing) and became short of time. For subsequent questions, I explained what calculations I would perform and why, laying out the various principles and equations I would use, without doing the arithmetic. Thus, the examiners saw my strengths (foreseeing and solving the traps in their tricky questions), but not my weaknesses (making stupid arithmetic mistakes).

For the chemistry exam, I memorized the periodic table and winged it from there. For the maths exam, I learned calculus inside-out and back-to-front (good for four questions –applicants were asked to answer any five out of about twentyfive questions). Depth was better than breadth, it appears. Later, when the acceptance telegram arrived from Oxford University, it was addressed to SHAW, at our home address, so Gill and I did not know until we opened it which of the twins had got lucky. ‘Place offered read Oriental Studies,’ it said. Fortunately, Gill got hers from Cambridge a few days later. ‘Place offered read Physics.’

Upon arrival at Oxford, I was told I had failed the two language exams, but had done extremely well in Physics and Maths. Over the next three years, in our respective academic programmes at our respective Universities, my sister excelled; I scraped by.

But I learned a great deal in terms of my own worldview. For example, at the University of Oxford, smart people were a dime a dozen. You could not avoid them, however much you might have wanted to. Yet, apart from their braininess, they were a community with the full gamut of human blessings and foibles

– some were nice, sweet, and gentle; others were dishonest or unkind, etc. I concluded that people who used their intelligence for the good of others were OK; those who built themselves up at others’ expense were less admirable.

But perhaps the most important lesson of all for me, having studied Middle Eastern Literature in some depth, was that the great literature of other times and places spoke to me as cogently as the great literature of my own world. Perhaps they explored the humanities differently, perhaps their culture solved societal challenges differently, but I thought Middle Eastern authors wrestled with the same human themes as we do, and with similar sophistication.

Today, I am glad that I did not spend an academic life searching for the roots of consciousness within the human brain, as I had planned before my summer away, via studies in Philosophy, Physiology, and Psychology. I no longer believe that consciousness resides in the physical brain. Or if by any chance it does, what would be the point of discovering it? As a spiritual master might say, ‘Such discoveries are not wrong; merely trivial…’

ANNE RESCUES A RUNAWAY KYAK

ANNE IN KAYAK, WITH SWANS

ANNE CARRYING KAYAK TO RIVER

Members’ News and Publications

If you have a news item which you would like to appear in the next College Report, please send in your contribution before July 31st to development.office@some.ox.ac.uk

1963

Anjali Ghate writes: I am running 80 now, walk with a stick, have the debilitating hyper eosinophil syndrome along with other stuff. I thank Somerville enormously for coming out with their annual report on alumni where I can share a glimpse of my life and connect with my peers.

Having led a wonderful life travelling to 74 countries and 7 continents including Antarctica, I couldn't have asked for a better life. Travelling across this unique planet has been exhilarating and I have been able to maintain this wonderment all through my life. Soon after Somerville I got married to a civil servant whose parents owned a beautiful tiled roof cottage in the jungle town of Pachmarhi, Madhya Pradesh, Central India. Pachmarhi is situated on a plateau at an elevation of about 3,400 ft, surrounded by Sal forests, where the trees are full of beautiful song birds. Some of the birds around our house and in the jungles are oriental magpie robin, orange headed thrush, Asian pied hornbill, green barber, jungle fowl. The fun is to identify the birds from their bird song. I can sit on my high veranda forever looking out at the Satpura mountains and the range beyond. Our garden is full of mango trees and some lychee and jack fruit trees. I visit Pachmarhi in the summer every year when I try and escape from the intense heat of Delhi. My family makes it more often. Enthusiastic outdoor people, my two sons and grandchildren try and make it while we are there. Pachmarhi is wild: full of gorges, waterfalls, streams and pools. We have been going for picnics, swimming and treks all our lives. Doing day treks to the streams and pools below, swimming, making tea, playing chess or reading, the family often go on overnight camps.

Being a jungle area there is always talk of sighting a tiger or seeing bears. Suddenly in the middle of one’s walk in the forest one sees a large Indian bison with her calf, or a herd of wild boar crossing one’s path. What makes Pachmarhi unique

are the rock paintings by the prehistoric tribals tucked away in the caves in the high plateau and the caves in the jungle The whole area has for the past few years been declared as the Satpura National Park. More tigers have been introduced, and sightings are more frequent.

Well, I am here for another ten days, almost at the end of my trip. The monsoons have started. They are very heavy and nonstop with loud crackling thunder and lightning. Time to go back to Delhi. I hear the heat wave is over. My very best wishes and good health to all Somervillians.

1964

Sue Griffin (Watson) writes: Despite the looming 80th birthday and the various ailments that creep up from time to time, I am very happy that I can still make contributions to our local community and maintain social contacts. I am now Chair of Oxford University Society in Cambridgeshire; we organise talks and other events for Oxford alumns who live in Cambs. Fifteen Somervillians are on our list (so far…) and we were grateful to our Principal who allowed me to do a little recruiting at a drinks gathering she gave in Cambridge this year. I am also a trustee of the Sutton Charity, founded in the 19th century to help those in ‘need, hardship or distress’ in the parish of Sutton-in-the-Isle (ie the Isle of Ely), using income from rents on the land we own round the village, let to allotment holders and local farmers. I recently organised a publicity campaign to try to spread the word about our existence and purpose, and I also help to meet applicants to explore ways we can support them. We look like a well-todo village in a prosperous area, but for some local residents, it is a struggle to keep head above the turbulent financial waters and our interventions can often lift a weight of anxiety about growing debt. I am also a member of the Patient Participation Group for our village GP surgery. Rod and I are approaching our 57th anniversary and are very fortunate

that both our daughters and their families live within 20 miles. I have adjusted to having three granddaughters who tower above me. Ageing bones and muscles are kept from seizing up at a pilates class and in my garden which is really getting too big for me to keep properly under manners, but continues to give me great pleasure.

Alison Skilbeck writes: Last August I had a very successful run on the Edinburgh Fringe with my ‘Alison Skilbeck's Uncommon Ground’ playing seven characters during lockdown. I've played it since in two London venues, The Old Red Lion and The Old Sorting Office (not so much of the ‘old’ thank you!); I'll be going to Barnes with my show about Shakespeare's older women, 'The Power Behind the Crone', in October. I also did a short tour of the North East with my play about Eleanor Roosevelt. My work at RADA has continued, and I did a session on Communications Skills with Somerville students earlier this year, which was a delight as ever. I'm now working on a two-hander play for my husband Tim Hardy and me for 2025. His, well, our, six grandchildren now range in age from six up to fourteen, four of them now at ‘big’ school. We're still in Clapham, near the Common, and hope to remain here.

Dr Priscilla Turner writes: I’ve just (Spring 2024) published my Oxford doctoral dissertation now clearly printed, in three formats, one for reference (scholars, libraries), two cheaper for Septuagint students:– The Septuagint Version of Chapters I-XXXIX of the Book of Ezekiel. Regrettably the original text of this book has never existed in a modern Unicode word-processor, and earlier printings were created by scanning a printout from ChiWriter 3.17. That programme had the merit of enabling one, before Unicode, to type combination text in three alphabets. The current new printing is a careful reconstruction in Microsoft Word converted in Acrobat to the .pdf form that is required by printers. It involved piles of hard work. There is mild repagination, and a handful of extremely minor corrections.

1966

Professor Clare Morris (Mrs Griffel) writes: In January 2024 I became the Vice-President for Professional Affairs of the Royal Statistical Society.

1967

Jennifer Barraclough writes: My main news this year is having self-published a short book Migraine and Me: A Doctor's Experience of Understanding and Coping with Migraine, available from online retailers. Otherwise I continue to live happily in New Zealand with my husband and cats, and enjoy occasional visits to Oxford.

Michèle Roberts writes: I chaired the UK Student Prix Goncourt 2023 jury at the Institut Francais, talked about Colette at the 2024 Oxford Literature Festival, and reviewed two of Edouard Louis’ books newly translated from French. My latest book, Colette: My Literary Mother came out in August.

Sarah Roberts writes: I received a PhD in Art History from the Open University in 2022. My book Ambition, Art and Image-Making in an Early Quattrocento Court - the Palazzo Trinci Frescoes was published by Taylor and Francis on August 1st, 2024.

1969

Revd Dr Linda Robertson (Branch) writes: This year I was awarded a PhD in Early Modern History by the University of Dundee. I am currently working on a series of full transcriptions of witness depositions in the Chichester Consistory Court, primarily from the Stuart period, with 5 volumes already published as e-books by the Sussex Record Society.

1970

Sabina Lovibond published 'The Quiet Hermeneutics of John McDowell', in McDowell and the Hermeneutic Tradition, edited by Daniel Martin Feige and Thomas J. Spiegel (Routledge, 2024).

1973

Janey Fisher (Anstey) has published the third in her series of Jeremy Swanson mysteries, Priest Hole, which received a review in April's edition of QUAD magazine. Set in Cornwall during Lockdown 2020, it falls into no genre very clearly, being a mystery with a historical core, married with some peri-

paranormal phenomena in an ancient Cornish manor house! Janey will speak in College at Somerville Creates on 23rd November.

1975

Linda Appleby writes: My book The Kingdom Is Yours is due to be published this year. It looks at the connections between personal experience and world events. I’m busy with church, samba, the Oxford University Society. I belong to the Somerville Book Group and looking forward to our Literary Festival in November.

Sandy Libling (Sandra Matthews) writes: I still live in Sydney Australia whose natural beauty, dynamism and warmth both climatic and social I love. However I am travelling about 4 months of the year to various places, visiting sons, granddaughters and daughtersin-law in New York and in London and exploring the world anew. Last year I travelled to Jordan and Uzbekistan as well as less unusual places which challenged my unexamined ideas of borders and settlements. I often go on cultural hikes in Europe with Sydney friends but I am equally happy travelling on my own, an activity which recalls the person I was before children, marriage and, indeed, settlement. I write a little poetry which travelling on your own clearly stimulates, but no longer sing in a choir due to my travelling and inability to get to rehearsals. I am no longer involved in the film industry but I am still Chair of an industrial property fund of which I am a co-owner - a job I can do through Zoom while travelling, a pleasing legacy from Covid times. I spend quite a bit of time in London, where we have bought a flat, and would welcome catching up with old Somervillians, and would equally welcome those who travel to Sydney.

1976

Linda Salt writes: In April, I was elected Chairman of the Woking/West Surrey Group of the Alpine Garden Society. This is in addition to my 8th year as Churchwarden at All Saints, New Haw. I continue to enjoy playing alto sax in the Bourne Concert Band of Woking, celebrating its 40th anniversary in July 2024.

1977

Cindy Gallop writes: I'm delighted to report that in early 2024 we launched

our first ever equity crowdfunding campaign for MakeLoveNotPornfirst ever, because historically, no crowdfunding platform would permit a sextech venture. The wonderful actress Jameela Jamil proposed that she lead a campaign as lead investor, and brought us to WeFunder. We are targeting $1million, and while at the time of writing we are a third of the way there, the good news is that this has enabled us to begin building what parents and teachers have been asking us for for yearsMakeLoveNotPorn.academy, our 0-18 and beyond sex education expansion. We hope to release a bare-bones Minimum Viable Product, as they say in tech, in a few months’ time - watch this space!

1980

Victoria Andrew (Canning) writes:

I have an extensive volunteering portfolio in my profession of Chartered Accountancy. As well as serving on ICAEW Council (the profession’s governing body) since June 2019, I have recently been appointed as Chair of ICAEW’s Ethics Standards Committee. Other recent appointments have been as a member of ICAEW’s Governance and Appointments Committee, Technical Strategy Board and Ethics Advisory Committee. Plus I am a peer support member and an honorary Vice President of CASSL (the organisation for ACA trainees in London). Somehow I manage to fit in a day job (albeit part time since my husband’s retirement in 2023). The highlight of our year was attending the wedding of our only child, Alex, to Dominika in Poland.

1984

Shân Wareing writes: I started a new job as Vice Chancellor of Middlesex University. Despite financial challenges in the sector, I'm loving it. It was a good opportunity, too, to reconnect with Somerville as it made me reflect on how the benefits of education grow over a lifetime and extend across generations.

1985

Rebecca Jones writes: After more than two decades as the BBC’s Arts correspondent and 26 years at the BBC in total working as a Chief News Presenter and Reporter, I decided to leave the Corporation last year. I am continuing to host events, talks and conferences for literary festivals and organisations including the Royal Opera

House. And I have re-trained as a Barre instructor and I am teaching at Barrecore fitness studios in London. I’m loving my new career.

Lucinda Smith (Humphreys) writes: I have three pieces of news from the last year. First and most important, my granddaughter, Hazel, was born, daughter of son, George, and his girlfriend, Georgia. I was elected as a member of the Council of the Institution of Civil Engineers, a three-year term helping with strategy and governance at this vital time of change. I am very aware of the urgent need for prioritising and innovating as I also completed an MSc Climate Change at Birkbeck, part of University of London.

1986

Jackie Watson is delighted to be working in Alumni Relations at Somerville, after a 30 year teaching career (latterly as Vice Principal at Oxford Spires Academy, just off the Cowley Road). It has been a good year, as it also saw the publication of her first academic monograph, Epistolary Courtiership and Dramatic Letters: Thomas Overbury and the Jacobean Playhouse (Edinburgh University Press), which explores careers at the court of James VI and I and their dramatic echoes.

Karen Cull (Ford) writes: I continue to live in Redondo Beach in Los Angeles County in the USA with my husband Prof Nick Cull who teaches at USC. I have three sons. The oldest is at USC studying Political Science/Pre-Law, and the youngest is starting High School. Our middle son, who happens to have Down syndrome is entering the new world of adult services and hopefully in a few years one of the new TPSID college programs. I have recently trained as a special education advocate to help other parents navigate the complex US education system with child with

a disability and I create content for an internet platform for families, Undivided.io.

1987

Sarah Chambers writes: My first book One-Armed Jack: Uncovering the Real Jack the Ripper by Sarah Bax Horton was published by Michael O’Mara Books in August 2023. It is now available in several formats, with a copy in the College Library! As a non-fiction re-examination of the original police investigation written in honour of my Whitechapel police ancestor, it has had an extraordinary response from global news and TV outlets. I am continuing to write on the subject of the Whitechapel murders, and will speak in College at Somerville Creates on 23rd November.

Suzanne Heywood writes: This year my biography Wavewalker which tells the story of my 10 years growing up on a boat (which culminated in my admittance to Somerville) was published in paperback. I have also joined the board of Clarivate, alongside the other governance positions I hold at Exor (including Chairing CNH and Iveco Group). It was a wonderful surprise to be included in The King’s 2024 Honours list - it has been a very long journey to here from a yacht in the South Pacific!

1990

Caroline Derry has been appointed Professor of Feminism, Law and Society at The Open University.

1992

Donna Mc Laughlin writes: In spring 2024, I turned 50, entered a civil partnership and I left the NHS. My new adventures are to finish my PhD which I had been juggling alongside full time work since 2019. This is a sociological study considering what is valued within an employment interview, why certain groups appear to be favoured by this process and how this is being disrupted with new approaches to recruitment. I am also focusing on developing my leadership and executive coaching practice having established my own independent practice in 2021. I remain a non-executive director of The Health Creation Alliance and have been appointed to the Steering Group of Queen Bee Coaching, which is part of the Pankhurst Centre in Manchester (Queen Bee CoachingPankhurstProjects.org Manchester).

1995

Helen Dyson (Rice) writes: Earlier this year I received funding from Arts Council England to research and develop a female-led cabaret show based on the story of a woman called Edith Brookes who died in my local park (Hillsborough, Sheffield) in 1902, doing a parachute jump stunt from a hot air balloon. The show is in its very early stages and we hope to have something to share with a local audience by the end of the year. Huge thanks to Somerville's Alice Horsman Fund which allowed me to take time to complete the challenging ACE application! My debut poetry pamphlet, I’m Not Your Mother, was published at the end of August.

Jane Aspell has been promoted to Professor of Cognitive Neuroscience at Anglia Ruskin University.

Richard West-Soley (West) writes: I was recently awarded a fully funded scholarship to begin a PhD in Linguistics at the University of Edinburgh this September. I'll be researching the enregisterment of British English dialects through circulated media from the 19th century onwards, continuing a MSc research study I conducted into Black Country English. The Linguistics PhD continues a thread that stretches right back to my Somerville days under the tutelage of Dr Suerbaum - I've always been professionally involved with language in one way or another since then! I also published a book in August 2023, AI for Language Learners, which is my small contribution to the burgeoning field of AI in education.

Nicola Nice (Lindsey) writes: I published my first book with Countryman Press, titled The Cocktail Parlor: How Women Brought the Cocktail Home. The Cocktail Parlor gives women their long-overdue spotlight in cocktail history and cocktail culture today. Whether it’s a happy hour punch a là Martha Washington or a Harlem Renaissance-inspired Green Skirt, we learn how many of the ingredients and drinks we’re familiar with today would not be here without the hostesses who served them first.

1998

Barbara J. Gabrys continued teaching mindfulness meditation in the College in Michaelmas and Hilary Terms. As a Zen master, she leads Zen training and weekly meditation of Zenspace

LUCINDA SMITH'S GRANDDAUGHTER, HAZEL

sangha. Barbara is an Academic Visitor in Department of Materials, Oxford University, and member of a Steering Committee of Alternative Natural Philosophy Association (ANPA). Currently her research interests are focused on descriptions of universe using diverse approaches. In 2023, she published a paper on ‘The coded language of Zen’ in ‘Universum’, 43rd Anniversary Proceedings of ANPA which she coedited with Divyamaan Sahoo.

2004

Kat Gordon writes: I was reminded by a recent email that I have another publication to announce! My third book (The Swell ), an exploration of motherhood and women's rights set in Iceland in 1910 and 1975 has been acquired by Manilla Press (the literary imprint at Bonnier Books). And they have also bought my work-in-progress, a novel about the marriage between Charles and Catherine Dickens. The Swell will be published in January 2025, and the as-of-yet-untitled fourth book probably in 2026!

Clarissa Tam writes: I’m very happy to share that I received a Project Grant from the Hong Kong Arts Development Council to curate a cross-disciplinary art exhibition “Festival of Decay” this May. It invited the audience to alternative encounters with ideas of decay, death and loss through newly commissioned works by five artists and a series of frank conversations about human ageing.

2005

Amir Hakim was awarded a QMUL Education Excellence Award for leading the clinical science integration (CSI) and preparing for placements in physiology labs team, Queen Mary (Barts & The London) medical school.

2007

Jacques Schuhmacher writes: Drawing on my work as Senior Provenance Research Curator at Victoria and Albert Museum, I have published a book, NaziEra Provenance of Museum Collections (UCL Press). It is a comprehensive guide on how to research the Nazi-era provenance of museum collections, featuring an accessible historical overview and detailing key research methods and resources.

2009

Eleanor Jaskowska writes: I’ve just come back from a yearlong traverse of the Andes by bike with my partner (not a Somervillian). We’ve got lots of stunning photos and many stories. Our blog is www.drawinglinesonmaps.com if you want to have a read.

2012

Guy Bud writes: I have had an article published in this May's edition of the peer-review journal Historical Research The article is titled ‘The sanctuary of them all": the politics of manpower and nationality in the armies in exile in the United Kingdom, 1940-4’ and is available to read online.

2016

Connor David Scott (Clinical Neuroscience, DPhil, former MCR president) met Madison Eisler (2018, Clinical Embryology, MSc) for the first time in Somerville in 2018. In 2023 we both moved to Boston, USA to pursue careers in the pharmaceutical industry and medical regulatory space, respectively. We got engaged in July! I never would have met Madison if it wasn’t for Somerville college and the MCR. Somerville will always have a fond place in our hearts.

2019

Aivin Gast writes: A paper I coauthored has been accepted by Nature I worked on the research while being at Somerville, so Somerville is also included in the paper as an author’s affiliation! The article introduces the giant jet system (coming from a ‘radio galaxy’) ‘Porphyrion’, which we discovered. It is the largest known structure made by an astrophysical body in our Universe.

My role in the project was actually identifying (and finding) these radio galaxies with their jet, so you could say that after 7 billion years of travelling, Porphyrion’s light was finally first seen in Somerville. In October I will start an MPhil in Heritage Studies at St John’s College.

2022

Meghmala Mukherjee writes: I started my academia journey as an Assistant Professor of Legal Practice at O.P. Jindal Global University, and I currently teach Corporate Laws to both undergrads and Blended LLM students.

Sarah Pacey-Parker (MSt Diplomatic Studies) was appointed in January 2024 as the Manager of International Relations at the Canadian Space Agency. International partnerships are at the core of space exploration and Sarah is thrilled to lead the Agency’s bilateral and multilateral engagements, including at the United Nations.

Payal Agarwal writes: After graduating in ‘Bachelor of Civil Law’ with merit in July 2023, I returned to the vibrant tapestry of India to resume my role within the Rajasthan Judicial Service, as Senior Civil Judge and Additional Chief Judicial Magistrate. In this role, I performed my solemn duty of dispensing justice with both fairness and integrity, carefully balancing the scales of justice with the utmost diligence and compassion. In April 2024, The Hon’ble High Court of Rajasthan bestowed upon me the great honour and profound responsibility of holding the distinguished position of Deputy Director at the Rajasthan State Judicial Academy in Jodhpur. In this pivotal role, I am entrusted with the noble task of shaping the judicial acumen of incoming probationer judges. This new chapter in my professional journey not only allows me to contribute to the elevation of judicial standards but also to honour the rich legacy of judicial excellence. My role encompasses the design and delivery of rigorous training programmes, fostering a profound understanding of judicial principles and practices, and ensuring the seamless and effective administration of the academy. This not only allows me to contribute to the advancement of judicial excellence but also to uphold and enrich the noble traditions of our judicial heritage.

CONNOR DAVID SCOTT AND MADISON EISLER

Births

Payne-Knighton

To Emma Payne (2005) and William Knighton, a daughter Penelope Payne-Knighton, born 28 June 2024, a sister for Rupert.

Marriages

Sudar - Loveluck

In June 2023 Marsha Sudar (2011) to Tom Loveluck (2011) in Cambridgeshire. They now live with their daughter Charlotte in Sydney, Australia.

Clayton – Brown

In August 2023 Ilona Clayton (2017, History and Modern Languages) to Thomas Brown at St Anne’s Limehouse. The bridesmaids were all Somervillians too: (L-R) Shanae Nge (2018), Telemi Emmanuel-Aina (2018), Yinni Hu (2017), and Hannah Patient (2017).

Sandu – Smith

In August 2023 Dona-Maria Sandu (2009) to Kevin Smith. They now live in Zurich, Switzerland.

PENELOPE AND RUPERT PAYNE-KNIGHTON

CLAYTON - BROWN

SUDAR - LOVELUCK

Deaths

Arnold-Forster

Valentine Harriet Isobel Dione ArnoldForster, née Mitchison (1948, Law), died 27 May 2023, aged 92

Barratt

Katherine Margaret (Katy) Barratt (1970, Mathematics), died 20 August 2023, aged 70

Barrett

Margaret Shepherd Barrett, née Bacon (1946, Medicine), died 1 June 2023, aged 95

Barstow

Julia Mary Ursula (Jo) Barstow, née Dunn (1955, Modern Languages), died 9 April 2024, aged 87

Bevan

Susan Elizabeth Bevan (1960, Politics, Philosophy and Economics), died 8 January 2024, aged 81

Blackman

Pauline Mary Blackman, née Taylor (1956, Mathematics), died 5 February 2024, aged 86

Broodbank

Hannalore (Hanna) Broodbank, née Altmann (1942, Modern Languages), died 18 July 2024, aged 100

Byatt

Antonia Susan Byatt, née Drabble (1958, BLitt English), died 16 November 2023, aged 87

Cairns

Barbara Scott Cairns (1951, Mathematics), died 8 November 2023, aged 90

Caniato

Mary Caniato, née Kershaw (1946, English), died 29 May 2024, aged 95

Carritt

Christian Agnes Kirkwood Carritt (1946, Physiological Science), died 5 July 2023, aged 96

Cleaver

Nora Catharine Cleaver, née Marsden (1948, Modern Languages), died 13 March 2023, aged 93

Cooke

Elizabeth Frances Mary (Liz) Cooke, née Greenwood (1964, History), died 17 August 2023, aged 78

Crawford

Linda Crawford, née Robertshaw (1967, Physics), died 22 February 2024, aged 75

Drinkall

Margery Patricia Mary (Patricia) Drinkall, née Ellis (1949, French and Spanish), died 8 January 2023, aged 93

Eisner

Margaret Claire (Maggie) Eisner (1965, Psychology, Philosophy and Physiology), died 18 December 2022, aged 75

Evans

Dorothy Mary Evans, née White (1963, Mathematics), died 27 June 2023, aged 77

Florence

Melanie Jane Florence (1981, BA and MPhil Modern Languages), died 18 September 2023, aged 60

Fodor

Janet Fodor, née Dean (1961, Psychology, Philosophy and Physiology), died 28 August 2023, aged 81

Forshaw

Jean Mary Forshaw, née Carpenter (1948, History), died 27 March 2024, aged 94

Gaine

Penelope Margaret Gaine, née Dornan (1959, English), died 25 February 2024, aged 84

Gray

Elizabeth Ann (Ann) Gray (1953, English), died 13 October 2023, aged 89

Gregson

Jennifer Mary (Jenny) Gregson, née Hope Simpson (1957, Mathematics), died 15 March 2023, aged 84

Gyde

Sylvia Nancy Gyde, née Clayton (1954, Physiological Sciences), died 23 April 2024, aged 87

Hampshire

Joan Hampshire (1947, English), died 22 December 2023, aged 94

Harrison

Pauline Harrison, née Cowan (1944, BA and DPhil Chemistry), died 28 May 2024, aged 99

Hobsbaum

Rosemary Hobsbaum, née Phillips (1955, English), died 29 June 2023, aged 86

Howard

Cynthia Mabel Howard (1951, Modern Languages), died 30 September 2023, aged 91

Humphreys

Sarah Caroline Le Messurier (Sally) Humphreys, née Hinchliff (1953, Literae Humaniores), died 26 February 2024, aged 89

Hunt

Jane Hunt, née Williams (1966, Jurisprudence), died 13 June 2024, aged 75

Jacobson

Anne Jacobson, née Jaap (1965, BPhil and DPhil), died 8 October 2023

Kay

Teresa Kay, née Dyer (1947, English), died 10 June 2024, aged 98

Klein

Martha Klein, née Bein (1987, BPhil Philosophy), died 9 March 2024, aged 82

Lister

Ruth Lister (1944, Medicine), died 27 August 2023, aged 97

Mackney

Helen Mackney, née Humphreys (1975, Geography), died 4 July 2024, aged 67

McLean

Elizabeth Kathleen (Lizzie) McLean, née Hunter (1950, Physiological Sciences), died 4 August 2023, aged 91

Rattenbury

Judith Rattenbury (1958, Physics), died 18 May 2024, aged 84

Rees

Vivienne June Cassandra Rees, née Farey (1951, History), died 4 February 2024, aged 92

Rhodes

Cynthea Rhodes, née Woffenden (1956, Modern Languages), died 13 September 2023, aged 86

Robinson

Jane Hippisley Robinson, née Packham (1959, Chemistry), died 24 November 2023, aged 81

Romanelli

Constanza Romanelli (1948, Literae Humanities), died 25 May 2023, aged 94

Sackett

Helen Mary Sackett, née Phillips (1948, Physics), died 28 March 2023, aged 93

Scopes

Patricia Molly (Molly) Scopes, née Bryant (1954, Chemistry), died 31 December 2023, aged 88

Sciama

Lidia Sciama (1970, Anthropology), died 31 May 2024, aged 92

Seebohm

Caroline Seebohm (1958, Jurisprudence), died 22 July 2023, aged 82

Senior

Diana Senior (1962, English), died April 2024, aged 80

Schlee

Ann Acheson Schlee, née Cumming (1952, English), died 1 November 2023, aged 89

Sik

Jane Margaret Sik, née Woodland (1965, Physics), died 17 December 2023, aged 77

Skemp

Sandra Pauline Skemp, née Burns (1957, Jurisprudence), died 24 January 2024, aged 85

Stokes

Susan Stokes, née Bretherton (1952, Modern Languages), died 6 January 2024, aged 89

Sykes

Rachel Sheila Cooper Sykes (1943, English), died 2 October 2023, aged 99

Szulakowska

Urszula Stefania Szulakowska (1970, History), died 21 July 2023, aged 72

Taplin

Pamela (Kim) Taplin, née Stampfer (1962, English), died April 2024, aged 80

Thomas

Hazel Claire Thomas (1973, History), died 29 December 2023, aged 69

Treitel

Phyllis Margaret Treitel, née Cook (1948, PPE), died 1 May 2024, aged 94

Welding

Diana Mary Welding, née Panting (1949, Modern Languages), died 20 October 2023, aged 92

Zaw

Jane Khin Zaw (Sister Jane of Mary) (1956, PPE), died 10 July 2024, aged 87

Obituaries

Valentine (Val) Arnold-Forster

(née Mitchison, 1948)

Born in Hammersmith, the youngest of five surviving children, Val’s family moved to Carradale House, on the west coast of Scotland just before the war. She developed self-reliance and resourcefulness as her siblings went to boarding school, before she herself moved to Badminton School in Devon.

Admitted to read PPE at Somerville, Val soon changed to Law and showed herself to be precociously clever and intellectually gifted. With social skills to match this, while at College she became friends with, amongst others, Shirley Williams, Tony Benn, Roger Bannister and Bill Rogers.

Moving to London, she became a reporter, initially on The Daily Mirror, and met her future husband, Mark Arnold-Forster, in a coffee shop on Fleet Street. Her engagement was noted in the press. She told her sister, Lois, ‘I had quite a monstrous picture of me in The Evening Standard. On the front page, though it didn’t last through the editions’. Moving to Islington after their wedding, Val was soon mother to Kate, Sam and Josh, rapidly followed by Mary and Jake. Val never drove, about which she felt a mixture of pride, regret possibly, but also defiance. Life

was accessed by foot, and for many years accompanied by a child-filled pushchair or pram. Whether in London or back at Carradale, Val regularly found herself overseeing and cooking for households of sometimes 40 people or more.

During the 1970s she began a new career as a radio critic for The Guardian : a job that offered her a ‘space’ of her own, professional status and somewhere to enjoy freedom from the challenges of domestic life. Here she flourished and found a voice: exercising her intellect, her enjoyment of people and a playful sense of humour. Her social courage and her generosity towards people less fortunate than herself were equally inspiring. And her confidence was contagious. However, that confidence was sometimes more fragile than it seemed, and this period also covered a time of immense stress and trauma at home, not least when her beloved husband Mark died on Christmas Day 1981 after a prolonged battle with cancer.

With the arrival of her first grandchild in 1990, she began an important new stage of her life. She loved newborn babies but equally sustained her interest and involvement in every stage of their lives, generously offering her time and home to this next generation of her family. Val’s later life was spent sharing time with friends and family, and enjoying her independence. She moved to a care home with her brother Av and sister Lois, where she lived until her death on 27 May 2023. Her legacy was one of love and connecting with other people, of caring for others and - in return - enjoying their company and friendship. In this respect, she lived a gloriously abundant life.

VALENTINE ARNOLD-FORSTER

Katherine (Katy) Barratt (1970)

After graduating from Somerville with a degree in Mathematics, Katy took an MSc in Statistics at Cambridge and started her lifelong career as a Civil Service Statistician. She began in the Home Office and was promoted through various Departments in London. She continued her statistical work in the Scottish Office, having moved to Edinburgh to be with her partner George.

There, they were both active within the Scottish Labour Party for many years. They later married to enable her to join him on a two-year secondment in Paris. Sadly, the marriage ended after a few years but she was happily settled in Edinburgh New Town and remained there.

She never wanted children but had a passion for reading a variety of fiction, and would spend hours a day doing so. She also had a keen interest in Archaeology and travelled to many countries to look at ruins and read by a pool. She was very generous and hospitable with friends and family but Covid and lockdown made her anxious and, consequently, uncharacteristically reclusive. She died on August 20th 2023 shortly after a very late diagnosis of bowel cancer.

Margaret (Maggie) Barrett (née Bacon, 1946)

Being an only child can lead to a weight of parental expectation, but luckily for Maggie, born in Workington on the edge of the Lake District, she grew up bright and good at just about everything. Her father worked through what became British Steel, from tea-boy to Company Secretary, so he could send his daughter to Harrogate Ladies' College, and she came from there to Somerville to read Medicine: one of only ten women on the course at the time.

After qualifying as a doctor and a short time in hospital work, she moved back to Oxford to have their children – Charles, James, Jill and Kate – and for Chiz to be a GP on Walton Street. As the children grew, Maggie supported Chiz in the running of the practice, and returned to medicine after a 20-year break to work in family planning. She took a Diploma in Venereology and worked as a sexual health doctor, and her children note that ‘conversations round the family dinner table were not the usual ones but more interesting than most’!

After retirement, she and Chiz had a great time travelling, visiting India, Kashmir, China and Botswana, and spending two summers travelling around Europe in a camper van. A charmer and full of life, Maggie had a life-long interest in fashion and was always a Vogue reader. She also always looked on the bright side, was interested and interesting, and her talent for conversation made everyone she talked to feel special.

Julia (Jo) Barstow (née Dunn, 1955)

Jo’s passion for languages began as a teenager. Born in Solihull as one of four children, she travelled to learn more: working as a nanny in France, Spain and Portugal and opening up doors to friendships that lasted all her life. She read Modern Languages, and went on after that to gain a PhD in Medieval French Literature from the University of Pennsylvania.

At Penn, Jo taught French and met her husband, Allan, before they moved to Storrs, Connecticut, built their own log home and raised three children. Initially teaching French and Spanish at Central Connecticut State University, she then became the administrator and ‘Mama Grande’ of their Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies, where she was treasured for her masterful organizational and budgeting skills, and her care of many generations of students, faculty, and staff. She also operated her own home bakery ‘Mrs. Barstow’s Bakery’, and became well known for her delicious French bread!

She was an extremely good swimmer and later went on to get a swimming Blue at Oxford. As she waited to be interviewed by Dorothy Hodgkin, she met her lifelong friend, Dottie, and many of her memories of her time at Somerville involved smoking, parties and romance. She met another medical student, William (Chiz) Barrett of New College, ‘over a cadaver’ as he chivalrously passed down a microscope for her, and an important factor in his attraction seemed to be that he had a radiogram in his room, where they played swing, Rachmaninov and Elgar (favourites for their whole lives). She remembered romantic times – the New College Summer Ball, punting down the Cherwell in the dawn light, drinking champagne – and they married when she was only 22.

Jo followed the UConn Women’s Basketball team, played various instruments in several early music groups, sang in the Renaissance Revival, and was a founding and sustaining member of ‘The Sewing Circle’. She sewed many of her own clothes as well as both her daughters’ wedding dresses, fed the family from her large vegetable garden, raised chickens, ducks, goats, and more. She continued studying languages, including Russian into her 80s, even as dementia began to affect her.

Jo loved being a good friend, opening her home to guests from near and far, and helping people make connections with each other.

KATHERINE BARRATT

MARGARET BARRETT

JULIA BARSTOW

Susan Bevan (1960)

Daughter of an RAF officer, Susan was born in Newcastle on Tyne, but her early life took her to Malaysia and Germany, as well as staying with relatives and attending boarding schools. Her fierce independence was a product of this early life.

Moving to Somerville to read PPE, she developed and honed the strong socialist principles which were to remain such an important part of her life. Becoming a financial journalist when she graduated, she worked for, amongst other publications, The Economist, The Daily Telegraph, The Birmingham Post and The Investors’ Chronicle. Some might find this career path strange for such an avowed socialist. However, Susan was ever a pragmatist. She had the ability, if she wanted to, ‘to run with the hare and ride with the hounds’, although her sympathies would have always been with the hares!

Headhunted to help launch a new financial newspaper, The Business Times, in Kuala Lumpur, Susan faced both the male dominated world of financial journalism and the extra challenge for professional women in 1970s Malaysia. But she was never afraid of challenge, and she was successful in her career: a very talented writer, who had the courage and determination to not let prejudice of any sort stand in her way.

In the final stages of her career, she worked for the Institute of Strategic Studies as their Publishing Manager and then became a freelance financial journalist which she loved. Then, in 1990, Susan made the decision to buy a house in Tonbridge. The final 30 years of her life were probably the happiest and most contented. She loved her house and garden and loved Tonbridge. She soon became active in her local community in the Slade and was involved in the setting up of the Slade Area Residents Association, known as SARA, where at various times Susan was Chair, Secretary and Editor of the Newsletter. Susan was also passionate about Tonbridge as a whole and was an active member of the Tonbridge Civic Society.

Susan was an amazing sister, aunt, friend, journalist and fighter for what she believed in.

Pauline Blackman (née Taylor, 1956)

Pauline was born in Steeton, Yorkshire, on 19 November 1937: the only child of Horace, a woollen merchant, and Sarah, a teacher. Although an only child, she had many cousins living in Steeton, and going with her to the local primary school. Her cousin, Thea, was even in the same class with her at the senior school in Keighley.

Pauline went on to study Mathematics at Somerville, and I first met her when Miss Cobb, our tutor, put us together for our tutorials with her and with Mrs Thomson, who lived up the Woodstock Road, for which our bicycles were definitely useful. We went on to study slightly different areas of Mathematics and so it was not until our third year we really became firm friends. We were partners in the University Badminton team, and so played a lot together. We also went for long cycle rides when our work was proving too difficult and we needed a break.

After her teacher training year, Pauline taught at Scarborough High School. While there she became increasingly aware of the problems deaf children had in school, so she went to Manchester for a Diploma in Teaching the Deaf. From there she went to the Mary Hare School for the Deaf in Berkshire, and while there she met her husband, Alan, through the badminton club. She loved her work with deaf children and found it very rewarding, but they had to move for Alan’s work, to Liversedge, back in Yorkshire. Pauline taught at the Girls’ Grammar School in Halifax until it combined with the boys’ school, when she took early retirement.

She played a very active part in the running of her local chapel, being an Elder for many years, playing the organ and being involved in the various activities, especially those for children. She also became involved with local committees and organisations, particularly those involving the countryside and open spaces, walking for miles checking on the condition of local footpaths. Pauline enjoyed her garden, working hard to keep it tidy, raising seedlings, taking cuttings and pottering in her greenhouse.

During Covid, Pauline and Alan became very isolated and their health gradually deteriorated, so that they both became house bound. Pauline had a stroke in 2023 and although she recovered well, she was often very tired and lacking in energy. However, it was a great shock to all to learn of her sudden death, and even sadder to learn that Alan had died on the morning of her funeral.

Christine Parker (née Gregory, 1956)

Jill Brock (née Lewis, 1956)

After reading Medicine at Somerville, one of only four women in her year, Jill travelled alone to work in a mission hospital in South Africa. Fearless in the face of challenge, she returned to the UK to train in oncology.

That fearlessness was mixed with a dash of stubbornness, and a lot of loyalty and generosity. Her patients benefited from the latter as she freely gave her time and expertise. As a consultant oncologist at Clatterbridge Hospital and Alder Hey Hospital, Jill treated children with cancer, and was very good at it, as shown by the number of weddings she was invited to and the number of Christmas cards and gifts she received. She was clinical tutor and programme director for many years, training a

PAULINE BLACKMAN

JILL BROCK

SUSAN BEVAN

whole cohort of young oncologists, and was a senior examiner for the Diploma in Medical Radiotherapy. She also freely gave her time as the founding medical director of the Wirral Hospice St John’s, for twelve years from 1983. She was fondly remembered in Clatterbridge where she lived, even seventeen years after her final retirement.

After meeting her husband, Laurie, while in a full body-cast after back surgery, Jill went on to have three daughters. Even after Laurie’s death in 1996, her joy was cooking for her family and she had a passion for travel, and exploring new places: not backpacking, definitely the luxury version, but it became a sort of game trying to find places that she had not been to. When a relative went volunteering, people would look at him blankly when he said he was going to Eritrea. When he told Jill, she looked thoughtful for a moment and then said, ‘Oh yes, Asmara is a fascinating Italianate capital’. She had, of course, been there.

In her final years, though quite ill and with reduced mobility, Jill remained upbeat, finding solace in cuddles with Sylvester the cat, watching nature programmes and keeping up with the news, both family news and that on TV. She made a real difference to many people’s lives over nearly nine decades and will be very much missed.

Antonia Byatt (née Drabble, 1958 BLitt English) Honorary Fellow

the Commonwealth Writers Prize (Eurasia region); the Premio Malaparte (Italy); the Shakespeare Prize (Germany); the Erasmus Prize (Netherlands); the Park Kyong-ni Prize (South Korea); the Golden Plate Award of the American Academy of Achievement; and the Hans Christian Andersen Literature Award (Denmark).

She was appointed CBE in the 1990 New Year Honours, and DBE for ‘Services to literature’ in the 1999 Birthday Honours. She also received honours from eleven UK universities, including an Honorary Fellowship from Somerville. In 2008, the Times named her as one of the 50 greatest British writers since 1945.

Barbara Cairns (1951)

Barbara and her twin sister, Priscilla, born in July 1933, were both very talented mathematicians, and both came up to Somerville to read Mathematics and were members of the Oxford Congregational Society. Temperamentally, they were very different. Unlike the sociable and sporty Priscilla, Barbara was more quiet and studious, and soon they developed different interests.

Dame Antonia is hailed as one of the UK’s most significant writers and critics since the Second World War. Born in Sheffield as the child of a judge and an academic, Dame Antonia came to Somerville in 1958 following studies at Newnham College, Cambridge and Bryn Mawr College in the United States. She suffered badly from asthma as a child, and the resulting periods of recuperation and seclusion allowed her to develop a voracious passion for reading and storytelling. She met her first husband Ian Byatt at Oxford, and moved with him to Durham following their marriage in 1959.

She pursued a career in teaching to support her writing activity and published her first novel, Shadow of a Sun, in 1964. Her writing career was temporarily halted by an awful tragedy in 1972, when her 11 year-old son Charles was killed by a drunk driver. She recovered and published The Virgin in the Garden in 1978. The book’s success allowed her to retire from teaching in 1983 to work as a full-time writer.

Dame Antonia won many plaudits for her work, which spanned ten novels, six short story collections, four novellas, nine critical studies, and five edited volumes. Her 1990 novel Possession: A Romance was awarded the prestigious Booker Prize for Fiction, and her 2009 work The Children’s Book was also nominated for the award, as well as winning the James Tait Black Memorial Prize. Her writing also won international recognition, including the Irish Times International Fiction Prize;

Barbara built a successful career as an actuary, first with Equity & Law and then with Bacon & Woodrow, and she always kept meticulous diaries and journals. At 28 Barbara qualified as a Fellow of the Institute of Actuaries and ten years later became a Share Partner. At 38 she moved to Wimbledon, and five years later to Epsom.

Always interested in doing good, Barbara took early retirement at the age of 55 and gave time to voluntary work. This included the WRVS, Citizen’s Advice Bureau, Mid-Surrey Mediation Service, and prison visiting through the New Bridge. She joined the Religious Society of Friends 32 years ago and became a member of Epsom Quaker Meeting, and during her final days spoke with passion about its importance to her.

Barbara liked peace and quiet, and she loyally supported local classical concerts given by the Surrey Philharmonic Orchestra, Epsom Chamber Choir and her brother’s chamber choir, Antiphonia. She joined groups to walk with others, and to continue learning.

Living simply and economically, Barbara felt it right to share her income with the many causes she believed in. At 60 she bought a former vicarage in Epsom so that she could rent spare rooms to needy tenants. Although a naturally shy person, when she chose a charity to support, she often got actively involved. Her favourite causes included Age Concern, Boom Credit Union, the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, Greenpeace, the housing charity Hope Into Action and the Epsom & Ewell Refugee Network. In her mid-80s she was still going into London for the Quaker Yearly Meeting or for demonstrations. She focused, as have so many Somervillians, on making life better for those around her.

ANTONIA BYATT

BARBARA CAIRNS

Elizabeth (Liz) Cooke (née Greenwood, 1964)

There are some people whose name alone evokes the idea of Somerville – women like Emily Penrose, Dorothy Hodgkin and Janet Vaughan. Our dear friend Liz Cooke would have hated the suggestion that she should be included among such distinguished company, but it is nonetheless true. To the thousands of Somervillians whom Liz brought back to this College after they graduated, Liz in a very real sense was Somerville: a living embodiment of their College’s intelligence, kindness, good taste and often mischievous joy in life.

Of course, to her family and closest friends, Liz was more than just her life at Somerville. They knew her also as a devoted mother and grandmother, a devotee of old films and the singer Meatloaf, a collector of shells and chinaware, a brilliant gardener, a fixture of village life in her beloved Great Tew and a lover of the sea, who swam in it fearlessly whenever she could. It is not easy to say all there is to be said about a woman who meant so much to so many. As one contributor to Liz’s condolence book noted, Liz was the very epitome of all that Somerville stands for – doing the right thing and doing the thing right.

Born one month before the end of the second world war, Liz Greenwood, spent her early years at the family home in Finchley, North London, where her father was a teacher at the Friern Barnet Grammar School. When Liz was seven, the family moved to Cambridge to live with Liz’s grandmother. A few years later, the family moved to King’s Lynn. Liz attended the convent in nearby Swaffham and, alongside her brother John, spent the school holidays in their grandmother’s new home in Hunstanton. It was here, swimming up and down the shoreline in the cold North Sea waters of the Wash, that Liz acquired her lifelong love of the sea.

Liz was always academically gifted. Public exam success at the convent in Swaffham led to a scholarship at Somerville, to read History. It was at Oxford that Liz met her future husband James Cooke and, as her brother John recalls, graduated from being the kind of teenager whose favourite food was chips with plenty of vinegar to someone who loved dinner parties and the finer things in life. John recalls that it was during her student days at Somerville that he first saw the woman she would ultimately become: glamorous, impossibly sophisticated, and completely at home in the place she loved for the rest of her days.

Upon graduating, Liz left Oxford for London. She had decided to become a lawyer and was admitted to the Middle Temple in 1966, supported by a reference from Barbara Craig who noted her ‘sense of irony and humanity’. In London she lived in an elegant flat in West Kensington and was called to the Bar in 1969. She joined the Chambers at 1 King’s Bench Walk, deciding to practise as a criminal lawyer on the Midland Circuit.

Liz’s choice of circuit may have been determined by the fact that she had by this time married James, and bought a small house in Charlbury. A decade later, in 1979, they found Tulip Tree House in Great Tew, in need of the care and attention which it would receive in abundance over the next forty-five years. When their son Oliver (Ollie) was born the following year, Liz decided to leave the Bar and devote herself to her son, her house and her garden. This decision was to have far-reaching consequences for Somerville.

Liz had always kept in touch with her Somerville friends, and it was those friends, aided and abetted by Daphne Park, who had the foresight in 1987 to propose Liz as secretary of the current College appeal. The briefing note prepared for Daphne Park by one of Liz’s friends captures a glimpse of Liz at that time, and the high hopes placed on retaining her: ‘She is by temperament high-powered, by profession a barrister. The best approach would be to ask her to lunch saying casually you may be able to offer something to fill in her time, without saying quite what. Then once you have her there and can exercise your fatal charm, slowly reveal the full horror of what you have in mind!’

Of course, for Liz, working at Somerville was never really a job and far from being onerous. It was a calling, and one that gave her immense pleasure. On receiving Daphne’s offer, Liz replied simply: ‘If I can be of use to Somerville, I shall be delighted.’

So began a new era for Somerville and its alumni community. It was not the easiest of starts, however. When, in 1993, Ollie went to Radley as a boarder, Liz was able to take on the additional role of Secretary to the ASM, which later became the Somerville Association. Liz’s appointment coincided more or less perfectly with the Governing Body’s announcement of their decision to open the college to men – a decision that had been taken to a tight timetable, with no prior consultation of either Somerville’s student body or its alumnae. Somervillians have always prided themselves on plain speaking, and on this occasion there was some very plain speaking indeed. While the Principal and Fellows were kept busy attempting to pacify their revolting students, and with the legal and administrative complications of their decision, Liz, who had been kept in the dark as much as everyone else about the decision, was left almost single-handedly to confront the wrath of the alumnae. She was helped in the difficult task of reconciling the Somerville alumnae by the fact that she herself was a Somervillian through and through. So many of the qualities which we admire, and like to flatter ourselves that we possess, were hers in abundance. Liz was clever, principled, quirky, unsentimental, generous, hospitable, and very brave. Her forthrightness was cloaked

ELIZABETH COOKE

(L-R) SHIRLEY WILLIAMS MP, DR FRANK PROCHASKA, LIZ AND CO-SECRETARY OF THE SOMERVILLE ASSOCIATION, LISA GYGAX

in irony and humour. She was fun to meet, and fun to work with. Calling upon all these qualities, Liz worked patiently over the next several years to coax the disaffected back into college, maintaining contact with the unreconciled and assuring Somervillians that – whatever their views – they were always welcome. And, upon these foundations, Liz built the Somerville Association we know today.

There were no lengths to which Liz wouldn’t go to create an interesting programme for alumni. In addition to the many professional and subject-based groups she established and ran with such aplomb, there were also trips to the British Museum, reunions in New York, the now legendary Swan Hellenic cruises and the Somerville book groups which continue to this day. Liz also revelled in Somervillian achievements, and lived by the assumption that whatever the story, there was a Somervillian in the thick of it – and she was always right. There were also the innumerable lunches, hosted both at Great Tew and in College. At one time, Liz estimated that she was attending up to 180 lunches a year, and would joke about eating for Somerville.

People sometimes asked Liz how she managed it all. Her response varied. To some, she spoke of the undiminished joy that she felt walking into College under the redbrick arches each morning. To others, her response was simpler yet: “I just like talking to Somervillians”. This, surely, was the ultimate secret of her success, and the reason so many of us came to love her.

It is perhaps surprising for those who knew Liz as the quintessential Somervillian, who was always there at the end of the phone or as the welcome face at a Somerville event, to learn that she had another, more personal life outside Somerville. Yet this was a part of Liz’s existence that was deeply precious to her, as the beautiful tribute given by Liz’s son Ollie so clearly testified at Liz’s Memorial Service.

At Great Tew, Liz created a sanctuary of her own design. It was a place of film nights in the bothy, her shell and china collections, her wonderful garden, and most of all her family, with whom she joyfully shared all these treasures. Her two granddaughters, Maxine and Nina, clearly treasured their

Grandma more even than the wonderful experiences she curated for them at Tulip Tree House. Together, Liz and the girls would spend hours happily inventing new taxonomies for the shell collection, or hosting tea parties on hitherto off-limits china. And the girls knew their grandma so well. Ollie recalls how, when he, Nancy, Nina and Maxine once arrived at Great Tew for the weekend, after dark, his suggestion that they head inside to look for grandma was met with complete incredulity by Nina. ‘Don't be silly, daddy, there's a full moon! Grandma will be weeding the borders.'

2023 was a particularly tragic year for Liz’s family, with the loss of Ollie and Nancy’s daughter Maxine preceding Liz’s death by only a few months. For those who knew her, Liz bore this unjust blow with all her characteristic stoicism – yet it seemed deeply unjust that she should have to bear this grief for her family at a time when her own health was failing. Liz herself died several months later, in August 2023. She carried on caring for others, while downplaying her own worsening health, until the very end.

The many overlapping spheres of Liz’s life – her love of Somerville, her genius for friendship, and the importance of Great Tew, come together in one memory shared by Caroline Barron. It was summer 2016, at the end of a fundraising event for the church of St Michael in Great Tew. In the evening, with the festivities completed, a few people drifted back to Tulip Tree House where Liz turned the remains of the lunch into a delicious evening meal, washed down with some excellent wine. The guests scattered themselves around the garden, gossiping quietly as fireflies circled overhead, the roses nodded sleepily, a couple of cats skitted in and out of the herbaceous border and the light slowly faded, slowly, very slowly. Liz was in her element doing what she did so supremely well: welcoming, organising, listening and laughing, embraced in the garden that she had loved and created.

Liz is survived by her brother John Greenwood, her son Ollie and his wife Nancy, and by their two daughters Nina and Elizabeth. Betty Cooke, born 16 November 2023, was named in honour of her grandmother.

LIZ WITH BARBARA HARVEY, 7TH AUGUST 1999

OLLIE, NINA AND LIZ IN THE GARDEN AT GREAT TEW

Patricia Drinkall (née Ellis, 1949)

Brought up in Tangier, the only daughter of the British Consul, Patricia’s early life was disrupted by the outbreak of war. This meant going back to her mother’s family in the south-west of England, and at the war’s end Patricia went to Cheltenham Ladies’ College before reading French and Spanish at Somerville. Losing both parents before she reached 26, alongside the uprooting of the war years, meant her teenage and young adult years were not easy.

Margaret (Maggie) Eisner (1965)

Maggie Eisner was a dedicated GP who gave her utmost to patients, her practice and young colleagues. She also campaigned on social issues. Human rights, public service, education and equality were the forces in her life, accompanied by a sharp intelligence, eclectic gifts and a genius for friendship.

Her life in the mid-50s in Tangier, though, is described by Patricia’s family as a ‘charmed, privileged and glamorous’ social whirlwind, but she knew she had to focus on establishing a career. She went to work for the British Ambassador to Brazil in the then capital, Rio de Janeiro. She is alluded to by Andrew Lycett in his biography of Ian Fleming, who had worked with her father, Toby, from as early as July 1941. Toby ran SIS (MI6) in that part of the world and Fleming used to visit Tangier as part of his wartime intelligence responsibilities. Lycett wrote about Fleming’s visit in April 1957 and his encounter with Patricia. She was subsequently recruited to the Foreign Office and, with the James Bond books underway, was identified as a proper Bond Girl.

Working as personal assistant to the Ambassador, she met the First Secretary, an up-and-coming diplomat and dazzling sportsman called John Drinkall, who was charged with the project of moving the embassy to the new capital of Brasilia. The relationship developed, and Patricia said that a particularly impressive dive by John from a boat sealed it for her. She was offered a posting to Washington but turned that down and they were married in January 1961 in a church beside the fish market in Rio.

Four children were born in the years following, and grew up as they moved across the world – from Cyprus and Brussels, to Canada and Kabul, where Patricia was to become President of the Diplomatic Wives’ Organisation. She famously saved two of her children by preventing the Land Rover the two were sitting in from rolling off a cliff and, later on that same trip, she prevented a diplomatic incident between armed warring groups by cooking up the largest ever tub of Spaghetti Bolognese and feeding an entire village. With a family base in Devon, Patricia supported the family until she succumbed to a serious stroke in 1986. In an extraordinary act of willpower and determination she worked tirelessly on her speech and mobility until she was able to travel solo in Latin America.

Patricia’s final years were back in the south-west, some time after this. A woman of immense charm, individuality, loyalty and strength, she is very much missed by her family.

Her life was shaped by her parents Gisela, a doctor, and Conrad, a lawyer, who were assimilated Jews from Central Europe, and who fled Hitler’s Europe in 1939 to find refuge in Wales. Her father worked largely abroad and died when Maggie was still at school. She had a successful school career and was awarded Senior Scholar at Somerville, reading Medicine. She qualified as a GP and her first practice was Limes Grove, Lewisham: a radical health collective. After three years she moved northwards and took over a practice in Shipley, Yorkshire, until retirement.

Patients remember Maggie for focused, person-centred care. She established a pioneering service for home births in Bradford and led the city’s GP training scheme. Many cohorts of trainees valued her inspirational teaching, especially on communication and the influence of arts in medicine and life. Tributes to her emphasised her personal touch, openness and willingness to listen. For this work she was honoured with the Fellowship of the Royal College of General Practitioners.

Throughout her life she was a passionate activist for local and global causes, always helping those in most need. After retirement she worked voluntarily for Freedom from Torture, and her guide to writing medico-legal reports has become their template for new recruits.

Maggie sang in choirs all her life, notably with Bradford Women’s Singers and Bradford Festival Choral Society, becoming chair of the latter. She helped to establish the Bradford Friendship Choir, a choir for refugees and asylum seekers, and Bloomin’ Buds Theatre Company, with a working-class focus. She quietly supported local friends and family financially to achieve their goals. She gardened annually at Lauriston Community Farm, and loved ballroom dancing, Scrabble, creative writing and crosscountry skiing.

She experienced personal tragedy with her husband and her daughter dying in the last 12 years. But Maggie tackled this positively: she and her daughter’s partner did an annual challenge for Young Minds and raised £47,000.

She died peacefully at home from cancer, aged 75, leaving behind a phenomenal legacy of care, friendship, professionalism and philanthropy.

PATRICIA DRINKALL

MARGARET EISNER

Melanie Florence (1981)

Melanie Jane Florence was born on 19 February 1963 in Ndola, Zambia. She died of cancer on 18 September 2023 in Sobell House Hospice, Oxford.

In 1981 Melanie came to Somerville from Aberdeen Grammar School, with the highest marks in Scotland for German, to read Mediaeval and Modern Languages as a Beilby exhibitioner. She settled into College life making friends with Rachel and linguists Kate, Helen and Posy. After a distinction in prelims, a Pope scholarship, and the Sarah Smithson prize, she took a firstclass degree in 1985.

Melanie completed an MPhil in European Literature and then, as a junior research fellow at Wolfson College, embarked on a DPhil looking at the works of Chrétien de Troyes and their adaptations in German. She published three scholarly articles from the research – including one in a Somerville publication. She found beloved friends Janet, Kirstin and Louise in the graduate seminars they attended.

Melanie started in academia and did what she did best –teaching as a caring and much-loved tutor. She held posts at Warwick University, teaching and researching on troubadour poetry, and at Manchester University. She held lectureships at Somerville and various Oxford colleges over many years teaching mediaeval literature, translation and modern papers for prelims.

Latterly Melanie was welcomed as a lecturer at Trinity College where she felt so at home. She taught on the advanced French translation course for finalists, even during chemotherapy, and in her last days proudly learnt that her students had all done well.

Teaching was complemented by posts as a library assistant at St Hugh’s College and Corpus Christi College, leading to a part-time role as senior library assistant in the acquisitions department of the Bodleian Library.

Melanie had a long association with her church St Giles, Oxford. She joined as an undergraduate and over 40 years was sacristan, licensed Eucharistic assistant, and deputy church warden – an invaluable presence keeping things going smoothly. Her friends in the ministry Andrew, Paula, Steve, Martin and Sian greatly comforted her.

Melanie also had a career as a published translator after she won a competition run by Gallic Books to translate modern crime/mystery novels by French authors such as Pascal Garnier, Jean Teulé and Frédéric Dard. She also translated German and Austrian works and tackled academic/historical books, latterly working for Helen Rappaport.

Melanie was my partner of 37 years. She was a true Somervillian – highly intelligent, courageous, loyal, caring, gentle, kind and so loved and admired by her many friends, colleagues and students.

Alison Sylvester (1980, Hertford; 1985, Somerville)

Janet Fodor (née Dean, 1961)

An academic colleague described Janet Fodor as ‘A wonderful scientist, a terrific organiser of other people … [and] an extremely faithful, loyal person’.

Janet came from Ilford in Essex to Somerville. Originally applying to study Physics, she changed to Psychology, Philosophy and Physiology, and was described as ‘one of the most outstanding undergraduates of her generation’ by her Principal, Janet Vaughan. After a year as a Fulbright scholar at Stanford, she then went to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology for a PhD in Linguistics, where she was surrounded by Noam Chomsky and many other pioneers in linguistics and cognitive science. After important early contributions in the area of semantics, she went on to become an international leader in the field of psycholinguistics and language acquisition, clearly meeting the expectations of Vaughan that she ‘would go far in the world’.

At Oxford she was a student of philosophers Elizabeth Anscombe and Philippa Foot, together with psychologists Stuart Sutherland and Michael Argyle. Her research with Argyle led to the highly influential ‘equilibrium hypothesis’ for nonverbal communication. Remarkably, a paper based on this research (Argyle & Dean 1965), carried out as an undergraduate, became the most widely cited work of her career, with influence continuing to the present. Ironically, since it appeared in a different field and under a different name, few people know that this classic in social psychology is authored by the same person as her many later influential works in linguistics.

After working at the University of Connecticut, Janet moved to the Graduate Center at the City University of New York (CUNY) in 1986, where she supervised many PhD students who went on to become influential scholars in their own right. Shortly after arriving at CUNY she founded an annual conference that aimed to bring together psychologists, linguists, and computer scientists with interests in how humans understand and produce language. Nowadays known as the Human Sentence Processing Conference, the conference became the leading annual meeting for generations of psycholinguists, creating a scientific community that remains closely shaped by Janet’s character and values.

Awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1992, Janet was President of the Linguistic Society of America in 1997 and was named a Fellow of the Linguistic Society of America in 2006. In 2014, she was elected a Corresponding Fellow of the British Academy. A volume of papers in her honour, Explicit and Implicit Prosody in Sentence Processing, was published in 2015 and two years later she received an honorary doctorate from the Paris Diderot University.

MELANIE FLORENCE

JANET FODOR

Linden Foo (1960)

Linden Foo was the second daughter in a family of six girls, who took her ‘big sister’ role seriously. In between her own studies at the Convent of the Holy Infant Jesus in Ipoh in Malaysia where the family moved from Singapore in the early 50s, she looked after her younger sisters and played school with them, instilling discipline as well as literacy and numeracy. Friendships were built in her early childhood in Ipoh that remained all her life. Possessed, as her sister comments, of ‘beauty, brains and a lively personality’, Linden was sent as a boarder to Cheltenham Ladies College and she was an academic success there, gaining a place to read Physiology at Somerville. Her path in life was altered when, while at College, she met the American Rhodes Scholar, Thomas Vargish, and was married at the age of 21. The couple moved to the US not long afterwards, settling in New England, and their son, Nick, was born. The end of the marriage led Linden and Nick to return to Singapore, and Linden retrained to become an esteemed teacher of English as an additional language. In her later decades, looking after her mother in Ipoh, alongside her sisters, she showed the loyalty that extended across family relationships to a wide network of friends. A character of courage, charm, wit and sincerity, Linden will be sadly missed by all of these.

third child suffered a brain haemorrhage shortly after birth which caused catastrophic damage, and for 17 years, she looked after her son – giving up even part-time teaching after a while. Retraining after her son’s death, she became a Relate counsellor and later, with Oliver, became very involved in Clinical Theology and in offering counselling to clergy.

Jean lived out her faith in practical ways: she was a devoted wife and supported Oliver tirelessly, both personally and professionally; in many ways they had a shared ministry. A people person, she was a wise and empathetic friend and many were grateful for her support and friendship. She and Oliver opened their homes to others and always offered a warm welcome. An intelligent and perceptive woman who had strong views and liked to be actively involved, Jean was very efficient and a great organiser. One friend has described her as: ‘a rock, a woman of determined faith and hospitality’.

Jean and Oliver lived and worked in Leicester, Singapore, West Yorkshire, West Cumbria, South Manchester and Bury – mainly in areas of deprivation. They were glad finally to retire to Broughton in Furness to the house Jean had inherited from her parents where, for the first time, she could choose her own kitchen after years of vicarages, and enjoy making a wonderful garden with Oliver. After 25 years as active and much-loved members of that community, they moved to the College of St Barnabas in Surrey. Jean had to cope with her significantly diminishing sight – hard for her as she was a great reader –and with her and Oliver’s physical decline, but she made the most of her last years and she was very grateful for the care and companionship offered by residents and staff, especially after Oliver’s death.

Jean Forshaw (née Carpenter, 1948)

Born in Hong Kong to missionary parents, Jean Forshaw returned to England as her father became a vicar in the Lake District. Offered a scholarship at Roedean, which had been evacuated to Keswick during the War, she did well academically, and remembered vividly the day she was offered a place at Somerville. The telegram arrived on her birthday, and she was ecstatic to find she would be coming to College to read History. Somerville meant freedom from adult supervision and the making of friends that would stay with her all her life. Helen (Whale), Nora (Cleaver), Helen (Sackett), Hugh and David were friends from then onwards, as was her tutor, Barbara Harvey.

Her family remember her as a woman who made richer the lives of all who knew her.

Penelope Gaine (née Dornan, 1959)

After her early education in a convent, Penelope found an endless vista of possibilities on her arrival at Somerville. A sociable and relaxed place with lots of friends, College enabled the study of English, which she found a wonderful subject and important to her throughout her life. She also enjoyed costume design for the ETC and, when one review said the production was worth seeing if only for the costumes, this didn’t please the producer very much!

Apart from academic work, she enjoyed being a member of the Society of Bell Ringers, going to church and seeing D’Oyly Carte operas at the Playhouse. Memories include May balls at Wadham and Keble, inviting people back to tea and drinking 6d. coffees at the market café. She first met her future husband of 69 years, Oliver, while she was at Oxford, though didn’t think he was ‘her type’ at the time.

After Oxford, Oliver was to go into the ministry, while Jean trained as a teacher and taught until she had children. Their

After College, she took a variety of jobs in fashion, television and publishing – ending up as Commissioning Editor for Wiedenfeld & Nicholson. She published three books of her own, on activities for children, which did, in her own words, ‘surprisingly well’, with one, Children’s Parties, selling over 100,000 copies.

She left her career in publishing when she and Michael married in 1971 and they then moved to Elmdon in 1972, where they had two sons. From the start, Penelope embraced life in the community; she was an active member of her Church serving

LINDEN FOO

JEAN FORSHAW

PENELOPE GAINE

on the PCC for many years, as well as participating in many aspects of life in Elmdon. She served on the Parish Council and was ultimately elected Chairman. She was a reading assistant at Chrishall School and a Magistrate sitting first in Saffron Walden and then in Harlow and Chelmsford.

She worked as PA to the Moore family at The Henry Moore Foundation, ran a successful small business and was active with several charities. A wonderful cook and hostess, someone locally, without her knowledge, entered her for MasterChef when it first started in 1990. The focus of her life were her family and friends but beyond that she liked nothing more than to travel which she and Michael did extensively. She loved being at their house in Haut de Cagnes on the Côte d’Azur and entertaining friends there. In the biography she provided to College for her year’s 50th reunion, she commented on her love of reading, the arts, travelling and bridge. ‘Dame Janet Vaughan’, she reminded us, ‘when asked how she had managed to combine so many different careers, always said, “Never play bridge, girls, it is such a waste of time”. Alas for good resolutions!’

She showed signs of becoming ill in 2009 and her health started to deteriorate badly in 2017. Penelope’s death is a reminder to us all of what a cruel disease vascular dementia is.

Elizabeth Ann (Ann) Gray (1953)

With breaks for an English degree at Somerville, and teacher training in Cambridge, Ann lived her whole life in Bentley, a village just outside Doncaster. Hers was a life of service.

Teaching meant dedicating her long career to the students of Wakefield Girls’ High School, where she led the English Department and became Senior Mistress and Acting Head.

Miss Gray’s kindness and support, her appreciation and love of literature are remembered by all she taught, especially the many who went on to study English at university (several at Somerville) and who followed her into teaching.

Asked by colleagues to become their union rep, Ann filled this role with tact, diplomacy, wisdom, dedication and indeed courage as she quietly but steadfastly took up her colleagues’ cause. It was not long before she was on the National Executive of the Assistant Mistresses Association, becoming its last National President before going on to become the second National President of the now much larger joint Assistant Masters and Mistresses Association, AMMA (later to become ATL.) In a large national and public role, Ann specialised in debates about curriculum and examination development and served on Government bodies monitoring the standards and comparability of the various exam boards. She clearly needed to be prepared to dash from school down to London to attend the plethora of meetings and prepared she was; one colleague recalls counting thirteen outfits for such forays in the staff cloakroom.

It came as little surprise to her colleagues and her students that, in view of her extraordinary ability, commitment and involvement, Ann was awarded the OBE for her services to Education.

Retiring from teaching, Ann and her sister took care of their elderly mother, but her life of public service was not over. She was soon recruited onto the board of a local charity memorably called BASH: Bentley Association for Supportive Help. She became chair and sought to tackle local alcohol and drug abuse, debt, housing and a huge flood disaster. She also joined the executive committee of Doncaster Civic Trust in 2001 and was actively contributing to its work for over twenty years.

The underlying mainspring of Ann’s being and the dynamo enabling and powering her ceaseless energy and concern for others was her deep Christian faith. Active on the PCC of her local church almost to the last, Ann always had an opinion at meetings, well considered, thought through and always delivered with humility and gentleness. She is sadly missed by so many.

Jenny Gregson (née Hope Simpson, 1957)

Jenny was born in Bristol in 1938. Her grandfather Sir John Hope Simpson, a senior civil servant, was an international troubleshooter, saving Newfoundland from bankruptcy and helping in China with the major Yangtze floods in 1935 and ‘36. Her family comment that she inherited his love of travel.

Sent to St Felix School in Southwold, Jenny thrived academically, becoming Head of House and captain of tennis and lacrosse, as well as winning a place to read Mathematics at Somerville. She was to meet her husband, Jos, on a joint Oxford and Cambridge Ski Club trip to Westendorf in Austria during her first year at College. Their marriage was to last 65 years.

That marriage followed after her degree, and when Jos found a job in Trinidad, she became Head of Mathematics at Naparima College in San Fernando. Jenny had the chance to indulge her passion for travel and test her excellent map reading skills. She loved maps and was never happier than when planning a 500 or 1000 mile walk from A to B, preferably going off set routes wherever possible. She was not daunted by hardship, camping out, travelling by truck from Bangkok to Beijing or Nairobi to Cape Town, or driving from Lima in Peru to Puerto Montt at the foot of Chile.

When Jos was posted to New Zealand, their first child, Dee, was born, followed eighteen months later by Helen. She and Jos went on to run a stamp business together, and she used that love of travel again, to raise charitable funds for four favourite charities – the Parkinson’s Disease Society; Macmillan (she and Jos walked the whole Macmillan Way as

ANN GRAY

JENNY GREGSON

a fund raiser); Cancer Research UK and finally Tundergarth Church near Lockerbie, for which she devised a 960 mile walk from Dungeness Point to Cape Wrath.

Those who knew her will miss Jenny very much: wife, mother, sister, sister-in-law, granny and friend.

Sylvia Gyde (née Clayton, 1954)

Born in Llanidloes, then moving to rural Suffolk, Sylvia always enjoyed ‘sums’ as a child. Though initially accused of cheating in the 11+ as she did so well, she gained a scholarship place at St Felix School in Southwold. After the difficulties and restrictions of boarding school life, the freedom of Somerville, she said, ‘transformed my entire life, and I was so happy there’. Tutored by the ‘lovely’ Jean Banister, she found her medical studies supported by Dame Janet Vaughan and Dorothy Hodgkin, and made many good friends, often through singing in choirs.

Joan Hampshire (1947)

Joan Hampshire was one of many Somervillians to come from Bradford Girls’ Grammar School. After a degree in English, and a Diploma in Education, her love of all things literary stayed with her throughout her life. College life involved acting in University productions and tennis, where her talent led to a Blue.

Oxford also led to marriage, as she met Magdalen linguist Peter Nurse and they married on graduation. Moving to Belfast shortly afterwards, where Peter got a job at Queen’s University, they had three children, before moving to California, and then Canterbury, as his post shifted. At the newly-formed University of Kent, Joan set about starting up the ‘University Wives Book Group’ in 1966: an invaluable way of establishing a solid group of like-minded friends in a new town. (It is still going strong to this day!)

Marriage to Humphrey led to Blackheath in London and four children in six years, with medical work in the evenings at family planning clinics. She was asked to help set up a clinic in a deprived area of Woolwich, to offer contraception to women at the Community Hall there. As they were innovative women, they bought a portable couch and ‘set up shop every week’. Word got around, and they were inundated with clients.

Moving to Birmingham about a decade later, Sylvia became a GP before being offered a research job by a young Consultant in Gastroenterology at the General Hospital. They had a very large series of over 700 ulcerative colitis patients: a rare disease with a high risk of colon cancer. Seven years later, having published papers on their work there, she trained in Public Health Medicine, and eventually became Director of Public Health for Birmingham.

Music had been an important part of her time in Oxford, and this continued in the years in Birmingham, where she joined the Bach Society, sang and played the piano – the latter right up to her final weeks. Retiring from Public Health, and moving to eastern England, she became non-executive director of the local Essex Rovers NHS Trust and focused on getting Clinical Governances in place. But retirement gave time for her to develop other interests, and, always a great collector of ceramics, she took up potting herself, gaining a City and Guilds Certificate and then installing her own wheel and kiln.

Though she claims to have had a career ‘more by accident than design’, Sylvia worked in various contexts to make a difference to people’s lives. In a life moving almost full-circle, she and Humphrey returned from France to a flat in Blackheath, watching through the bedroom window the children going to the local school hers had attended.

It was here, in Kent, that Joan began to fully put her superb teaching skills to work. She worked for the Hearing Impaired Unit attached to Hampton Primary School in Herne Bay, teaching hearing impaired and profoundly deaf pupils aged 4-11. Very keen to encourage children with low self-esteem to believe in themselves, one of Joan’s favourite phrases was, ‘I can do this!’ and she had an impressive ability to simplify any difficult language or concepts by rephrasing, using drama or craft. She also worked for the Canterbury Remedial Advisory Service, where she taught and supported children with dyslexia and other reading challenges. She went on, with her colleague, Cosette Beadle, to devise and illustrate an entire phonics reading scheme – an approach ahead of its time in the 1990s - publishing ‘Star Track Reading and Spelling’ in 1997.

After retiring, Joan threw her boundless energy into volunteering at, and fundraising for, Canterbury Umbrella, a new drop-in centre and Community Hub providing social mental health support for local people. With her excellent communication and persuasive letter writing skills, she doggedly pursued and secured many thousands in funding for the centre. She also ran weekly Art sessions, bringing welcome fun and creativity into the lives of countless people.

Joan surrounded her own children and grandchildren with books, and spent many hours reading to, and with them, encouraging and inspiring them all with her love of literature and reading. When one of her grandchildren, aged 3, said to her one day, ‘I’m as happy as a library!’ she felt her work was done.

Joan’s love, warmth, energy, sharp mind and mischievous sense of humour are much missed by her family and many friends.

SYLVIA GYDE

JOAN HAMPSHIRE

Cynthia Howard (1951)

Born into a family of teachers in Newark, Cynthia was the middle child of three. After the early death of her father, she was only 8 years old when she went to boarding school in Cheshire, but she proceeded to do well academically and became Head Girl. Her time reading French at Somerville was one of the happiest times of her life. She loved academic life, got a first and maintained a close relationship with College for the rest of her life.

Reflecting her love of books and languages, Cynthia worked in the Department of Printed Books at the British Museum for twenty years, before moving on to a second career, teaching French at secondary level.

On retirement, Cynthia could spend more time on her hobbies of travelling and photography. She loved cars, owning a range, from minis to sporty hatchbacks, and often drove across Europe. An active member of the Anglo-Spanish Society, she spent a lot of time travelling over there and met the King of Spain. Her wonderful photographs of her travels were, of course, beautifully catalogued.

Her family and friends remember her driving to see them, and always arriving with a tale or two to tell. A policeman, for instance, who stopped her for speeding on Kew Bridge on Boxing Day got a good telling off! ‘How dare you stop an elderly lady off to visit her family at Christmas! Shame on you!’ Her arrival, beautifully dressed with an elegant hat and brightly coloured scarf, camera in hand is missed by those friends and family.

Sarah (Sally) Humphreys (née Hinchliff, 1953)

Sally Humphreys followed her undergraduate study in Literae Humaniores at Somerville with an impressive career in Classical scholarship.

After initial research fellowships at the University of Oxford, she became the academic librarian at the Warburg Institute in London. Along with Arnaldo Momigliano, she ran the Ancient History Seminar there, before moving to University College, London, as a lecturer, and set up a joint honours degree in Ancient History and Social Anthropology.

University in Budapest. She also held visiting professorships in cities from Berlin and Paris, to Tel Aviv and Princeton.

Sally enjoyed the company of the seriously clever and they hers. Despite her excellent brain, she refused to confront modern technology: she had a TV and particularly enjoyed Master Chef, but she never used a computer and had email sent to an intermediary, who printed it out and posted it to her. The telephone was her preferred means of communication and she had long conversations with old friends. Intransigent in her views and not always easy, Sally was nevertheless a great personality and generous friend.

She was also an extremely adventurous traveller and in her later years organized a party to travel by boat up the Nile, in which, to the horror of those with her, she swam. But sailing was her lifelong passion: expeditions included South America, Scandinavia and, above all, the Aegean.

Sally’s research applied anthropological theories and methodologies to ancient history, as demonstrated in her 1978 collection of essays, Anthropology and the Greeks In it, she explained that her inspiration was a technological question concerning the design and use of ancient Greek ships, which she approached by sailing around the Aegean in an open, keelless boat. She realized that while much remained the same as it was in the ancient world (for example, the winds and sailing conditions) much has changed, and that changes in economic institutions were more important than those in sailing technology. Fellow Somervillian, Penny Minney (1953), published Crab's Odyssey: Malta to Istanbul in an Open Boat, in which she described the initial sailing adventures that she and Sally experienced, covering 1500 miles in four years.

The analysis of social and economic structures was central to her subsequent work. She has also used the lens of anthropology to explore ancient law, family structures and kinship. Her second collection of essays, The Family, Women and Death: Comparative Studies, was published in 1983 and her third book, The Strangeness of Gods: Historical perspectives on the interpretation of Athenian religion, followed in 2004. Her magnum opus, Kinship in Ancient Athens: an anthropological analysis was published in two volumes by OUP in 2018, to considerable international acclaim.

Anne Jacobson (née Jaap, 1965) – Mary Ewart Junior Research Fellow 1967-69

Born in Norfolk, Virginia, Anne Jaap had graduated from the University of California, Berkeley, before she reached Somerville. She completed a BPhil and a DPhil here before becoming the Mary Ewart Research Fellow between 1967 and 1969, and moving to St Anne’s to become their Fulford Research Fellow.

In the late 1980s, she became Professor of History, Anthropology and Classical Studies at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, and then Professor at Central European

Married to Allan Jacobson, and with a son, Anne moved back to the US, holding positions at Princeton, Rutgers and Lehigh before a move to the University of Houston. There she was an Associate

CYNTHIA HOWARD

SALLY HUMPHREYS

ANNE JACOBSON

Professor in Philosophy from 1991 to 2003 and then a Professor in the Departments of Philosophy and Electrical and Computer Engineering (2003–2014). She became Professor Emeritus in 2014. Anne was President-elect/President of the University of Houston Faculty Senate (2002–2004) and Director of the Center for Neuro-Engineering and Cognitive Science. Externally, she served on several American Philosophical Association programs and committees.

Anne’s research focused on the philosophy of mind and cognitive neuroscience, including the history and philosophy of cognitive science, the philosophy of David Hume, and feminist philosophy. In 2012, she published Neurofeminism, co-edited with Heidi Maibom and Robyn Bluhm, on issues at the intersection of feminist theory and cognitive science. In her powerful monograph Keeping the World in Mind: Mental Representations and the Sciences of the Mind, as well as in many articles, she challenged dominant standard accounts by extending the discussion of mental representations to include psychology and neuroscience. Her ability to challenge internal and external disciplinary boundaries also marked her roles as a feminist advocate and a feminist philosopher, leading to her appointment as Editor in Chief of Wiley-Blackwell's proposed 5-volume Encyclopedia of Women in Philosophy

Anne had a wide network of friends and made good use of the internet in sustaining this. She was regularly in contact with philosophers overseas, many of whom she first met in Oxford. A great lover of Oxford, after her retirement she spent significant amounts of time in an apartment overlooking the canal within walking distance of Somerville. Apart from her serious academic side, Anne enjoyed reading novels of different genres, including detective stories, and she was a great cat lover. She will be fondly remembered for her intellect, her humour, her graciousness, her love of family and philosophy, and for her cats.

Helen Jones (1969)

An Oxford contemporary remembers Helen as a student, with ‘natural blonde good looks and a slow, infectious and ultimately bubbling smile’ as well as ‘a sense that she knew who she was and what she was about: far more than most of us at that age’. One anecdote of that time gives a flavour of their enjoyment of College life. ‘It would not have been Oxford at the end of the sixties without the odd sixties moment. Helen and her friend Belinda turning up a for a rehearsal for a college production of Noel Coward’s Private Lives having been plied with a hash-laden chocolate cake by a passing Vietnam veteran – and there is an awful lot about the sixties in just those few words. To the director’s distinct bemusement, they giggled brilliantly in all the right places – but also in many of the wrong ones.’

Helen’s self-confidence meant that she continued to be a supportive friend to her contemporaries and she developed that supportiveness professionally too, alongside the astute judgement and incisive thinking fostered by her History and Modern Languages degree at Somerville. After some years in social work, she was appointed to the Department of Health as a Social Services Inspector and one of her first tasks was to oversee the implementation of a programme to assess outcomes for children in care and identify improvements. Local authorities had parental responsibilities for the children they looked after and, the first time they were asked to provide information, only one in three Directors of Children’s Services

HELEN JONES

were able to say whether any of their care leavers left school with qualifications that might help them get a job. Helen was instrumental in changing that. Passionate about fighting the injustices faced by children whose life chances had been compromised by poverty, abuse and other disadvantages, she had hands-on knowledge of the challenges facing children in care and used her position to introduce policies to provide them with better protection, higher standards of care and more extensive opportunities to fulfil their potential.

Helen led the cross-government initiative to introduce specific, evidence-based programmes to improve the life chances of children in and on the edge of care and worked to introduce multi-dimensional treatment foster care to England and Wales. When she left the Civil Service, she undertook projects throughout Europe and beyond. She helped introduce the Assessment Framework in Canada, Italy and France and worked with the French government to introduce a child development perspective into protection policy and practice. She facilitated legislation and policy and set up foster care services in Russia and several other Eastern European countries, not resting until she had encouraged reluctant ministers to take forward another initiative.

The beloved wife of Jerry, and a supportive friend and colleague to many, Helen is very much missed.

Martha Klein (née Bein, 1987)

Martha Klein was born in California and brought up in New York City. Starting a degree at Queens College in New York, she was forced to leave after a year for personal reasons, and was not to return to university until, at the age of 33, she embarked on a Philosophy degree at the University of Reading.

In the years between she worked a variety of jobs, from waitress to film production assistant, and then, after marrying her husband Larry, on a Norwegian ship on which the pair sailed for nearly three years. In the UK, she worked at the British Film Institute and then in the Photographic Department at the University of Reading. This last role prompted her to take two A Levels that allowed her to study as a mature student.

Martha came to Oxford to complete the BPhil at Somerville, and in 1980 began her doctoral thesis on free will and moral responsibility. In the same year she began to teach at Reading and a number of Oxford colleges. Seven years later, on receipt of her doctorate, she was appointed to a lectureship in Philosophy at Christ Church. In 1993 Martha was elected Fellow of Philosophy at Pembroke. Here, she continued to focus her research on philosophy of mind, specialising in free will, moral responsibility and the relationship between thoughts and actions. She was particularly interested in the intersection of philosophy of mind and moral philosophy. Martha is remembered for teaching and encouraging generations of Philosophy students. The great fondness and respect with which she was regarded by her students was clear.

Described by her colleagues at Pembroke as sympathetic and welcoming, they also noted that she was demanding of her students and ‘critical in the best sense of the word –constructive and never dismissive or condescending’.

She is warmly remembered by all those she supported as a tutor, a colleague and a friend.

Ruth Lister (1944)

Born in London and educated at St Paul’s School for Girls, Ruth was Head Girl and an academic success. Her time at Somerville was overshadowed by war and life was short of creature comforts. The Bursar advised new undergraduates that the only personal belongings allowed were their ‘identity and ration cards, gas mask, electric torch, warm rug, butter dish with lid, a 1lb jam jar with lid, a tin (for sugar), two pairs of bed socks and a jerry.’

Such restrictions did not bother Ruth. Practical and pragmatic, she had a strong and robust constitution, and led a very active life well into her eighties. She was a keen golfer, skier and gardener; and a swim before breakfast in an unheated pool was part of her daily routine. She loved a good, brisk walk and had a succession of dogs, many of them dachshunds, that accompanied her around Bury St. Edmunds, where she lived for nearly 70 years. She was also an intrepid traveller, visiting many parts of the world over the years, including the Galapagos Islands, Pakistan and Yemen, regularly accompanied by lifelong Somerville friends.

Medicine was a profession for which she was temperamentally well suited – conscientious, thorough, calm under pressure, strongly committed to public service – and one in which she excelled. After posts in Nottingham and Leicester, she joined the Angel Hill surgery in Bury St Edmunds, where the senior partner was a woman and keen to have another female doctor in the practice. When Ruth was offered the job, it was made clear to her that she would have to resign if she married.

Ruth remained there until her retirement in 1991, by which time she was senior partner. In a very full life outside work, she was a committed member of the Baptist Church, sang in the Bury Bach Choir for forty years, and was a Justice of the Peace for twenty-five years. But what mattered most to Ruth was her family. She was a devoted daughter, loving sister and very generous aunt and great-aunt.

She also retained a lifelong connection with Somerville and when her great-nephew followed in her footsteps and matriculated at the college in 2007, she was very pleased to visit him and have the chance to see her old room in Penrose. Although so many years had passed, she was still able to recall in vivid detail arriving on her first day with the few possessions permitted, eagerly anticipating everything ahead. The fact that her memories were still so clear 60 years on reflects the lasting impact the college made on her life.

MARTHA KLEIN

RUTH LISTER

Clare Mackney (née Humphreys, 1975)

When Clare came up to Somerville to read Geography, it became quickly apparent that she was not one to follow the herd, drinking lapsang souchong rather than PG Tips and eschewing Led Zeppelin for Ella and Louis. With a work ethic second to none, she was up at the crack of dawn, spending full days at the School of Geography – affectionately known as SOG – before tramping across Port Meadow, regardless of bad weather, with her less than enthusiastic chums in tow. She loved talking late into the night, with tea (or gin, when funds allowed) about life, faith, love, books, music, dogs vs cats, plans and prospects. Our bonds of friendship would hold fast until her untimely death in July 2024.

Clare was born in Cropredy, Oxfordshire, but it was in South Wales, at Newport Bettws Comprehensive School that her twin passions for music and geography were kindled. She returned to Wales after Somerville, gaining a masters in town planning at Cardiff University and joining the Newport Choral Society, where she met her future husband, Andy. They married in 1981, living briefly in London before settling in Sussex. Clare began her career in planning, first with Berwin Leighton, then Nathaniel Lichfield, where her probing intellect, eye for detail, and first-rate skills as a writer were used to the full.

It was in Sussex that Clare created her first garden, in a space deemed ‘unnecessarily long’ by a disapproving aunt. Clare turned it into an idyll, with cottage-style planting and cascades

of roses. A move to the Midlands opened up fresh musical opportunities. She took a degree at the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire, joined the National Saxophone Choir of Great Britain, taught flute and sax at Lichfield Cathedral School and enjoyed reviewing for the Birmingham Post.

It was, however, the final move to Suffolk in 2009, which brought Clare the greatest satisfaction. Her house in Beccles was soon filled with colour and light, books and pictures, ceramics and rugs – and even a life-size baby hippo named Felicity, crafted in stainless steel by a nephew! This home became a magnet for friends and family, and anyone else needing a sympathetic ear, or simply a favour. Clare was a great listener and an astute judge of character, wise but never hectoring – not to mention a legendary baker of flapjack and brownies. Despite many chronic health conditions –diabetes, kidney and heart problems and hearing loss – Clare was tireless in her dedication to the community. She founded a local orchestra, now the Waveney Concert Band, and a handbell ringing group, joined the NWR, and made significant contributions to the Beccles Town Plan and the work of the River Waveney Trust.

In 2021 Clare’s kidneys failed. Despite a gruelling programme of dialysis, she made the most of her time there, reading, composing witty emails, and planning the next stage of her garden. Her concern for others, and her equanimity in the face of worsening health, were remarkable, but unsurprising. She died peacefully with Andy at her side. Her humanist funeral was simple and dignified, attended by over a hundred people who loved her dearly, including two Somerville friends, one in person, the other via a live link, in the USA. Such a good life, and so well lived.

Sylvia Cooper (Clift, 1975), Stroud, Gloucestershire

Karen Rose OSB (1975), St Benedict’s Monastery, Minnesota

CLARE MACKNEY

Helen Mawson (née Fuller, 1957)

After school at Haberdashers Askes where she was taught by Diana Zvegintzov (née Lucas, 1926: Lit. Hum.), Helen Mawson gained Open Scholarships at both Oxford and Cambridge. She chose Oxford and came to Somerville to read Greats and retained great affection for the college throughout her life.

After graduation she was appointed lecturer in Philosophy at Fourah Bay College, now the University of Sierra Leone and at that time a college of Durham University. After 3 years there, she came into contact with the British Council to whose overseas career service she applied successfully and she was posted to Lagos in Nigeria. There she met and married her husband, Stephen. At the time, marriage meant the end to her British Council career, but she took a temporary job with the Ford Foundation writing a report on English teaching in Nigeria, and thereafter followed Stephen to postings in Malaysia and India. During this time, Helen had two children – one during a 24-hour curfew from race riots and the second during the Indo-Pakistan war with trenches dug outside the house. With a colleague’s wife she ran a kindergarten in Delhi and also went to Sanskrit classes, adding that language to her Latin and Greek.

Back in the UK permanently, as soon as both children were at school Helen undertook a PGCE course and became Head of Classics at More House School in London. She wanted to teach Greek so after a few years moved to a similar post at Surbiton High School, where she enjoyed taking groups of girls on trips to Italy and Greece. After retirement, she continued to teach at the Open University, and lived for part of the year in a village on Lake Como where the west front of Como Cathedral bears statues not of saints but of the two Plinys.

Later afflicted by vascular dementia and macular degeneration (a great trial to her as she could no longer read), she remained cheerful and her personality and intelligence were unchanged. A fall led to a hip fracture, after which she died in hospital.

She successfully combined her scholarly interests with being a wife, a mother and a grandmother. Unfailingly kind and generous, many people will miss her acutely – especially her husband of 56 years.

Hilary Nightingale (née Jones, 1948)

Born in Swansea, and brought up by her widowed mother, Hilary secured a state scholarship to read English at Somerville. She achieved a first (one of only five in her year group of 300).

After Oxford she went to work for the Museums Association (MA),

editing its journal. Back copies from that era do not credit her endeavours, but in 1955 she was listed as assistant editor. She had presumably been doing it all long before she got a mention on the back cover.

By this time, she had met Michael Nightingale, precocious secretary of the association (and nominal editor of the Museums Journal), while he was in the act of going through all the rubbish bins in the street looking for some mislaid papers.

During this period the MA helped establish the Regional Museum Service to give expert advice and assistance to small regional museums. Prior to its move to offices in the Adamdesigned 33 Fitzroy Street in the late 1950s, the association’s address is listed as the ‘Meteorological Buildings’ in Exhibition Road (now the Dyson School of Design on the corner of Exhibition Road and Imperial College Road). Later in life Hilary recalled that when she left her office, she would walk through the galleries of the Science Museum in the dark but with all the models still whirring away.

After a year working in Italy, Hilary returned to England and married Michael in 1956. They settled in Wormshill in Kent, where she brought up her family and managed 350 sheep on the farm.

After all her children had flown the nest in the 1980s, she trained as a conservation bookbinder at the London College of Printing. It is tempting to ponder what else she might have done if she was setting out today.

Hilary was a dearly loved mother to five children and ten grandchildren.

Vivienne Rees (née Farey, 1951)

A father in the RAF meant that Vivienne went to thirteen different schools before (with some relief) she gained a place at Somerville to read History. After graduating, she married her husband and soulmate of 52 years, Jim Rees, and soon she embarked on a teaching career at Carlisle Grammar School.

After a break to bring up their two children, Alison and Bernard, Vivienne returned to teaching, as History teacher, and Head of Sixth Form, at the Lakes School in Windermere. She was to work there for 25 years.

Retirement gave Vivienne the chance to direct her sense of social responsibility into local politics and community affairs. She was a Liberal Democrat District Councillor for South Lakeland, which she only gave up aged 87, campaigning for affordable housing and flood action. She was also a Parish Councillor, chairman of the Grasmere Village Society until her death, and chair of the Village Hall Trust. She supported the Wordsworth Trust and organised local events and exhibitions, as well as fundraising and improving facilities at the hall. Being chair of the Grasmere Players involved not only organisation, but acting and directing, and indulging her lifelong love of Shakespeare.

HELEN MAWSOM

HILARY NIGHTINGALE

VIVIENNE REES

As, in addition to these, Chairman of Trustees at the Arnitt Museum in Ambleside, primary school governor and governor at her own former school in Windermere, Vivienne’s BEM in the 2020 New Year’s Honours list, for services to her local community, was very well deserved. Membership of further groups, fundraising for charities from the National Asthma Campaign to the Royal Shakespeare Company, and being mother to two children (grandmother to three, and greatgrandmother to two), make it impossible to see how she could have time for reading, scrabble and going to the theatre!

Vivienne’s sense of the importance of education stayed with her and her years in schools showed her as a brilliant teacher who inspired others. She made a huge contribution to the lives of so many others throughout her life, and shared her positive outlook with them. As her daughter comments: ‘Mum had joy in her heart’.

Cynthea Rhodes (née Woffenden, 1956)

Brought up in Edinburgh during the privations of World War 2, Cynthea moved to Parbold in Lancashire and bloomed at the nearby girls’ grammar, becoming Head Girl. She showed an early flair for languages, consolidated by an exchange with a French family with whom she stayed in touch throughout her life. She won a state scholarship to Somerville to read French and Italian.

Before coming up, Cynthea’s French exchange family helped her arrange to spend some time at the Sorbonne. Aged 19, she then engaged on a solo trip to Italy and it was the start of her deep love for that country to which she would return regularly for six decades.

One of the most defining eras of her life was at Somerville. Cynthea’s work ethic meant a lot of work and less socialising in the intense eight-week terms. There was no concession for beginners in either language, and she had not studied Italian at school. Her first term was reading Dante in the original. One of her tutors was married to a painter and the free availability of lectures sparked an early interest in art history, especially the Renaissance era in Florence.

In her spare time, she became involved in theatre, mostly backstage. She told of obtaining fresh sheep’s eyes from a local butcher for use in King Lear and Dudley Moore and Ken Loach were among those she worked with.

There followed time in the BBC after College, as a studio manager of a number of famous programmes including Desert Island Discs and Housewives’ Choice. When Princess Margaret got married in 1960 Cynthea was at Westminster Abbey acting as the liaison between the BBC and the Italian broadcasting organization.

Two years later, she decided on a change of direction and returned to Oxford to take a diploma in education. She took a job at Stockport College as a lecturer mostly to apprentices on day release and learning about current affairs, history and art:

a tough crowd, but well within her skills. She did some more learning herself, learning silversmithing and befriending a lady called Margaret Rhodes, whose son, Brian, she soon met and married.

From here Cynthea adopted and helped raise Brian’s three children, alongside lecturing in Art History, for over 30 years, for the Workers’ Educational Association. From the 1980s she began to organise group trips to cities in Europe to tour museums and galleries, and travelled widely herself. Returning to Manchester University to study Art History formally, she wrote an MPhil thesis on early vernacular Italian poetry and how artists illustrated it.

Spending her final years in the Lake District, after Brian’s death, she enjoyed the company of her Burmese cats and welcomed friends from all parts of her life.

Jane Robinson (née Packham, 1959)

Born in Boston, Massachusetts, during WW2, a few months before her father was killed in the Atlantic as part of the Royal Navy Volunteer Reserve, Jane Hippisley Packham returned to Bath as a small child. She attended several schools in quick succession before settling as a boarder at Badminton School and thriving academically. After reading Chemistry at Somerville, she went to King’s College, London, to train as a science teacher. Soon she married Roger Robinson, a paediatrician, and after the couple had three children, Jane became a full-time mother.

After they settled at school, Jane returned to teaching, at Burlington Danes School in Hammersmith. In 1991 she was ordained Deacon in the Church of England, serving at St Peter’s, Ealing, St Gabriel’s, North Acton, and St Barnabas, Ealing. Though a staunch supporter of women priests, when the Church of England began ordaining women to the priesthood Jane elected to remain a deacon, feeling that her calling had been to the ministry of service particular to the diaconate.

Her gift of £1,000 to St Gabriel’s, Acton, was originally intended to be in her will, but she decided to give the money during her lifetime, so that she could see what the church spent it on! Her donation helped to fund the purchase of a work of art, namely a religious triptych by the celebrated iconographer Cristi Paslaru. Installed as the altar piece in a side chapel, it is a beautiful way to remember her.

Jane was widowed in 2003. After nearly 60 years living in Ealing, in 2021 she moved to Lewes, East Sussex, close to where her father’s family had been from. She died after a short illness in November 2023, survived by her 3 children, 5 grandchildren and 4 great grandchildren.

JANE ROBINSON

Constanza Romanelli (1948)

Constanza, born in Florence in 1928, was of impressive lineage and a descendant of William the Conqueror. Her father was a decorated Italian Navy Commander and renowned sculptor, and her maternal grandfather was Dean of Gibraltar, Master of the Charterhouse in London and Chaplain of the Order of St. John of Jerusalem.

After the prestigious Sacro Cuore school in Florence, and following the tumult of WW2, she left to read Literae Humaniores at Somerville College, where she liked to smoke a pipe, whilst also nursing with the Red Cross.

In the 1950s, Costanza embarked on a number of adventures, first with her Somerville friend, Patricia Drinkall, journeying to Morocco, then travelling around Kenya and Somalia, where later in 1965 her mother would be murdered whilst running the local hospital she had founded with Catholic nuns. Costanza’s devout Catholic faith led her to become a member of Opus Dei which helped her fulfil her desire to foster Christian life and the Church’s evangelizing mission.

In 1979, she married the son of Florence’s oldest noble family, Baron Bettino Ricasoli Firidolfi, and she embraced her role as guardian of the Castello di Brolio in Tuscany, the seat of the Ricasoli family since 1141. Here their friends and other illustrious figures from around the world, including the then Prince Charles, were welcomed with her signature grace and hospitality and fed in an immense frescoed dining hall. Among her circle of English friends, the Florence-based aesthete and scholar Sir Harold Acton found a regular place, often joining her for tea in her home at Piazza di Bellosguardo where poets and artists of the time gathered in spirited conversation.

Amidst all her own pursuits, Costanza remained a steadfast rock and a guiding light for her elder brother Raffaello and her sister Ilaria, who married the Frenchman Arnaud Faure. Not having children of her own, she embraced her role as a second mother to Ilaria’s five children, Bettino’s children and grandchildren, offering love and support.

Costanza Romanelli, Baroness Ricasoli Firidolfi, leaves a legacy woven with threads of faith, classical culture gleaned at Somerville, compassion, and devotion to family. Her memory will endure in the hearts of all who were touched by her generosity, friendship, humour and unwavering spirit.

Helen Sackett (née Phillips, 1948)

The daughter of teachers in Bristol, Helen Phillips studied Physics at Somerville just after WW2. At Oxford she met her future husband, Edmund Sackett, at the John Wesley Society and was impressed with him because he had been in the army in Palestine and had experience of the world. Before they married, Helen trained as a teacher at Hugh’s Hall in Cambridge followed by a time teaching in Worthing and then in Stroud. She soon became the mother of her first son.

Deciding that teaching wasn’t for him, Edmund became librarian of Westminster College in Oxford, and the family moved to live in Bayworth, between Oxford and Abingdon. They attended All Saints Church, Abingdon, where Helen sang in the choir. Very soon after that a second son was born, and she stayed at home to look after the two boys. After they had started school, she went taught for a short time at Abingdon school and then at Saint Helen and Saint Katherine nearby, where she finally became Head of the Physics Department. Some of the girls

CONSTANZA ROMANELLI

HELEN SACKETT

she taught physics were the daughters of very high-powered scientists who worked at Harwell, Rutherford or Culham laboratories nearby.

Helen’s children remember a happy home: making homemade marmalade or going on the many family holidays to different parts of England and Wales or further abroad to Brittany, Switzerland and Greece. On car journeys, she would always have the map on her lap to follow and make sure they went the right way. By 1984, retirement beckoned, and a labour of love tending their garden in Chalford Hill. They attended the local Methodist Church and became very much involved in running it.

After losing Edmund in 2011, and then her son, Mark, four years later, Helen downsized to nearby bungalow, before moving, for the final few months of her life, into a care home. She remained positive through everything, with reading and jigsaw puzzles, completing an impressive family photograph album, and receiving visits from her family. Steady and reliable, sensible and considered, Helen is missed very much.

Ann Schlee (née Cumming, 1952)

Born in Connecticut, Ann Cumming’s childhood was itinerant and predominantly solitary, moving between the US and North West Africa. Books were a refuge from this, and she appreciated being able to come to Somerville to read English, though she commented that it was ‘not surprising that my chief interest in Oxford was that I would have a room in college to myself without having to move for three whole years’.

She was sad that they were the only three years in her life in which she suddenly did not want to read books. Reminiscing in later years, she said of this time, ‘Only at the end, with the final reckoning of the exams nearly on top of me, did I settle down and redeem matters to the extent of obtaining a poor degree. I had at least learnt how my facile cleverness could let me down. I went back to my college last summer and looked out at the lawns and surrounding buildings I had stared out at dreamily when I should have made use of that marvellous opportunity to read. I realised I had known scarcely anything of England beyond that small rarefied precinct. I couldn’t have found my way to the railway station’. What Somerville brought her were friends, who were to stay with her throughout her life, and an abiding love of John Donne’s poetry, perhaps partly a result of being taught by Helen Gardiner.

After College Ann married the artist Nick Schlee and became a writer, producing the five children’s novels that she published by getting up at 5am and writing before her own four children woke up and had to be got off to school. Her adult fiction included Rhine Journey, shortlisted for the Booker Prize in 1981 (and republished in 2024 by Daunt Books Publishing (UK) and McNally Editions (US)), along with The Proprietor (1983), Laing (1987) and The Time in Aderra (1998).

She also taught for many years. Initially, as a young Oxford graduate, at Rosemary Hall (now Choate) in Connecticut,

then later, back in England, in various schools, tutoring school refusers, and at evening institutes. Even after she retired, and she and her husband had left London for Berkshire – to give him more freedom to paint – she continued to work with children, running a much respected and popular youth club at her local church.

Molly Scopes (née Bryant, 1954)

Born in Bristol in 1935, the eldest of three, Molly was one of the many who benefitted from the 1944 Butler Education Act reforms, making secondary education free. She won a place at Colston’s Girls’ School (now Montpelier High School) and sailed through academically, ending up as head girl.

She came up to Somerville to read Chemistry, and was taught by Eva Richards (Somerville) and Muriel Tomlinson (St Hilda’s), with Dorothy Hodgkin as a moral tutor. She chose Organic Chemistry for her Part 2 and went on to study for her DPhil in the Dysons Perrins Lab. This was then still a very male dominated world: the Lab ‘class’ photo of May 1958 shows her with only three other women in a cohort of 70.

In Oxford, she met Roger Scopes and they were married in 1960, with two daughters following as Molly was appointed to a lectureship at Westfield College. She became more involved in the administrative side of the academy, and in the 1980s, as Dean of Science, she was in the forefront of the negotiations for Westfield when the Government decided that the ten sites for science in London should reduce to five. She moved with the science department to Queen Mary College in 1984, and the full merger of the two was formalised. In 1990, Molly became Senior Vice-Principal at QM, working to weld the two institutions together. Tributes sent on her death confirm that she made a huge contribution to the formation of the expanded college.

On her official retirement, Molly became a Governor at Heythrop College in Kensington, serving there for the maximum term of ten years. Appreciation and recognition for her work came in the form of an OBE (in 1997) and Honorary Fellowships at both QM and Heythrop.

Family and marriage with Roger provided Molly with the anchor for her life. She was hugely supportive of her two girls and her four grandchildren, of whose interests and academic achievements she was very proud. It gave her great pleasure that one of the grandchildren was an Oxford chemist (they went round the DP Lab together to find her old lab seat and his). Molly remained loyal to Somerville all her life, founding bursaries to support Chemistry students struggling with living expenses while at college.

Her interest in music – both singing and playing the piano – stayed with her throughout her life. She sang with Roger in choirs into her late 70s and pursued her piano through to diploma level, playing nearly to the end.

ANN SCHLEE

MOLLY SCOPES

Molly died on New Year’s Eve 2023, after a long battle with dementia. Joanna and I remember her for being a wonderful Mum and for being one of the trail-blazers of her generation: we were delighted that she was still well enough in 2020 to celebrate the milestone of her diamond wedding and to understand its significance.

Bridget Micklem (née Scopes) – Somerville 1982

Joanna Rhodes (née Scopes) – St John’s 1984

Caroline Seebohm (1958)

Caroline was born in Nottinghamshire and grew up in the English countryside. She read Jurisprudence at Somerville, and, soon known for her captivating looks and magnetic personality, she was often compared to Max Beerbohm’s bewitching heroine, Zuleika Dobson (although thankfully no young gentlemen actually threw themselves into the river in despair).

After a short first marriage, and time in Rome, Caroline moved to Los Angeles to work in the film industry, and then began a writing career in London. From 1971, and a move to New York, she lived in America for the rest of her life. Over the next 50 years, Caroline had an extraordinary career as a writer for a series of Condé Nast publications (notably House and Garden) and authoring books on a variety of topics, such as gardens and architecture. She wrote biographies of several figures, including Condé Nast (The Man Who Was Vogue), as well as two novels, one of which, The Last Romantics, creates characters evocative of her Somerville contemporaries.

She met Walter Lippincott at a Super Bowl party in New York in 1973 and they were married the next year. Two children, Sophie and Hugh, followed in 1978 and 1982. The family moved to Ithaca, NY, and then to Titusville, NJ, where Caroline stayed for the rest of her life. Walter and Caroline divorced in 1991, but remained close, celebrating holidays with their family and travelling together to Egypt, India, Antarctica, and throughout Europe.

During the 1990s, Caroline enjoyed travel and dancing with her romantic partner, Tom Wright. In 1997, they bought a house on the Delaware River, and Caroline later briefly moved to the island of Vieques, Puerto Rico, to join Tom in his retirement. Ever the independent spirit, Caroline returned to New Jersey in 2005, together with the last love of her life, the dog Chippy (adopted as a stray from Vieques). Despite floods and storms, Caroline built the River House into the perfect expression of her personality, and it remained her home until she died.

A lifelong tennis player, Caroline was fond of all sports and was passionate about the craft of writing. She volunteered in elementary schools in Trenton, NJ, and twice spent several months living at the Shanti Bhavan School in Baliganapalli, India, teaching creative reading and writing to children in need.

She was, in addition, a wonderful mother and grandmother, always willing to cook for her (adult) children, play Racing

Demon, or read a story to eager grandchildren. She was an equally good friend, warm, attentive, and eager to laugh. She was at home in an airport bar in Trenton, at the Members Table of the Century Association in Manhattan, or at the Athenaeum Club on Pall Mall in London. She brought light to any room she entered.

Jean Aird Seglow (née Moncrieff, 1955)

Jean Seglow (née Moncrieff) went up to Somerville to read PPE in 1955. Her adored father, the distinguished paediatrician, Sir Alan Moncrieff, encouraged her to apply, against the advice of her boarding school who believed her not capable. She loved her time at the College and made several close and lifelong friends. Her tutors included the distinguished philosopher, Philippa Foot.

After Oxford, she trained as a social worker at the LSE and went on to work for Essex County Council and later, Camden and Harrow Councils in London, and for National Children’s Homes, always specialising in fostering and adoption. Placing children from troubled backgrounds with loving families brought her great fulfilment. She interspersed her practical work with a career in social research, working first for Political and Economic Planning (PEP, later the Policy Studies institute), and later for the National Children’s Bureau, where she was principal author of the landmark study, Growing Up Adopted, published in 1971.

She met her husband Peter Seglow at PEP (he was later an academic sociologist) and they were married for 15 years, divorcing in 1980. I am their only child. When my father had a sabbatical at the University of Illinois in the United States she became an Associate Research Professor there too, conducting research on community mental health. She lectured on this topic and on adoption several times in her career. She also worked for the Department of Health, monitoring the introduction of adoption allowances introduced by the Children Act (1989), and helped set up the NSPCC’s Child Protection Line on which she regularly volunteered.

Jean helped establish the Somerville London Group on whose committee she was active for many years. Her interests included architecture, country rambles, choral singing (she was an accomplished alto) and travel. She sang Aida among the Pyramids in Egypt and in the Sydney Opera House too, and she journeyed extensively in Europe, North and Central America, South and South-East Asia. She got to know Thailand, through visits to her eldest brother Tony, who lived there for many years. She was close throughout her life to her other older brother, Martin, also a paediatrician.

In the last 20 years of her life, the Christian faith of her childhood became more important to her, and she was actively involved in her local church. Jean had a singular personality: sometimes argumentative and self-absorbed, but open minded, adventurous, and invariably kind to other people. She was interested in others’ lives, and approached everyone

CAROLINE SEEBOHM

JEAN SEGLOW

she met without prejudice or preconception. In the last five years of her life she succumbed to Alzheimer’s and moved to a care home in early 2021. Until the end, however, she enjoyed flowers, gardens, good food, and her two grandchildren.

Jonathan Seglow

Jane Sik (née Woodland, 1965)

After graduating in Physics from Somerville, Jane moved to PhD study at Darwin College, Cambridge. There she met her husband, Michael. They moved from Cambridge to take up research fellowships in Edinburgh.

They had three children after their move to Scotland (Emma, Becky and David), and later three grandsons.

Jane took up teaching after rearing her family and became principal teacher of Physics in a number of schools in the West of Scotland. Jane had many interests but her main hobby was beekeeping which she continued right up to her death.

Sandra Skemp (née Burns, 1957)

Sandra Burns was born in Manchester. Her mother, a seamstress, struggled to support her husband, Sandra, and her two sisters. After her father's death when she was 11, Sandra contracted pleurisy, and was sent to Wales to recover, building resilience in face of the loneliness and boredom of this time. Returning to school, with her health improved, she was determined to excel, and was top of her class by Christmas.

With a scholarship to read Law at Somerville, Sandra continued to excel and was awarded a Congratulatory First. After graduation, she won a Harkness Fellowship to study in the United States and on her return, she became a Research Fellow at Somerville for three years. She then saw a job for the Parliamentary Council advertised. At the bottom of the advert, in small print, it said ‘male applicants only’. Shelagh, Sandra’s longstanding friend from Somerville, recalls that far from being put off by this, an incensed Sandra wrote to the Prime Minister who arranged for her to have an interview. She duly got the job. The Parliamentary Council is the body that drafts and produces laws following them being agreed by both houses of parliament. A streamlined method of doing this had been developed using an early computer programme in Scotland, but Sandra knew she could better this, and she did. The programme she wrote, having taught herself computer programming, ran to 400 pages, and did indeed make the Parliamentary Council’s work considerably more efficient and cheaper. She was – again, perhaps unsurprisingly - awarded a CB (Commander of

the Bath, an award exclusive to high-ranking civil servants) in 1989.

It was at the Parliamentary Council that she met her partner, Terence Skemp. Theirs was a long and enduring partnership, and they lived happily in their home on the Finchley Road in London. Sandra retired early to care for him and they continued to live here until Terence's death in 1996.

Sandra was very generous with her nieces and nephew, great nieces and nephews, and her great great niece. She also loved to travel, taking herself off to Guatemala, Mexico and the Inca Trail, Syria, to name a few. She took a lot of photographs and then turned them into paintings when she got home.

As her fierce intellectual capacity faded in the grip of dementia, she softened, leaning into tenderness and love. Along with excellence, success and loyalty, that became an important part of her legacy.

Susan Stokes (née Bretherton, 1952)

Susan was born in Oxford to a Somervillian mother (Jocelyn Bretherton, née Mathews, who read History in 1924). After boarding at Godolphin in Salisbury, she came up to Somerville to study Modern Languages, and after graduation became a teacher of French. Early in her teaching career, she was part of the fight for equal pay for women in that profession. She remembered wondering why the man teaching in the next classroom was paid almost double what she earned, deciding that wasn't fair and to do something about it. That turned out to be a recurring pattern.

Teaching in Bristol, she met her husband, Joe Stokes, and they had two children, Neil and Tom, moving to Eridge in East Sussex. After Joe’s death in 1980, Susan brought up the two boys alone, working as a teacher as well as doing cooking and cleaning jobs until they were through school and off to university themselves.

At that point, Susan retired from teaching, and moved into local politics, becoming a County Councillor in 1996. Four years later, she moved to Steyning and spent a happy twenty years there. Thinking about, and helping, others around her, especially those less fortunate or experiencing hardship, always felt natural to her. A selection of the organisations she was engaged with, often in a leading role, illustrates this: the Eridge Evening Guild, Eridge PTA, Rotherfield Parish Council, Rotherfield School PTA, East Sussex County Council, the Liberal Democrats, Steyning Museum, Meals on Wheels, Ashdown Forest conservators, the WI, the University of the 3rd Age.

As her son, Tom, comments, being community minded came to his mother like breathing. She always saw the good in people. She believed in fairness and in helping people less fortunate and she used the combination of her formidable intelligence, energy and empathy to do that.

SANDRA SKEMP

SUSAN STOKES

JANE SIK

Rachel Sykes (1943)

If Rachel had been a boy, she would have been qualified to play cricket for Yorkshire. Her parents, now living in Oxfordshire, travelled to Bradford for her birth. The close family unit that they formed supported Rachel’s success at school and her progress to Somerville to read English.

At Oxford Rachel cultivated the deep knowledge and love of literature that became the foundation of her career as an English teacher. Notably she worked between 1962 and 1984 at Talbot Heath School in Bournemouth. On her retirement the school journal noted her enthusiasm and breadth of her contribution. She was, apparently, a dab hand at doing stage make up for numerous productions, as well as being described as “an encourager of talents, confidence and potentialities”.

visited Urzula in her Somerville accommodation, Halina would run around the corridors shouting "Mama" after her sister. She learnt quickly that this resulted in Urzula buying treats in order to shut Halina up. Her favourite was marzipan piglets, and sugared pink mice, that Urszula bought from a bakery around the corner from College.

After graduation, Urszula emigrated to Australia. She lectured in Art History first at the University of Sydney, but most of her Australian career in teaching was at the University of Brisbane. On her return to the UK 13 years later, she became a lecturer, then a research fellow, at the University of Leeds. She remained here until her retirement. She wrote prolifically: books, articles for academic periodicals, conference papers, lectures given at various European universities. She also wrote introductions for exhibition catalogues about artists whom she genuinely respected.

In retirement Rachel lived in Wimborne, and was a volunteer guide at Wimborne Minster. She enjoyed the idea that, whilst at the minster, the world came to visit her. No doubt she inspired visitors through her passion for Dorset and deep cultural knowledge.

With a slightly mischievous sense of humour, she noted mannerisms to deploy in stories - in keeping with the best traditions of the novelist. Her anecdotes recounted the particularities of the human condition - from her childhood holidays, to Whitchurch Sunday teas for the locally billeted GIs, to the international visitors of the Minster. Although in later life she was no longer able to enjoy doing the things she loved such as spending time with friends, theatre trips, National Trust visits and reading and poetry, she enjoyed living in her thoughts. She never complained.

Unfailingly generous, warm to her family and friends and curious about their lives, Rachel had a broad-minded and non-judgemental approach to the world. This is evidenced in her support of numerous charities ranging from the cultural to countryside conservation, to health support organisations, to prisoner rehabilitation.

She passed away peacefully on her 99th birthday in the care home where she had been cared for by excellent staff who were very fond of her. Those left behind will miss talking with Rachel: her anecdotes, wisdom and thoughtfulness. She will be remembered with great fondness and love.

Urszula Szulakowska (1970)

Urszula came to Somerville to read History, the elder daughter of Polish refugees who had moved to the UK during WW2. Eighteen years younger than her undergraduate sister, who was also her godmother, Halina learnt a very simple way to annoy her. When the family

Two important areas of Urszula’s life were her love of art and her spirituality. Her work explored the wonder of how visual images and constructs, in whatever form, can bring incredible joy and meaning, arguing how art can challenge our beliefs and can reinterpret the past, our present, and question our future. Moreover, she explored how the individual can use art to express their own point of view - and how this has ethical implications. The visual arts of the Renaissance and Baroque were two of her interests, as well as Postmodernism, and the Australian art scene. She loved the art of Poland, especially the Symbolists and the artists of the Young Poland, or 'Młoda Polska' movement.

One topic she returned to, time and again, was mysticism and the use of alchemical symbols in art. Alchemy also tied in with her own spiritual practices, believing that alchemists were not simply searching for a way to transmute base matter into gold, but were questing to transform themselves spiritually, and thus reach a higher state of being that went beyond the physical, every day world. Her Guru, Baba Muktananda, practiced alchemy and during one of her trips to his ashram at Ganeshpuri in India he suggested she choose this as a topic for her PhD. Ula had been contemplating a doctorate for a while but her many interests made a decisive commitment to a singular area of study difficult. After 8 years travelling between Australia and libraries in Oxford, Florence, Paris, the Vatican, the Jagiellonian University in Kraków, and the British Library, Ula submitted her thesis to the University of Sydney, entitled: “The Alchemy of Light: Geometry and Optics in Late Renaissance Alchemical Illustration.” She was awarded her PhD in 1988 and her monographs The Alchemy of Light and The Sacrificial Body and the Day of Doom followed in 2000 and 2006.

Urszula was a practising painter throughout her life. Some of Halina’s earliest memories of her sister are watching her working at her easel, still smelling how she filled their house with the aroma of linseed oil. Her own painting style, she said, was influenced by the Symbolists.

Urszula made an immeasurable difference to many people that she met on her creative, spiritual, and very individual path. Her physical presence may be gone but she lives on in the minds of her former students, in the academic writing that she left behind, and in the hearts of everyone who loved her.

URSZULA SZULAKOWSKA

RACHEL SYKES

Hazel Thomas (1973)

Hazel and I met on our first day in Somerville. We had both been given rooms in West, which created an instant bond, as almost everyone else in the first year had been housed in Vaughan. Hazel was an impressive undergraduate: hardworking, well-organized, fiercely analytical, and full of enthusiasm for history. She was also a warm and utterly reliable friend, always ready to stop what she was doing and provide a cup of coffee and a chat. She was as interested in the minutiae of other people’s lives as she was in the great events of the past.

Phyllis Treitel (née Cook, 1948)

Phyllis Cook might never have studied PPE at Somerville at all. As the entrance exam loomed, she came down with scarlet fever. Her strength of will and determination led her to have the exam questions brought to her in her in her sickbed: buckling down, writing her answers and sending them off. She was offered a place, and thus began what was to be a life-long connection with her College.

It was no surprise that Hazel continued in academic life after her B.A. and eventually obtained a D.Phil. in medieval Italian history. More surprising was her subsequent decision to train as a chartered accountant. She applied herself to her new career with characteristic energy, and became an expert in the relatively new area of transfer pricing. This eventually allowed her to return to her beloved Italy, to provide expertise to the Milan office of PWC.

After retirement in 2014, Hazel bought and renovated a medieval apartment in Pontremoli, in Tuscany. For a few happy years, she divided her time between London and Italy. She revelled in the wealth of cultural and intellectual opportunities available in London, and she loved the language, climate, cuisine and architectural beauty of Italy.

The COVID years were a severe trial, as they kept Hazel in London and restricted the activities that were so important to her. She made full use of all the online offerings, including the church services provided by the parish of All Saints’ in Cottenham, a village near Cambridge. It was for this reason that, on receiving the devastating diagnosis of MND in the summer of 2021, she decided to move to a small bungalow in Cottenham, where she would be near to her new friends, and to one very old one.

Hazel’s last two years were a triumph of force of character over adversity. She attended lectures and concerts online, received friends from all over the world, visited churches and National Trust properties in the area, kept up with village gossip, and, most significantly, succeeded in remaining in her own home until her death. Her formidable intelligence, and her irrepressible sense of humour, were intact until the very end.

Frances Horgan (née Clegg, 1973)

After graduation, she applied to join the Colonial Service, which had opened some clerical positions to women. She became an Assistant District Administrator in the Southern Cameroons, where she sat at a desk and signed papers. At least, that was what she was supposed to do. But some of the papers depended on facts “on the ground” in one village or another, and she wasn’t going to sign them until she was sure of her facts, so she got in her little car to visit the village. Men told her how bad the roads were and she’d get stuck without four-wheel drive. She replied, “Not if I’m careful,” and off she went, and back she came, having done her job to her own satisfaction.

Marriage to Guenther Treitel, who would go on to be Vinerian Professor of Law at the University of Oxford, and the birth of two sons brought a change to Phyllis’s working life. She took part-time jobs, such as acting as research assistant to various Oxford scholars, something she later continued in her role as assistant to Professor Sir Rupert Cross.

With two young sons growing up, she took charge of the Somerville alumni network and began the project that Liz Cooke was to continue. As part of that role, she was responsible for producing the College Report that her obituary is now printed in. Her sons remember that in her day this consisted of a sizable booklet, a leaflet or two, and about 2,400 envelopes, to be filled and posted. The printing was done professionally, but when it came to putting things in envelopes, Phyllis chose to use the labour supply she had, namely herself and those two young boys. They remember the process fondly, and the pride of loading the filled boxes into the car for posting.

Phyllis had an English fondness for the countryside and she enjoyed nature writers. So, in 1979 she joined the Richard Jefferies Society, which was to play a major role in her life. She introduced the first RJS Journal of 32-pages which helped to make the Society more professional and scholarly: contributing to it over the years, transcribing Jefferies’ letters, and coauthoring the important chronology.

Phyllis Treitel’s kindness, her wisdom, and her loyalty; her determination, her attention to detail and her wicked sense of humour are legendary. Though her final years were hampered by the growth of dementia, she is remembered with such fondness and gratitude by the College she did so much in her life to support.

PHYLLIS TREIREL

HAZEL THOMAS

Mally Yates (née Shaw, 1949)

Mally was born in Liverpool in 1931 and attended Aigburth Vale Grammar School in the city before taking up a place to study Mathematics at Somerville College. She looked back fondly on her time at Oxford and kept in touch with many of her contemporaries throughout her life.

After leaving Oxford, Mally went back to her former school to teach Maths and R.E. A committed Christian, she then took up a post a travelling secretary for the Scripture Union which involved a lot of travel visiting schools in the north of England.

In 1966 she then accepted a post at St John’s College, Durham, as their first woman tutor. It was there that Mally met her husband Tim, to whom she was happily married until his sudden death in 2016. They had two children, Catherine and Mark, who both survive her, together with her five grandchildren.

In 1979 Tim, who was an ordained priest in the Church of England, decided to move back into parish life and so the

family moved to Derbyshire, where Mally was to live for the rest of her life. Over the next 40 years, she led a busy and fulfilled life, supporting Tim in his ministry as well as developing her own interests. They both travelled widely, including to academic conferences which Tim was attending. They visited New Haven for extended periods when he was researching at Yale Divinity School and made many friends there. Mally continued to use her knowledge of maths, tutoring children who needed extra support during the 1980s. More recently she enjoyed doing sudokus!

Mally also did a lot of voluntary work. She volunteered as a Samaritan for many years. She served on national Church of England clergy selection panels as well as being a trustee of the Children’s Society for a period of time. In addition, she trained as a lay reader and then went on to be involved in the training of other readers in Derbyshire. She had many friendships and was very good at keeping in touch with people. She became adept at using zoom in the pandemic, which lessened the isolation of living alone.

Mally would often say at the end of her life that she felt very grateful to have had such a long and fulfilled life. She was very clear that the service held at the end of her life was to be one of thanksgiving – which it was.

Catherine Stanton (née Yates), Mally’s daughter

MALLY YATES

Academic Report 2023-24

Physics

Examination Results

UNDERGRADUATE RESULTS

Ancient and Modern History

Class II.I 2

Biochemistry (MBiochem)

Class I 3

Class II.I 2

Class III 1

Biology (MBiol)

Class I 3

Class II.I 4

Chemistry (MChem)

Class I 4

Class II.I 4

Class II.II 2

Computer Science (BA)

Class II.II 1

Engineering Science (MEng)

Class I 3

Class II.I 2

English Language and Literature

Class I 4

Class II.I 14

English and Modern Languages

Class II.I 1

European and Middle Eastern Languages

Class II.I 1

Experimental Psychology Class I 1

History Class I 2

Class II.I 11

History – Foundation Year

Jurisprudence

Jurisprudence (with Law in Europe) Class II.I 1

Psychology, Philosophy and Linguistics (PPL)

Class I 1

POSTGRADUATE RESULTS

Bachelor of Civil Law

Merit 1

Pass 3

BPhil Philosophy

Pass 2

Medicine – Clinical

Distinction 1

Pass 4

MPhil Development Studies

Merit 1

Pass 1

MPhil Economics

Merit 2

Pass 1

MPhil Greek and/or Roman History

Pass 1

MPhil History – Modern British History, 1850 - Present

Merit 1

MPhil Linguistics, Philology and Phonetics

Distinction 2

MPhil Music (Musicology)

Distinction 1

MPhil Politics: Comparative Government

Distinction 1

MPhil Politics: Political Theory

Merit 1

MSc Clinical Embryology

Pass 1

MSc Economics for Development

Distinction 1

Merit 1

MSc Global Governance and Diplomacy

Merit 1

MSc Mathematical and Computational Finance

Distinction 1

Merit 1

MSc Mathematical Modelling and Scientific Computing

Pass 1

MSc Mathematical and Theoretical Physics

Distinction 1

Pass 1

MSc Mathematical Sciences

Distinction 2

Merit 2

MSc Migration Studies

Merit 1

MSc Modern South Asian Studies

Distinction 2

Merit 1

MSt Classical Archaeology

Pass 1

MSt Global and Imperial History

Distinction 1

MSt Greek and/or Latin Language and Literature

Distinction 1

MSt Greek and/or Roman History

Distinction 1

MSt History - British and European History 1700-1850

Distinction 1

MSt History - Modern British History 1850-Present

Merit 1

MSt Linguistics, Philology and Phonetics

Pass 1

MSt Modern Languages

Distinction 1

MSt Music (Performance)

Distinction 1

MSt Women’s Gender and Sexuality Studies

Distinction 1

Results breakdown per grade: Distinction 19

Merit 14

Pass 16

Scholarships and Exhibitions awarded to students for work of especial merit

David Scourse Medical Scholarship

Jem Jiang (Medicine – Preclinical)

Florence Hughes Scholarship

Mei Whattam (Classical Archaeology and Ancient History), Yusuf Usumez (Computer Science)

Florence Hughes Exhibition

Caitlin Campbell (Classical Archaeology and Ancient History), Ryden Nelson (Classical Archaeology and Ancient History), Matilda Kennedy (Classics and Modern Languages), Eason Kamander (Computer Science)

Herbert Bull and Ethel Mary Bull Scholarship

Matthew Morecroft (Biology), Amritha Raghavan (Biology), Philippa Rolfe (Biology), Evan Slater (Biology), Emma Thornton (Biology), Hanpeng Cai (Chemistry), Jude Collings (Chemistry), Tom Drayton (Chemistry), Louis Govani (Chemistry), Tasfia Karim (Chemistry), Charlotte Lim (Chemistry), Amaar Sardharwalla (Chemistry), Rosie Thorogood (Chemistry), Hengyi Zhang (Chemistry), Henry Morris (Ancient and Modern History), Annabel Thomas (Ancient and Modern History), Pippa Threlfall (Biology), Marcus Williamson (Biology), Mason Wakley (Chemistry)

Jean Ginsburg Medical Scholarship

Lily Wei (Medicine – Preclinical)

June Barraclough Scholarship

Jess Scott (Modern Languages), Leo Woodward (Modern Languages and Linguistics)

Maria and Tina Bentivoglio Scholarship

Sam Broadhurst (Engineering Science), William Carr (Engineering Science), Alie French (Engineering Science), Alistair White-Horne (Engineering Science), George Whittle (Engineering Science), Sheikh Mohiddin (Experimental Psychology), Hannah Clarke (History), Zoe North (History), Flora Prideaux (History), Anna Roizes (History), Aneira Farrelly (History)

Sir William Bousfield Scholarship

Franek Noga (English Language and Literature), Ameal Wolf (English Language and Literature), Alan Gatehouse (History), Dan Kimberley (Music), Erin Townsend (Music), Zoe Campbell (Philosophy, Politics and Economics), Madelina Gordon (Philosophy, Politics and Economics), Cameron Hodgkinson (Philosophy, Politics and Economics), Chloe Riley (Philosophy, Politics and Economics), Wuwen Wong (Philosophy, Politics and Economics), Haibei Li (Physics), Keiran Milne (Physics), Ziyuan Nie (Physics), Emma Stratford (Physics), Kaiyun Sun (Physics), Yuancheng Xu (Physics), Jamie Chua (Psychology and Linguistics), Maria Ilie-Niculescu (Psychology and Linguistics), Emily Shurmer (Psychology, Philosophy and Linguistics)

Sir William Bousfield Exhibition

Guan Xiong Lam (English Language and Literature), Iris Sibirica (English Language and Literature), Alice Bentley (Molecular and Cellular Biochemistry), Joe Endacott (Physics), Ying-Di Ying (Physics)

Computer Science), Jack Garland (Mathematics and Statistics), Tarka Abraham (Molecular and Cellular Biochemistry), Nathan Chapplow (Molecular and Cellular Biochemistry), Ismay Forsyth (Molecular and Cellular Biochemistry), Amela Sleczka (Molecular and Cellular Biochemistry), Anna Wang (Molecular and Cellular Biochemistry), Elizabeth Wang (Molecular and Cellular Biochemistry), Anna Wilderspin (Molecular and Cellular Biochemistry)

Exam Prizes to Undergraduates and Graduates

This list is accurate at the time of print and some awards may be made after this date. Awards with an * were not listed in the 2022-23 report, and are therefore included here.

College Prize

June Barraclough Exhibition

Leena Kharabanda (Modern Languages), Oliver Sandall (Modern Languages)

Undergraduate Scholarship

Ashlyn Cheong (Jurisprudence), Ming Song Oh (Jurisprudence), Anya Biletsky (Literae Humaniores), George Seager (Literae Humaniores), Jason Bell (Mathematics), Ben Chung (Mathematics), Reuben Hillyard (Mathematics), Dominic Miller (Mathematics), Anaya Shah (Mathematics), Miranda Conn (Mathematics and Computer Science), Yang Gao (Mathematics and Computer Science), Dimitar Oparlakov (Mathematics and Computer Science), Jessica Richards (Mathematics and

Franek Noga (English Language and Literature)*, Ameal Wolf (English Language and Literature)*, Haroun Malik (European and Middle Eastern Languages), Maryam Qureshi (European and Middle Eastern Languages), Chris Wong (Experimental Psychology), Alan Gatehouse (History)*, Lucy Pollock (History), Harry Stewart Dilley (History), Yueshi Yang (History), Sonny Wilson (Jurisprudence), Oscar Brant (Literae Humaniores), Ben Chung (Mathematics), Reuben Hillyard (Mathematics)*, Reuben Hillyard (Mathematics), Jonathan Stam (Mathematics), Richard Zhang (Mathematics), Miranda Conn (Mathematics and Computer Science)*, Miranda Conn (Mathematics and Computer Science), Dylan Heydon-Matterface (Mathematics and Computer Science), Matthew Tebbutt (Mathematics and Computer Science), Alice Chen (Mathematics and Statistics), Daohan Chen (Mathematics and Statistics), Cecilia Jay (Medicine - Graduate Entry), Daniel RadfordSmith (Medicine - Graduate Entry), Rozzie Weir (Modern Languages), Leon Moorhouse (Modern Languages and Linguistics), Tarka Abraham (Molecular and Cellular Biochemistry), Nathan Chapplow (Molecular and Cellular Biochemistry)*, Ismay Forsyth (Molecular and Cellular Biochemistry)*, Luca Marzin (Molecular and Cellular

Biochemistry), Juochukwu Orji (Molecular and Cellular Biochemistry), Anna Wang (Molecular and Cellular Biochemistry)*, Elizabeth Wang (Molecular and Cellular Biochemistry)*, Alfred Kelsey (Music), Francesca Lamberti (Music), Madelina Gordon (Philosophy, Politics and Economics)*, Rinesa Lekiqi (Philosophy, Politics and Economics), Jack Potter (Philosophy, Politics and Economics), Chloe Riley (Philosophy, Politics and Economics)*, Wuwen Wong (Philosophy, Politics and Economics)*, Linkai Jin (Physics), Haibei Li (Physics)*, Jinzhao Liang (Physics), Keiran Milne (Physics)*, Ziyuan Nie (Physics)*, Emma Stratford (Physics)*, Tom Wright (Physics), Yuancheng Xu (Physics)*, Jamie Chua (Psychology and Linguistics)*, Maria Ilie-Niculescu (Psychology and Linguistics)*

Margaret Kohl Prize

Jess Scott (Modern Languages)

Mary Somerville Prize

Philippa Rolfe (Biology), Evan Slater (Biology), Emma Thornton (Biology), Tom Drayton (Chemistry), Amaar Sardharwalla (Chemistry), Rosie Thorogood (Chemistry), Mason Wakley (Chemistry), Ryden Nelson (Classical Archaeology and Ancient History), Mei Whattam (Classical Archaeology and Ancient History), Sam Broadhurst (Engineering Science), Alistair White-Horne (Engineering Science), George Whittle (Engineering Science), Beth Bond (English Language and Literature), Daisy Hawkins (English Language and Literature), Ursula White (English Language and Literature), Noah Wild (English Language and Literature), Amy Brazier (Experimental Psychology), Keziah Carlier (Experimental Psychology), Christina He (Experimental Psychology), Tiago Oliveira E Costa (Experimental Psychology), James Heesom (History), Anna Roizes (History), Samuel Ajakaiye (History and Modern Languages), George Seager (Literae Humaniores), Ylias Sadki (Mathematical and Theoretical Physics)*, Charlotte Arben (Mathematics), Jason Bell (Mathematics), Dimitar Oparlakov (Mathematics and Computer Science), Jessica Richards (Mathematics and Computer Science), Lily Wei (Medicine – Preclinical), Haley Flower (Modern

Languages), Eve McCafferty (Modern Languages), Ismay Forsyth (Molecular and Cellular Biochemistry), Amela Sleczka (Molecular and Cellular Biochemistry), Anna Wilderspin (Molecular and Cellular Biochemistry), Briana Williams (Music), Angie Wyatt (Music), Zoe Campbell (Philosophy, Politics and Economics), Ruby Cooper (Philosophy, Politics and Economics)*, Sam Cowell (Philosophy, Politics and Economics), Helena Holter (Philosophy, Politics and Economics)*, Haibei Li (Physics), Kaiyun Sun (Physics), Martha Wells (Psychology, Philosophy and Linguistics)

Principal's Prize

Max Buckby (Ancient and Modern History)*, Caitlin Kelly (English Language and Literature)*, Ingrid Yu (Experimental Psychology)*, Jemima Storey (History)*, Kristy Chan (Jurisprudence)*, James Atkinson (Medicine – Preclinical)*, Oliver Greaves (Modern Languages)*, Helena Holter (Philosophy, Politics and Economics)*, Johannes Keil (Psychology, Philosophy and Linguistics)*

Sarah Smithson Prize

Holly Bostock (Modern Languages)

Somerville Lawyers Group Prize

Naomi Hyde (Jurisprudence)

Alumni Awards

Alice Horsman Scholarship

Melissa Chang 2008, Ryan O'Reilly 2015, Richard Wagenlander 2018

Awards for Travel, Projects and Internments

Alan Hodge Travel Grant

Hector Ravenscroft (Ancient and Modern History), Peter Wheeler (Ancient and Modern History), Michelle Chan (Global and Imperial History), Flora Prideaux (History), Sana Shah (History), Madeleine Storer (History)

Rokade (History of Science, Medicine and Technology)

Alice Horsman Grant

Ilke Boran (Biology), Katie Driver (Biology), Evan Slater (Biology), Emma Thornton (Biology), Katie Cowcher (Chemistry), Georgia Fields (Chemistry), Amaar Sardharwalla (Chemistry), Mason Wakley (Chemistry), Anshul Dalmia (Civil Law), Jack Parsons (Engineering Science), Luca Tonelli (Engineering Science), Alistair White-Horne (Engineering Science), Rosie Seymour (English and Modern Languages), Oli Jupe (English Language and Literature), Jo Rich (English Language and Literature), Ursula White (English Language and Literature), Noah Wild (English Language and Literature), Michelle Chan (Global and Imperial History), Paddy Ryce (History), Samuel Ajakaiye (History and Modern Languages), Rutuja Rokade (History of Science, Medicine and Technology), Naomi Hyde (Jurisprudence), Augustine McMahon (Literae Humaniores), Charlotte Arben (Mathematics), Dominic Miller (Mathematics), Maria Tasca (Mathematics), Minshu Gupta (Medicine – Preclinical), Clara MacCallum (Medicine – Preclinical), Kaiser Obi (Medicine – Preclinical), Rufaro Tom (Medicine – Preclinical), Muhammed Zeyn (Migration Studies), Grace Bostock Westland (Modern Languages), Gwendy Davenport (Modern Languages), Haley Flower (Modern Languages), Eve McCafferty (Modern Languages), Amela Sleczka (Molecular and Cellular Biochemistry), Julia Talarek (Molecular and Cellular Biochemistry), Zoe Campbell (Philosophy, Politics and Economics), Cameron Hodgkinson (Philosophy, Politics and Economics), Katie Walker (Physics), Raihan Rahman (Public Policy), Mohammed Haji (Refugee and Forced Migration Studies)

Ann Cobbe Travel Grant

John Pearce (Condensed Matter Physics), Jessica Richards (Mathematics and Computer Science), Grace Yu (Mathematics and Statistics), Meiqi Chen (Particle Physics), Yuancheng Xu (Physics)

Alcuin Award

Ella Lowry (History), Samantha Martin (History), Yueshi Yang (History), Rutuja

Anne Clements Travel Grant

Vicky Lee (Chemical Biology), Ramiz Razzak (Economics), Salma Daoudi

(International Relations), Anya Biletsky (Literae Humaniores), Zaira Christa Barakat (Music), Sadaf Rahman (Philosophy, Politics and Economics), Katie Walker (Physics), Ying-Di Ying (Physics)

Audrey Sunderland Travel Grant

Niamh Campbell (Creative Writing), Eleanor Harvey (English Language and Literature)

Carmen Blacker Travel Grant

Annabel Thomas (Ancient and Modern History)

Catherine Hughes Grant

Roo Foreman (Ancient and Modern History), Libby Harris (Archaeology), Erik Rydow (Atomic and Laser Physics), Katie Driver (Biology), Amritha Raghavan (Biology), Philippa Rolfe (Biology), Phoebe Makin (Chemistry), Darren Leow Yee Kiat (Civil Law), Joost Haddinga (Economic and Social History), Ramiz Razzak (Economics), Sam Broadhurst (Engineering Science), Shaniah Da Costa (Engineering Science), Callum Scott (Engineering Science), Luca Tonelli (Engineering Science), Jo Rich (English Language and Literature), Sheikh Mohiddin (Experimental Psychology), Michelle Chan (Global and Imperial History), Violet Aitchison(History), Miriam Curtis (History), Alfie Roberts (History), Yueshi Yang (History), Salma Daoudi (International Relations), Ashlyn Cheong (Jurisprudence), Ming Song Oh (Jurisprudence), Claire Huang (Linguistics, Philology and Phonetics), Maria Tascam (Mathematics), David Schramm (Medicine - Graduate Entry), Muhammed Zeyn (Migration Studies), Eden Greaves (Modern Languages), Niamh Robinson-Wakefield (Modern Languages), Rohan Silvestro (Modern Languages), Alicia Hill (Modern Languages and Linguistics), Tarka Abraham (Molecular and Cellular Biochemistry), Tarini Kadambi (Molecular and Cellular Biochemistry), Zaira Christa Barakat(Music), Erin Townsend (Music), Briana Williams (Music), Zoe Byrne (Philosophy and Linguistics), Carrick Gibb (Philosophy, Politics and Economics), Madelina Gordon (Philosophy, Politics and Economics), Cameron Hodgkinson (Philosophy, Politics and Economics),

Malachy Marsh (Philosophy, Politics and Economics), Sadaf Rahman (Philosophy, Politics and Economics), Mario Aguiriano (Politics), Mario Aguiriano (Politics), Rui Huang (Population Health), Emily Shurmer (Psychology, Philosophy and Linguistics), Martha Wells (Psychology, Philosophy and Linguistics), Vera Lim (Public Policy), Juan Cote Orozco (Sleep Medicine)

Cooper Travel Grant

Phoebe Makin (Chemistry), Diane Tang (Chemistry), Iryna Ivanova (Clinical Embryology)

Geiringer Travel Grant

Joost Haddinga (Economic and Social History), Juliette Caucheteux (Economics), Todd Denning (English Language and Literature), Gabrielle Thompson (English Language and Literature), Tianyi Zhang (Experimental Psychology), Ming Song Oh (Jurisprudence), Claire Huang (Linguistics, Philology and Phonetics), Maisie Angus (Literae Humaniores), Erka Arslan (Literae Humaniores), Dan Kimberley (Music), Briana Williams (Music), Guannan Mi (Philosophy), Betsy Elliott-Fricker (Philosophy, Politics and Economics), Madelina Gordon (Philosophy, Politics and Economics), Sumaya Wagad (Philosophy, Politics and Economics), Mario Aguiriano (Politics)

Hansell Travel Grant

Giuseppe Di Pietra (Atomic and Laser Physics), Anshul Dalmia (Civil Law), David Cao (Clinical Medicine), Grace Copeland (Creative Writing), Haris Saeed (Engineering Science), Deng Pan (Experimental Psychology), Nethmi Jayaratne Kariyawasam (Geography and the Environment), Guillermo Íñiguez Martínez (Law), Ben Chung (Mathematics), Isaac Walton (Medical Sciences), Isaac Walton (Medical Sciences), Josephine Carnegie (Medicine – Clinical), Wilf Jenkins (Medicine – Clinical), Maya Mellor (Medicine – Clinical), Robert Temple (Medicine – Clinical), Francess Adlard (Medicine - Graduate Entry), Chloe Freeman (Medicine - Graduate Entry), David Schramm (Medicine - Graduate Entry), Lucy Thompson (Medicine - Graduate Entry), Lily Wei (Medicine – Preclinical),

Wenzheng Xiong (Pharmacology), Mario Aguiriano (Politics), Raihan Rahman (Public Policy)

Helen Darbishire Travel Grant

Yang Gao (Experimental Psychology)

Margaret Macbeth Travel Grant

Isaac Tay (Philosophy, Politics and Economics)

Maria and Tina Bentivoglio Travel Grant

Erik Rydow (Atomic and Laser Physics), Amy Roberts (Biochemistry), Oliver Eyre (Biology), Jem Jiang (Medicine – Preclinical), Maria Ilie-Niculescu (Psychology and Linguistics), Amber Marino (Creative Writing), Snigdha Lal (Condensed Matter Physics), Nicholas Hayes (Mathematical Sciences)

Marya Antonina Czaplicka Travel Grant

Muhammed Zeyn (Migration Studies), Francesca Dakin (Primary Health Care), Vera Lim (Public Policy)

Monica Britton Travel Grant

Madelyn Mezzell (Classical Archaeology), Christina Monroe (Classical Archaeology), Jess Markham (Classical Archaeology and Ancient History), Antonia Rogers (Classical Archaeology and Ancient History), Poppy Shaw (Classical Archaeology and Ancient History), Ashlyn Cheong (Jurisprudence), Anna Hull (Modern Languages), Amelia McLauchlan (Modern Languages), Lizzy Abel (Modern Languages and Linguistics)

Olive Sayce Travel Grant

Hugo Jeudy (English Language and Literature), Ameal Wolf (English Language and Literature), Eden Greaves (Modern Languages), Dina Kamal Shahreen (Modern Languages), Oliver Sandall (Modern Languages)

Rhabanus Maurus Award

Samuel Ajakaiye (History and Modern Languages), Holly Cobain (Modern Languages), Isabella Hind (Modern Languages), Theodore Luketina (Modern

Languages), Rozzie Weir (Modern Languages), Holly Cobb (Modern Languages and Linguistics)

Rita Bradshaw Travel Grant

Mei Whattam (Classical Archaeology and Ancient History), Sam Broadhurst (Engineering Science), Oscar Brant (Literae Humaniores), Hattie Clayton (Literae Humaniores), Shaan Sidhu (Literae Humaniores), Jack Wiggin (Literae Humaniores), Erin Townsend (Music), Martha Wells (Psychology, Philosophy and Linguistics)

Wilma Crowther Travel Grant

Matthew Morecroft (Biology), Medha Mukherjee (Geography and the Environment), Tarini Kadambi (Molecular and Cellular Biochemistry)

Other Awards

Chloe and Helen Morton Choral Scholarship

Steph Garrett (Literae Humaniores), Augustine McMahon (Literae Humaniores)

Daphne Robinson Language Award

Mirren Black (Biology), Ilke Boran (Biology), Ky Dicker (Chemistry), Diane Tang (Chemistry), Jess Markham (Classical Archaeology and Ancient History), Alvaro de Frias Vazquez (English Language and Literature), Hannah Clarke (History), Miriam Curtis (History), Saafia Jinadu (History), Zoe North (History), Flora Prideaux (History), Ming Song Oh (Jurisprudence), Ben Chung (Mathematics), Alice Chen (Mathematics and Statistics), Tahira Abdul (Philosophy and Linguistics), Sumaya Wagad (Philosophy, Politics and Economics), Xiya Yu (Philosophy, Politics and Economics)

John M Cockcroft Choral Scholarship

François de Robert Hautequere (Music)

Margaret Irene Seymour Music Award

George Whittle (Engineering Science), Eliam Lau (Music), Erin Townsend (Music), Briana Williams (Music)

Medical Fund Scholarship

Wilf Jenkins (Medicine – Clinical), Francess Adlard (Medicine - Graduate Entry), Chloe Freeman (Medicine - Graduate Entry), David Schramm (Medicine - Graduate Entry)

Olive Sayce Language Award

Erik Rydow (Atomic and Laser Physics), Amy Roberts (Biochemistry), Jacob Bamberger (Computer Science), Joost Haddinga (Economic and Social History), Marius Hafke (Economic and Social History), Ilina Logani (Economic and Social History), Juliette Caucheteux (Economics), Yang Gao (Experimental Psychology), Fraser Knapp (History), Manuel Neumayer (Mathematical Sciences), Duncan Marsden (Medicine – Clinical), Francess Adlard (Medicine - Graduate Entry), Chloe Freeman (Medicine - Graduate Entry), Francesca Dakin (Primary Health Care), Jess Schiff (Primary Health Care), Raihan Rahman (Public Policy), Tarek Alrefae (Statistics), Imogen Camp (Theoretical Physics)

Pat Harris Spirit of Somerville Award

Tariq Saeed (Biology), Misbah Reshi (Law)

Sports and Wellbeing Award

Philippa Rolfe (Biology), Catherine Stephenson (Biology), Yu Ming Lee (Classical Archaeology and Ancient History), Mei Whattam (Classical Archaeology and Ancient History), Ning Zhang (Computational Discovery), Ramiz Razzak (Economics), Kyle Kass (Energy Systems), Pauline Marc Tudor (Energy Systems), Frederick Roper (Energy Systems), Tim Rafferty (Engineering Science), Todd Denning (English Language and Literature), Guan Xiong Lam (English Language and Literature), Yang Gao (Experimental Psychology), Davis Kline (Greek and/or Latin Languages and Literature), Miriam Curtis (History), Madeleine Storer (History), Arye Brown (International Relations), Ryan Jacobs (Jurisprudence), Oliver Greaves (Linguistics, Philology and Phonetics), Alice Chen (Mathematics and Statistics), Izzy Wilson (Mathematics and Statistics), Ursula Batchelor (Medicine – Preclinical), Sophia Clyde (Medicine – Preclinical), Dom Sloper (Medicine – Preclinical), Zoe Howell (Modern Languages), Izzy Lundberg (Modern Languages), Rozzie Weir (Modern Languages), Alice Bentley (Molecular and Cellular Biochemistry), Nathan Chapplow (Molecular and Cellular Biochemistry), Anna Wang (Molecular and Cellular Biochemistry), Betsy Elliott-Fricker (Philosophy, Politics and Economics), Wuwen Wong (Philosophy, Politics and Economics), James Nichols (Physics), Emma Stratford (Physics), Ying-Di Ying (Physics), Rui Huang (Population Health), Gina Wren (Primary Health Care), Megan Smith (Psychiatry), Vera Lim (Public Policy), Raihan Rahman (Public Policy), Ghaith Al Najjar (Radiobiology)

Undergraduate Students Entering College

Ancient and Modern History

Nicholas Chan Abingdon School

Helen Matthews Felsted School

Kirsten Silcox Coleg Gwent Ebbw Vale Campus

Biology

Phoebe Harley Parkstone Grammar School

Indhu Marmion Sacred Heart High School, Hammersmith

Harry Roberts Old Swinford Hospital, Stourbridge

Molly Ross Highfields School, Matlock

Chemistry

Ky Dicker Woodhouse College, Finchley

Isla Heaton King's College School

Matthew Lurie Merchant Taylors' School, Northwood

Reuben Smith Whitley Bay High School

Tobi Taiwo Brampton Manor Academy

Diane Tang Shanghai Yue Kong Pao Senior Secondary School

Classical Archaeology and Ancient History

Yu Ming Lee Sydney Boys High School, Australia

Antonia Rogers Norwich High School for Girls

Poppy Shaw The Stephen Perse Foundation

Classics and Asian and Middle Eastern Studies

Jesse Smale North London Collegiate School

Classics and Modern Languages

Isobel Jessop Oundle School

Computer Science

Ben Carter Pate's Grammar School

Sheng Dong Beijing New Talent Academy

Mahirah Rahman Barking Abbey School

Diploma in Legal Studies

Christian Tambour Rheinische FriedrichWilhelms-Universitat, Bonn, Germany

Engineering Science

Zak Crane-Whatmore King Edward VI School, Southampton

Callum Scott Reigate Grammar School

Jacca Smart-Knight Truro and Penwith College

Ritchie Usherwood The Castle School, Thornbury

Cynthia Zhang Shenyang Zhiyuan Secondary School

English Language and Literature

Alvaro de Frias Vazquez Runnymede College

Todd Denning Torquay Boys Grammar School

Oliver Gillam Calday Grange Grammar School

Sophie Mervill Thomas Rotherham College

Julian Perry-Poletti Latymer Upper School

Isadora Richards Pate's Grammar School

Derin Scarlat London Academy, Edgware

Brenda Skelding Mossbourne Community Academy

European and Middle Eastern Languages

Haroun Malik The Charter School, North Dulwich

Maryam Qureshi

Experimental Psychology

Sophie Liu Waterloo Collegiate Institute, Canada

Sophia Tan Anglo-Chinese School, Independent

Chris Wong La Salle College, Hong Kong

History

Francesca Bahadur Wyke Sixth Form College

Ella Delicate Bishop Veseys Grammar School

Nayel Huda Queen Elizabeth's School, Barnet

Saafia Jinadu North London Collegiate School

Samantha Martin Bosworth Academy

Vicky Mokumo Ark Acton Academy

Thomas Morris Bedford Modern School

Lucy Pollock Henrietta Barnett School

Harry Stewart Dilley Kimbolton School

Madeleine Storer Urmston Grammar

Yueshi Yang Mayfield School

History and Economics

Jamie See St Swithun's School

History and English

Boyi Li United World College of South East Asia, Dover Campus

Jurisprudence

Clara Bauby-Just Lycee Fenelon Sainte

Marie, Paris

Amie Clark Hayesfield Sixth Form, Bath

E-Shen Low Anglo-Chinese School, Independent

Kate Newell Queen Mary's College

Sonny Wilson Richard Huish College

Jurisprudence (with Law in Europe)

Caitlin Oxborrow Kingston Grammar School

Literae Humaniores

Hattie Clayton Hills Road Sixth Form College

Amy Griffiths Norwich School

Charlee Maillet Birkenhead Sixth Form College

Jack Wiggin Radley College

Mathematics

Alex Cooper Exeter Mathematics School

Linus Davies Cirencester College

Habib Habib Loreto College, Manchester

Sienna Jacobs King's College School

Jonathan Stam Birkenhead School, Merseyside

Esme Waldman The Sixth Form College

Farnborough

Mathematics and Computer Science

Dylan Heydon-Matterface Queen

Mary's Grammar School for Boys

Matthew Tebbutt The Long Eaton School, Nottingham

Medical Sciences

Hannah Abdu Weald of Kent Grammar School

Ben Liow The University of Oxford

Gauri Narendran Kendrick School

Stella Redfern Sandbach High School and Sixth Form College

Amrit Rooprai Solihull Sixth Form College

Hannah Ruck St Dominic's Sixth Form College

Medicine - Graduate Entry

Frances England University of Cambridge

Cecilia Jay The University of Oxford

Daniel Radford-Smith The University of Oxford

Modern Languages

Tom Hey Sir John Deanes College

Theodore Luketina Not Listed

Izzy Lundberg Richmond School & Sixth Form College

Anastasia Lysaght Formby High School

Amelia McLauchlan Orleans Park School

Stanley Morris Highams Park School

Clara Price The Cathedral School, Llandaff

Rozzie Weir Lancaster Royal Grammar School

Modern Languages and Linguistics

Leon Moorhouse Sir John Deanes College

Molecular and Cellular Biochemistry

Luca Marzin St Anselms College, Birkenhead

Juochukwu Orji Eton College

Scarlet Pleasence Hills Road Sixth Form College

Sofiia Shportiuk Classical School

Music

François de Robert Hautequere Harrow School

Luca Hayes Lorente The London Oratory School

Alfred Kelsey King's School, Worcester

Francesca Lamberti Tonbridge Grammar School

Eliam Lau Victoria Shanghai Academy

Philosophy and Linguistics

Zoe Byrne Chiswick School

Esme Dannatt Hayesfield Sixth Form, Bath

Philosophy, Politics and Economics

Joseph Bensusan Collyers VI Form College, Horsham

Barnaby Chipperfield Ark Bolingbroke Academy

Betsy Elliott-Fricker Matthew Arnold School

George Ganney-White Coventry College

Millie Kennedy Peter Symonds College

Rinesa Lekiqi St Marylebone Church of England School

Jack Potter Bristol Grammar School

Conan Tan Temasek Junior College

Sumaya Wagad St Dominic's Sixth Form College

Yushan Zhu The Senior School, Cyprus

Physics

Adam Ghosh Bristol Cathedral Choir School

Linkai Jin Raffles Junior College, Singapore

Benedek Koleszár Milestone Institute, Hungary

Milton Lee Raffles Junior College, Singapore

Jinzhao Liang Pennon Education Group

Tom Wright Abingdon School

Zicheng Zhu Shanghai Guanghua College

Psychology and Linguistics

Penny Johnson Myddelton College

Graduate Students Entering College

Bachelor of Civil Law

Isha Ahlawat O. P. Jindal Global University, India

Anshul Dalmia The University of Oxford

Ramakash Gujuluva Suriaprakash O. P. Jindal Global University, India

Darren Leow Yee Kiat The University of Oxford

Bachelor of Medicine and Bachelor of Surgery

Caitlin Gardner The University of Oxford

Alisha Kenward The University of Oxford

Gerda Mickute The University of Oxford

Amy Moynihan The University of Oxford

Sarafina Otis The University of Oxford

Ellie Walker The University of Oxford

Bachelor of Philosophy

Guannan Mi Beijing (Peking) Normal University, China

Doctor of Medicine

Peter Kiraly University Ljubljana, Slovenia

Andrew Mawer The University of Oxford

DPhil Biochemistry

Amy Roberts The University of Oxford Harrison Wang The University of Oxford

DPhil Biology

James Littlefair The University of Manchester

Charu Sharma Banaras Hindu University, India

DPhil Chemistry

Shreya Sharma Not Listed

DPhil Clinical Medicine

Amelia Henley Harvard University USA

DPhil Clinical Neurosciences

Sana Zuberi University College London

DPhil Computer Science

Jacob Bamberger McGill University, Canada

Nimisha Karnatak Govind Ballabh Pant University of Agriculture & Technology, India

DPhil Engineering Science

Mounir El Skafi American University of Beirut, Lebanon

Xianzheng Ma Wuhan University (inc Hubei), China

Tim Rafferty The University of Bristol

Haris Saeed The University of Oxford

Alex Sharp Royal College of Physicians, London

DPhil Experimental Psychology

Yang Gao New York University, USA

Bethan Grimes The Manchester Metropolitan University

Ruoqi Huang University of Toronto, USA

Rosemary O'Connor The University of Liverpool

DPhil Geography and the Environment

Nethmi Jayaratne Kariyawasam University of Moratuwa, Sri Lanka

DPhil History

Utsa Bose The University of Oxford

Selina Schoelles The University of Oxford

Thomas Wang National Taiwan University

DPhil International Relations

Arye Brown The University of Oxford

DPhil Law

Ishani Mookherjee The University of Oxford

DPhil Mathematics

Xuanzuo Chen Imperial College of Science, Technology & Medicine

DPhil Medical Sciences

Ikboljon Sobirov Tashkent Branch of Westminster International University, Uzbekistan

DPhil Pharmacology

Katia Beliaeva Moscow Medical Academy named after I. M. Sechenov, Russia

DPhil Philosophy

Daniel Gallagher The University of Cambridge

DPhil Physics

Imogen Camp The University of Cambridge

Gaurang Ramakant Kane The University of Oxford

John Pearce The University of Oxford

Sifei Zhang The University of Oxford

DPhil Physiology, Anatomy and Genetics

Sarah Franks The University of Leeds

DPhil Politics

James Barnett University of Texas at Austin, USA

DPhil Population Health

Jeff Jones University of North Carolina at Asheville, USA

DPhil Primary Health Care

Jess Schiff Harvard University, USA

DPhil Psychiatry

Xiaotong Wang University of Queensland, Australia

DPhil Statistics

Tarek Alrefae The University of Oxford

DPhil Wind and Marine Energy Systems and Structures (EPSRC CDT)

Ata Adam Middle East Technical University, Turkey

Master of Public Policy

Vera Lim National University of Singapore

Raihan Rahman University of Dhaka, Bangladesh

Reema Sathe Nirma University of Science & Technology, Ahmedabad, India

Aanchal Saxena TERI School of Advanced Studies, India

MPhil Classical Archaeology

Madelyn Mezzell Texas State UniversitySan Marcos, USA

MPhil Economic and Social History

Ilina Logani Columbia University, USA

MPhil Economics

Oliver Ou London School of Economics and Political Science

MPhil Greek and/or Latin Languages and Literature

Davis Kline Princeton University, USA

MPhil History

Roma Rodrigues-Alarcon University College London

MPhil International Relations

Tina Bai London School of Economics and Political Science

MPhil Law

Bhimraj Muthu Not Listed

MPhil Linguistics, Philology and Phonetics

Yuge Liu Zhejiang University, China

MPhil Politics

Baltazar Dydensborg The University of Oxford

Halima Mughal Dickinson College, USA

Tom Pruchnow University College London

MSc Advanced Computer Science

Tala Aljaafari Virginia Commonwealth University, USA

Christian Hagemeier Universitat des Saarlandes, Saarbrucken, Germany

John Koz The University of Oxford

MSc African Studies

Samson Oolio Makerere University, Kampala, Uganda

MSc Archaeology

Libby Harris The University of Oxford

MSc Biodiversity, Conservation and Management

Naga Sathish Gidijala Andhra University, Visakhapatnam, India

MSc Clinical Embryology

Iryna Ivanova Taras Shevchenko State University of Kiev, Ukraine

MSc Clinical Embryology

Margherita Mazzaschi University College London

MSc Economic and Social History

Joost Haddinga Universiteit van Tilburg, Netherlands

Marius Hafke Universitat Trier, Germany

MSc Economics for Development

Miral Shehata University of Chicago, USA

Katja Sundermeier Universitat Mannheim, Germany

MSc Energy Systems

Kyle Kass United States Military Academy

Pauline Marc Tudor Not Listed

Frederick Roper University of California, Berkeley, USA

MSc Financial Economics

Jasmine Wu University of Hong Kong

MSc Global Governance and Diplomacy

Paulina Pedas University of Pennsylvania, USA

MSc Global Healthcare Leadership (PT)

Amanda Banda Solusi University, Bulawayo, Zimbabwe

Troels Hansen Not Listed

Gurpal Liddar Not Listed

Isaac Omari Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, Ghana

MSc History of Science, Medicine and Technology

Rutuja Rokade Krea University, India

MSc in Applied Digital Health

Rachel Chae Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA

MSc in Applied Digital Health

Ashfiya Pirani University of Waterloo, Canada

MSc International Health & Tropical Medicine

Eslam Elbasheer University of Khartoum, Sudan

MSc Mathematical & Theoretical Physics

Mohammed Alsaleh University College London

Jonas Frugte University of Groningen, Netherlands

MSc Mathematical and Computational Finance

Ruotong Cao The University of Oxford

Amarjit Gaba Cardiff University

Yimin Tang University College London

MSc Mathematical Modelling and Scientific Comp

Ziqi Li Chinese University of Hong Kong

MSc Mathematical Sciences

Nicholas Hayes The University of Oxford

Callum Marsh The University of Manchester

Manuel Neumayer Lund University, Sweden

MSc Mathematics and Foundations of Comp Sci

Haytham McDowall-Rose The University of Oxford

Thomas Warner University of Durham

MSc Migration Studies

Muhammed Zeyn The University of Oxford

MSc Modelling for Global Health

Chuan Zhang The University of Leicester

MSc Modern South Asian Studies

Tanisha Aswal Lady Shree (Shri) Ram College, Delhi, India

MSc Modern South Asian Studies

Fahad Zuberi The University of Oxford

MSc Nature, Society and Environmental Governance

Niharika Singh The University of Oxford

MSc Neuroscience

Talia Vasaturo-Kolodner Brown University, USA

MSc Radiobiology

Ghaith Al Najjar The University of Brighton

MSc Refugee and Forced Migration Studies

Sharmarke Dubow Cape Breton University, Canada

MSc Sleep Medicine

Jarrah Alabkal Arabian Gulf University, Bahrain

Tom Chambers University College London

Geoff Eade Hinds Community College, USA

Ahmed Ghanim The University of Bath

Nivali Naik Ain Shams University, Egypt

Marie-Rachelle Narcisse The University of Oxford

Alex Rawcliffe Jagadguru Sri Shivarathreeswara University, India

Mariam Siddiqui University of Montreal, Canada

Jay Yoo Napier University

MSc Sleep Medicine (PGDip conversion)

Tory Frame Not Listed

Julinda Lee The University of Oxford

Pavan Sohal The University of Oxford

Cerys Stuart-Buttle The University of Oxford

Wilna Williams Not Listed

MSc Statistical Science

Nanxi Dong The Hong Kong Polytechnic University

Fan Fei University College London

Alaia He University of Melbourne, Australia

Sissi Yang The University of Oxford

MSc Sustainability, Enterprise and the Environment

Hansa Mukherjee The University of Oxford

MSc(Res) Psychiatry

Anoushka Sharma University of California, Berkeley, USA

MSt Classical Archaeology

Harper Harper Carthage College, USA

MSt Creative Writing

Annabel Bird Thames Valley University

Niamh Campbell The University of Edinburgh

Sarah Issever University of California, Los Angeles, USA

Synne Sollie Chapman University, USA

MSt Diplomatic Studies (Full-time)

Harry Gartside The University of Newcastle-upon-Tyne

MSt Diplomatic Studies (Full-time)

Mamiko Ura Kyushu University, Japan

MSt English

Fran Woodward University College London

MSt Global and Imperial History

Michelle Chan The University of Oxford

MSt Greek and/or Latin Languages and Literature

Francesco Reni The University of Oxford

MSt Greek and/or Roman History

Max Buckby The University of Oxford

MSt History

Fraser Knapp King's College London

Emma Schütze The University of Oxford

MSt in Modern Languages

Kate Dorkins The University of Oxford

MSt Linguistics, Philology and Phonetics

Oliver Greaves The University of Oxford

MSt Music

Mar Umbert Kimura The University of Oxford

MSt Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies

Sarah Bannon The University of Leeds

Distinguished Friends of Somerville

Elizabeth Bingham (Loxley, 1957)

Kay Brock (Stewart Sandeman, 1972)

Ginny Covell (Hardman Lea, 1973)

Charlotte Morgan (1969)

Karen Richardson (1972)

Sue Robson (Bodger, 1966)

Virginia Ross (1966)

Susan Scholefield (1973)

Eleanor Sturdy (Burton, 1984)

Judith Unwin (1973)

Mai Yamani (1979)

Somerville Development Board Members

Co-Chair

Sybella Stanley (1979)

Co-Chair

Ayla Busch (1989)

Basma Alireza (1991)

Judith Buttigieg (1988)

Sophie Forsyth (Wallis, 1989)

Lynn Haight (Schofield, 1966)

Niels Kröner (1996)

Vicky Maltby (Elton, 1974)

Nicola Ralston (Thomas, 1974)

Judith Unwin (1973)

Somerville Campaign Board Members

Omar Davis (1997)

Emma Haight (1999)

Dan Mobley (1994)

Sundeep Sandhu (1994)

Honorary Development Board Members

Tom Bolt

Doreen Boyce (Vaughan, 1953)

Paddy Crossley (Earnshaw, 1956)

Clara Freeman (Jones, 1971)

Sam Gyimah (1995)

Margaret Kenyon (Parry, 1959)

Nadine Majaro (1975)

Harriet Maunsell (1962)

Hilary Newiss (1974)

Roger Pilgrim

Sian Thomas Marshall (Thomas, 1989)

For full details see the college website at www.some.ox.ac.uk/alumni/the-development-board

Legacies

Legacies are a vital source of support for the College. Here, we name all of those who have left legacies to support Somerville, and record our deep gratitude to them for the gift they have made to generations of future Somervillians. We would particularly like to take the opportunity to honour two individuals whose recent legacies have made a significant and lasting difference.

Cathy E. King (Junior Research Fellow)

Legacy Benefactors in 2023/24

Jane E. Ahdy (Noble) (1952, English)

Christian A. K. Carritt (1946, Physiological Science)

Beryl R. Mustill (Davies) (1941, English)

E. Ann Gray (1953, English)

Margaret A. Heath (Bragg) (1950, Modern History)

Cynthia M. Howard (1951, Modern Languages)

Cathy E. King (Junior Research Fellow)

William T. Leeming

Mary I. Low (1945, Modern History)

Hilary M. O. Nightingale (Jones) (1948, English)

Olga Olver (Robb) (1942, Modern Languages)

Joyce M. Reynolds (1937, Literae Humaniores)

Ann A. Schlee (Cumming) (1952, English)

M. Jean A. Seglow (Moncrieff) (1955, Philosophy, Politics and Economics)

Hugh Stewart

Rachel S.C. Sykes (1943, English)

Jean E. Velecky (Stanier) (1941, Physiological Science)

Nancy Waugh

John Wells (1970)

Christian A. K. Carritt (1946)

Dates for the Diary