4 SOMERVILLE MAGAZINE
News and People ALUMNI Dr June Raine (1971, Physiology) was made a DBE in the New Year Honours in recognition of her public service as Chief Executive of the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency, the body responsible for approving the Covid-19 vaccines. Dame Dr June Raine (1971, Physiology) with artist Hilary Puxley (1970, English)
NEWS
Somerville has twinned with local primary school St Frideswide as part of a new Conference of Colleges scheme guided by our Principal Jan Royall to provide academic support and opportunities within Oxford. The Catherine Hughes Building (completed 2019) won a Brick Award and a RIBA South award for architectural innovation. The Oxford India Centre for Sustainable Development (OICSD) launched a new Journal Supplement, Mental Health in India – Bridging the Gap, to bring together research on mental health in India.
FELLOWS AND STAFF Our Senior Research Fellow Professor Patricia Kingori became one of the youngest women to be awarded a full professorship in Oxford’s 925 year history and the youngest Black professor at Oxford or Cambridge. Senior Research Fellow Professor Colin Espie partnered with the Scottish government to make an anti-insomnia app available nationwide for free. Somerville’s Medievalist Research Group published their fourth book, Openness in Medieval Europe (see p23). Our Fellow and Tutor in International Relations, Associate Professor Patricia Owens, co-edited the first ever anthology of women’s International Thought. Our Professorial Fellow Aditi Lahiri received Advanced Grant funding from the European Research Council for the third time – a record for Oxford.
Nia Griffith (1975, Modern Languages), Labour MP for Llanelli, Carmarthenshire, was made a DBE in the Queen’s Birthday Honours. Sue Williamson (1974, Modern History & Modern Languages) was awarded an MBE for services to the Library Sector in her capacity as Director, Libraries for Arts Council England. Danielle Lux (1983, Modern languages) was made a Fellow of the Royal Television Society and named an ‘indie legend’ by the Producers’ Alliance for Cinema and Television (PACT). Author Alexander Starritt (2004, History and Modern Languages) won the 2021 Dayton Literary Peace Prize for his novel, We Germans, and donated the proceeds to establish a new Sanctuary Scholarship at Somerville (see p6). Professor Frances Stewart (née Kaldor, 1958, PPE) was named a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences. Gabriella D’Cruz (2017, MSc Biodiversity Conservation & Management) won the BBC Food Chain’s Global Youth Champion 2021 award for her work reimagining the Indian seaweed farming industry. Playwright Ella Road (2010, English) has penned two episodes of Ten Percent, the forthcoming remake of the French comedy Call My Agent.
STUDENTS
Aivin Gast (2018, Classical Archaeology and Ancient History) helped discover then named the largest known radio galaxy in the universe ‘Alcyoneus’, after the giant who fought Heracles for supremacy over the cosmos. Our doctoral candidate and Stipendiary Lecturer Tom Hickling (2018, DPhil Engineering) won the 2020 ASME Gas Turbine Award for critical new insights into the field of Turbomachinery for power generation and aviation propulsion. A study co-authored by OICSD scholar Trisha Gopalakrishna (2019, DPhil Geography and the Environment) proved that the Indian government has overestimated the potential of reforestation to mitigate their carbon emissions by more than 75%. Mary De Zouche scholar Aavika Dhanda (2019, DPhil Zoology) received the Rufford Foundation’s Rufford Small Grant to support her work examining the effects of land use changes on forest bird communities in the eastern Himalayas. Ingrid Yu (2020, Experimental Psychology) received the Susan Mary Rouse Memorial Prize for best overall performance in the ‘Introduction to Psychology’ Prelim, the Weiskrantz Prize for best performance in Psychology Part I and the Braddick Prize for best overall performance in PPL Prelims. Sarafina Otis (2020, Medicine) placed second in the year in her second year Medicine exams to secure proxime accessit for best overall performance. Johannes Keil (2019, PPL) placed second in his year group in FHS I Psychology, securing proxime accessit to the Iversen Prize for best overall performance.
Calam Lynch (2013, Classics) appeared in the third season of the Netflix series Bridgerton and the film Benediction, about the life of Siegfried Sassoon. Lizzy Mansfield (2013, Physics and Philosophy) joined the writer’s room on Apple TV’s hit comedy Ted Lasso.
Professor Patricia Kingori
