The Fountain, Issue 30, Summer 2021 by Trinity College Cambridge

The

Fountain Issue 30 • Summer 2021

‘Reflection’ by keen photographer and final year engineering student Areeg Ashraf Emarah (2017), who features in the Student spot on page 24.

Welcome from a Fellow It is my pleasure to welcome you to the Summer 2021 edition of The Fountain as the new Senior Bursar. I am very familiar to Cambridge from my student days so I am humbled to return to this beautiful city that holds so many fond memories for me. This year, we faced unprecedented challenges. I am impressed by how the College has come together as a community. Personal highlights include the Masters’ welcome to Freshers in Great Court, my virtual fireside chat with the students, and meeting many other Fellows outdoors in the stunning College grounds.

Contents Issue 30, Summer 2021 REGULARS:

4–5

Alumni News

6–9

College News

10–11

A day in the life of Steven Archer

One great example of how the Fellowship, students, staff and alumni have engaged is around the important topic of climate change. This year, Trinity has committed to net zero in our endowment by 2050 and pledged to divest from fossil fuel securities by the end of the year, which you can read more about in College News on page 6.

Cryptic Crossword

This summer edition of the magazine is filled with features to update you on what has been happening in all corners of the College over the last year – and what a year. TCSU President, Serena Cole (2019) and her predecessor, Ludvig Brekke (2018) tell us how the pandemic has affected student lives, and who and what has kept them going. Three Trinity medics – Dr Laith Alexander (2011), Dr Rupert Beale, (1996) and Dr Bronya Gorney (1998) – share how they have been helping in the fight to conquer COVID and to support those affected. Head Gardener Tom Hooijenga talks about how he and his team have managed during the pandemic, and their plans for keeping the College gardens flourishing long into the future. We spend a day in the life of new Trinity Sub-Librarian Steven Archer, and Library Graduate Trainee Vicky Gray reveals a treasure from the Wren Library. We also hear from Professor Simon Baron-Cohen (e1995), who asks if there is a link between autism and the capacity for invention.

12–15

We hope that you enjoy reading this edition, and please do share your news and views with us at alumni@trin.cam.ac.uk.

Alumni profile: Amanda Talhat

Richard Turnill (e2020) Senior Bursar

Events FEATURES:

A year alone, together

16–17

Litmus Project

18–22

COVID-19: one year in

Trinity treasures

Student spot: Areeg Ashraf Emarah

26–27

A green haven

28–30

Autism and Invention Fountain Magazine 2021 Issue 30

Produced by the Alumni Relations and Development Office

Design: H2 Associates, (Cambridge) Limited

Photography: Front Cover, Reflection. Inside Front Cover, Spring, sprung. Areeg Emarah (2017).

Editor: alumni-comms@trin.cam.ac.uk www.trin.cam.ac.uk/alumni

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Civil and structural engineer, Jo da Silva (1985) OBE received a Damehood as part of the Queen’s New Year Honours 2021 list for services to humanitarian relief and international development. Jo established Arup’s International Development business in 2007.

Congratulations to Amanda Dennis (2006) on her debut novel Her Here, published by Bellevue Literary Press on 9 March 2021.

Our Trinity in New York alumni group launched on 22 December 2020 with an evening of conversation with Stephen Layton MBE (e2006) and music from the Trinity College Choir. Thank you to Christos Koutsoyannis (1998, pictured above) and the rest of the Committee for making it happen. To join the group please visit: www.trin.cam.ac.uk/ alumni/associations

Congratulations to Dr Jonathan C M Wan (2014), Academic doctor (oncology) at Guy’s and St Thomas’ Hospitals, who was selected for Forbes magazine’s 30 Under 30 Europe 2021 list in the Science & Healthcare category.

On 24 October 2020, Dr Peter Biar Ajak (2013) became the first South Sudanese national to be awarded a PhD from the University of Cambridge.

Global Alumni News

Su-Mei Thompson (1984), Chief Executive of Media Trust, was appointed to the Board of Commissioners of the Equality and Human Rights Commission on 12 November 2020.

On 19 March 2021, Baron Ajit Shetty (1965) received an honorary doctorate degree from Ghent University’s Faculty of Pharmaceutical Sciences for his services to science and research.

The Master, Dame Sally Davies (e2019) and the Senior Bursar, Richard Turnill, joined alumni in Hong Kong for a special ‘Meet the Master’ event via Zoom on 22 February. To join our Trinity in Hong group, visit the Associations’ web page: www.trin.cam.ac.uk/ alumni/associations/

Thank you to all the alumni in Singapore who joined The Master, Dame Sally Davies and the Senior Bursar, Richard Turnill (pictured above) via zoom for a special ‘Meet the Master’ event on 10 March, and who made it such an enjoyable occasion for everyone.

Since last summer, Trinity in Japan has held meetings via Zoom with Lord Martin Rees (1960), Professor Venki Ramakrishnan (e2008), Professor Didier Queloz (e2013) Dame Sarah Worthington QC (e2011), Sir Gregory Winter (1970), and Professor Huw Price (e2011). Thank you to all the speakers and group Chair, Gerhard Fasol (1978, pictured above), for providing such a fantastic programme of events for members!

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College News Trinity’s endowment commits to Net Zero by 2050 and divestment from fossil fuels In February 2021, Trinity announced that it had amended the College’s investment policy to commit to achieving net zero carbon emissions before 2050, in line with the spirit of the Paris Agreement. Trinity’s endowment will now have a dual mandate: to continue delivering sustainable income growth and to commit to a significant, lasting and positive impact on improving its environmental footprint and achieving net zero before 2050. The move includes divestment from all fossil fuel investments in public equities by the end of 2021.

amount of greenhouse gas emissions produced are cancelled out by those removed from the atmosphere.

The UK government is legally bound to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 100% relative to 1990 levels by 2050, in line with the international 2015 Paris Agreement, which aims to limit global warming to well below 2 degrees Celsius, preferably limited to 1.5 degrees, compared to pre-industrial levels. ‘Net zero’ is achieved when the

‘We now have an ambitious plan to achieve net zero before 2050, which, while challenging, given the nature of the endowment’s portfolio, is achievable and consistent with the College’s income growth objectives. We will move rapidly where we can, starting with divestment from all fossil fuel exposure in our public equities this year.’

The Senior Bursar, Richard Turnill, said the decision to change Trinity’s investment policy had been taken after extensive consultation with Fellows, students, other colleges and experts.

Bountiful blossom in the Fellows’ Garden, Spring 2021.

The Master, Dame Sally Davies, said the new approach was ‘a significant step in Trinity’s journey to addressing climate change. This is clearly an issue that extends beyond the endowment. The World Health Organisation cited climate change, along with pandemics, as one of the key global health challenges of the 2020s, and we at Trinity intend to bring together expertise both within and beyond the College to play a greater role in further climate change action.’ For further details on Trinity’s new approach to its investments, and to watch a short film with the Senior Bursar, please visit the website: www.trin.cam.ac.uk/news/trinitycommits-to-net-zero-by-2050-anddivestment-from-fossil-fuels

Professor Sir Shankar Balasubramanian co-awarded 2020 Millennium Technology Prize © NATHAN PITT, UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE

Trinity Fellow Professor Sir Shankar Balasubramanian (e1994) and Christ’s Fellow Professor Sir David Klenerman have been awarded the 2020 Millennium Technology Prize for ‘their innovation of Next Generation DNA Sequencing (NGS), technology that enables fast, accurate, low-cost and large-scale genome sequencing.’ The one million Euro Prize, awarded by Technology Academy Finland, is one of the world’s most prestigious science

prizes. Sir Shankar and Sir David’s rapid genome sequencing technology has transformed biology and genomic medicine worldwide and opened up new pharmaceutical avenues, for example, to detect cancer ‘signatures’ floating in the blood. The technology has also played a vital role in the fight against COVID-19. Herchel Smith Professor of Medicinal Chemistry at Cambridge and Senior Group Leader at the Cancer Research UK Cambridge Institute, Sir Shankar said, ‘This is the biggest international prize that David and I have received that recognises this technology originated from Cambridge and the wider impact

Boat Race double victory at Ely On 4 April, Cambridge scored a double victory in the Boat Race, with both the women’s and men’s teams putting in incredible performances in the nail-bitingly close contests.

it’s had. We’re so pleased on behalf of all the people who’ve been involved in making the technology happen.’ Chair of the Millennium Technology Prize Selection Committee, Professor Päivi Törmä, said ‘The future potential of NGS is enormous and the exploitation of the technology is still in its infancy. The technology will be a crucial element in promoting sustainable development through personalisation of medicine, understanding and fighting killer diseases, and hence improving the quality of life.’ Read more: www.trin.cam.ac.uk/news/

Neil Hopkinson Memorial Fund To celebrate the unique contribution of Trinity Fellow Dr Neil Hopkinson (1957–2021) to the study and teaching of undergraduates in Classics at Cambridge, the Neil Hopkinson Memorial Fund has been established. The Fund will support undergraduates from low-income households, with a preference for those who have not studied Greek before. Dr Hopkinson was a brilliant and devoted teacher who inspired and pushed his students to achieve their utmost, and the fund in his honour will enable students to pursue their studies and to fulfil their academic potential. You can read alumni tributes and discover more about Dr Hopkinson and the Fund on the website: www.trin.cam. ac.uk/alumni/giving-to-trinity/ neil-hopkinson-memorial-fund

You can read a pre-race interview with Charlie in the Boat Race magazine to discover why he was so keen to beat Oxford – mission accomplished! – and

watch a YouTube film of him in action, and sharing just what it meant to compete in the Race. boatrace.pocketmags.com/ magazine/reader/213514/118 youtube.com/watch?v=YqHdE8X1J6Q

Congratulations to Trinity engineering student Charlie Marcus (2018), who coxed the men’s boat for the 166th men’s race.

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Trinity launches two new Year 12 mentoring schemes The College has this year launched two new mentoring schemes to encourage Year 12 pupils to aspire to get to university. Launched on 9 March, the Year 12 Mentoring Scheme is designed to combat the negative consequences of the pandemic on pupils’ learning, and to compensate for support they could have missed out on. © GRAHAM COPEKOGA

The pilot scheme offers 20 lessadvantaged students with a strong academic record the opportunity to participate in a series of online mentoring sessions, and to complete assignments that will enhance their curriculum knowledge and understanding of the Cambridge application process. Trinity’s Outreach Coordinator, Jon Datta, who devised the programme, said: ‘We expect the scheme to break down barriers, both real and perceived, to selective universities. We want to be an ongoing point of contact to provide support for students, who will likely feel overwhelmed by the effects of the pandemic constraints on their learning.’ The second new initiative – ‘Track to Trin’– has been created by Trinity students Serena Cole, Elizabeth Beevers and Vanessa Tang (all 2019), who have devised a ‘by students, for students’ mentoring scheme for Year 12 black students, which builds on Target Oxbridge’s national programme. ‘Track to Trin’ will involve a pilot group of students of African and Caribbean

Target Oxbridge participants at Trinity in 2019.

heritage participating in subject-specific webinars led by Trinity PhD students. There will also be sessions with Trinity’s Outreach Team offering guidance about applying to Cambridge. Aware of the popularity of Target Oxbridge’s mentoring programme, Serena, Elizabeth and Vanessa devised the student-led pilot when they worked together on Trinity College Students’ Union last year. Serena, President of TCSU for 2021–22, said:

‘I love hearing the impact that access work has had on incoming Freshers and hope that the mentoring and guidance through Track to Trin will bring highachieving black students one step closer to applying and getting into Cambridge.’

To discover more about Trinity’s Access and Outreach programme, visit the new Outreach Hub: www.trin.cam.ac.uk/access/hub-home

Andrew Marvell: 400 years on © TRINITY COLLEGE CAMBRIDGE

The 400th anniversary of the birth of poet Andrew Marvell (1621–78) was on 31 March 2021. To mark the occasion, Senior Research Fellow, Professor Angela Leighton (e2006) was asked to contribute a poem about Marvell to a new collection. In a short film on the website, Professor Leighton shares her poem ‘By the tide of Humber’, which was inspired by a line from Marvell’s ‘To his Coy Mistress’. You can also enjoy actor Pip Torrens’ (1978) reading of Marvell’s seduction

poem, to a backdrop of birdsong in the Fellows’ Garden. www.trin.cam.ac.uk/news/andrewmarvell-400-years-on

Celebrating 100 years of the Lt. Charles H. Fiske III Scholarships 2021 marks the centenary of the Lt. Charles H. Fiske III Scholarship at Trinity. Mr and Mrs Charles H. Fiske Jr established the Scholarship in 1921, in memory of their son, who was a member of the Harvard class of 1919.

The Fiske Scholarship provides a year of study and support at Trinity for a Harvard graduate in the year after graduation, and is awarded to students who have been actively engaged in their academic and extracurricular pursuits, and who show great promise of further intellectual and personal growth. Fiske Scholar 1972–73 and former

Scholarship selection committee member, Robert N. Shapiro (1972) said, ‘The Fiske Scholarship honors historic ties between Harvard and Trinity, has a vibrant presence today in both institutions, and now launches into its second century. My Trinity year was transformative in many ways, intellectually and personally – that is a widely shared experience of all Fiske Scholars. I treasure the friendships I’ve made at Trinity, insights I gained, and ongoing connections I enjoy.’

Forth year engineering student Areeg Ashraf Emarah (2017) has received the Vice-Chancellor’s Social Impact Award 2021 for her access and student support work, and her commitment to the May Week Alternative (MWA) movement. You can read about Areeg’s incredible work during her time at Trinity in the Student spot on page 24. © SIR CAM

Although Fiske passed his entrance exams to Harvard, he first went abroad to travel. When World War I broke out, he abandoned his travels and entered Trinity. In Cambridge he had his first military training in the Reserve Officers’ Training Corps, and returned to enter Harvard in the autumn of 1915. However, his student career was interrupted by his war service, and it was brought to an end by his death on the front lines in France in August 1918.

Vice-Chancellor’s Social Impact Award 2021

To discover more about the Scholarship visit www.hcs.uraf.harvard.edu

Eight Junior Research Fellows join Trinity in 2021 Trinity has appointed eight Junior Research Fellows across the academic disciplines, all of whom will be joining the College in October 2021.

Dr Naomi Richman for research in Anthropology

Mr Wladislaw Michailow for research in Physics

Dr Henry Lee-Six for research in Medical Sciences

Mr Oliver Janzer for research in Pure Mathematics

Mr Rory Gregson for research in Law

Ms Rita Teixeira Da Costa for research in Mathematical Physics

Dr Daniel Sperrin for research in English Literature

Mr Benjamin Marschall for research in Philosophy

You can ‘meet’ each of the Fellows in a series of interviews on the website, in which they will be sharing the focus of their research and what they are most looking forward to when they join the Trinity community: www.trin.cam.ac.uk/ news/meet-trinitys-juniorresearch-fellows.

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ell us about T your background before Trinity.

For the last 4 years I was College Librarian at our sister college, Christ Church, Oxford, where I was only the third person to hold the position in the last 65 years! It was amazing to be given pretty much free rein to totally overhaul the Library’s services and really re-integrate the Library as the heart of the academic community within College. Before that, most of my experience had been working in Cambridge colleges, as Curator and Digital Projects Librarian in the Parker Library, and as Assistant Librarian at Christ’s. I also spent several years at the London Library in St James’s Square, becoming Head of Reference and managing the busy reading rooms.

A DAY IN THE LIFE OF

Steven Archer, Trinity Sub-Librarian

What appealed to you about the opportunity to join Trinity, and to make the move from ‘The Other Place’? This is actually a re-joining of Trinity for me; my first professional job was here as the Library’s Graduate Trainee. It was the most amazing start to a library career, and if you asked anyone who knew me in a professional context, they would tell you that this job is the one I’d always dreamed of doing. When the Sub-Librarian post was advertised in the middle of the first lockdown last year, it certainly wasn’t the ideal time to be thinking about leaving my job in Oxford, or starting a new one and although its been challenging, I am so glad I did. I was an undergrad in Cambridge so it feels a bit like coming home, and as an ASNaC, having some of the most significant Anglo-Saxon manuscripts stored just metres away from my desk is an exceptional treat.

What is your ‘typical’ day as Sub-Librarian?

Overall, I am responsible for supporting the work of Dr Nicolas Bell, the Librarian, and for managing the operational aspects of running the Library and its staffing. Days haven’t really been very ‘normal’ so far, but one of my favourite parts is very first thing when you’re in the Library before anyone else. Opening up with the morning sun streaming through the Wren windows and being in that cavernous space all alone is something that makes me feel so lucky every day. After that, most days at the moment are a fairly relentless round of online meetings with the greatest excitement being wondering whether it will be on Zoom or Teams! We get lots of enquiries from people wanting to reproduce images from the collections, or to ask research questions about

our holdings; both of these are really good ways (and excuses!) for me to engage with materials in the Library, and I really enjoy that. There is administrative work to be done too, just to dispel the myth that librarians only sit and read books all day!

hat do you particularly enjoy about W college librarianship and what are its challenges?

One of the unique elements of college librarianship is having that mix of old and new side-by-side. I’ve reached a point where I am a head of department, but am still lucky enough to have some hands-on work with collections and readers. If I were doing a job at a similar level at the University Library, say, I would be mainly a manager, so I really value still being involved in pretty much every aspect of what goes on. The flip side of this is that you have to be prepared to switch from working on a provenance enquiry about an early printed book to helping a student get access to an online database, when suddenly you notice a damp patch in the ceiling that needs investigating. So it’s a pretty varied role!

ow have you and the team managed to H keep the Library ‘open for business’ for the Trinity community during the past year? How has technology helped?

We’ve – amazingly, and with thanks to our colleagues across College – managed to keep the College Library open to readers since term started in October 2020 by reducing the number of seats, installing the now ubiquitous screens, and having a one-way system in place. In Lent Term we set up a weekly online reading room session where students could ‘come’ to the Library for an afternoon and work alongside others. Staff ran the sessions and were there to answer questions, and co-ordinated break times so people could chat with others about what they were working on and have a sense of that collective space that the Library would normally give.

hat support initiatives have you W introduced to help students to cope with the situation?

We now have a postal loans scheme set up, so those working remotely can order library books to be sent to them (free of charge), and we have been ordering new books to be shipped directly from suppliers to students at home. We have also been requesting ebooks for purchase, and sending scans out of library materials. We are also very aware that the Library has a welfare role to play, so have set up a light reading collection to encourage recreational time away from screens, and have a selection of board games for loan which students can play in their household bubbles, or jigsaws with stunning images of Wren items on them.

Why are libraries so important, now more than ever?

Well, I am probably slightly biased here, but they remain, as they have for centuries, as spaces where knowledge can be discovered and explored at the readers’ own pace. In an increasingly digital world, they offer a place to come and consult analogue material to give our screen-tired eyes a break, and to browse along shelves in a way that just can’t be replicated online. What we are also seeing, perhaps most importantly, is that libraries provide a social space for people to work in; either in a quiet corner, or at a table surrounded by others. That sense of being in space designed for study, and where everyone around you is doing the same thing, plays an important role in our increasingly online and isolated way of working.

What’s your favourite item in the Trinity Collection and why?

How can I pick just one? The ASNaC in me feels I must choose something of that ilk, and the socalled Trinity Gospels (MS B.10.4) featured heavily in my Masters dissertation so I feel I know it quite well; it’s nice to be reunited after several years! It is a stunning example of a manuscript produced The lavish opening to the Gospel of Mark (MS B.10.4).

in the wake of the 10th century monastic reform movement, which sought to bring standards back to English monastic life that had slipped somewhat. Inspirational books like this formed part of this movement, and I think its power and symbolism are just as meaningful some 1000 years later.

What is your desert island book, and why?

The librarian in me wants to answer this question with a curt one-liner – books and sand don’t mix! If I could bring myself to overlook that, and I’m going to sound like an Anglo-Saxon obsessive now, but I think I’d have to take Richard Hamer’s A Choice of Anglo-Saxon Verse (Faber and Faber, 1970). As a student it was by my side constantly, and now years later, it’s something I can pick up and dip into at any time. I’m not a big fan of poetry overall, but there is just something so sumptuous about the opening of the elegiac poem The Dream of the Rood – ‘Hwaet, ic swefna cyst secgan wylle…Hear while I tell about the best of dreams…’ that it just draws me in every time. When I started at Christ Church, I learned that Richard Hamer had, in fact, been Fellow Librarian there for many years and still came to the Library regularly; now knowing the great man himself makes the book even better!

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A year alone, together TCSU President Serena Cole and last year’s President, Ludvig Brekke, spoke with Rachel Sweet of ARDO about the past student year, coping with lockdown, and keeping the community together through it all. © SIMON WARRENER

How have you stayed motivated and connected?

What have you missed the most?

Why did you decide to run for TCSU President this year?

It was easier in the first phase, because everyone was really trying, so I had lots of calls with my friends, just talking and playing games. Now in the later phases, it’s more about keeping structure – taking breaks to go on a walk, or going to the shop.

Serena Cole (2019, Medical Sciences) TCSU President 2021–2022

What has the COVID-19 pandemic looked like for you?

I spent the first lockdown in Nigeria – I’d gone home for Easter and ended up spending 6 months there. It was the longest time my family had really spent in one place, so we took the opportunity to work on our family unit and on ourselves. I came back to Cambridge for Michaelmas Term, and then spent this last lockdown in London. I’m very glad I’ve been in different locations over the last year, which I know hasn’t been the experience for everyone.

I’ve missed the student experience, basically, and all the traditions of Cambridge. My year has missed two May Balls now – I’m lucky as a medic that I’ll be here for an three extra years, but for the rest of my year it’s incredibly saddening. Other things like Halfway Hall, formals, those experiences that really make friend groups. You can’t just pop round to someone’s room at midnight to say hi!

I’ve known for a long time that I was interested in it – I remember being inspired by the President when I joined Trinity as a Fresher. After being the BME Officer on TCSU last year, I didn’t really think about the different challenge of this year – the decision to run was more influenced by other people’s encouragement. Having that support from others on TCSU, even though the job is very different with the pandemic, meant there wasn’t any doubt in my mind.

Second year medicine is said to be the hardest, and it has been – our exams were delayed until September which gave us months to revise, but afterwards we only had a week until the new year started. We’ve had to keep going without much of a break so it’s been hard to keep the motivation up, knowing I’m in the hardest year and I’m doing it through COVID-19.

TCSU welcoming the new arrivals in Nevile’s Court.

Socially distanced dinner in Hall.

How has the TCSU Committee had to adapt?

The perception of TCSU has changed the most as we’ve become a much bigger part of the student experience. We realised quickly that if TCSU wasn’t putting on events and activities there just wouldn’t be anything happening. Because © DAVID ROSE

The Matriculation picnic lunch hampers were a definite hit.

of this, TCSU is also a much bigger part of Freshers’ lives than usual – particularly during Freshers’ Week when they couldn’t go out to clubs. It’s been really sad to see that two of the clubs in Cambridge aren’t coming back after lockdown – Cindies and Fez – but hopefully the nightlife will recover soon!

What have you learnt about the Trinity Community and yourself over this year?

Just how big the Trinity community is. It’s easy to become isolated within your friend group while we can only see six people, but I’ve still been meeting new people throughout the year. I’ve also been learning how to avoid taking socialising for granted – it’s really important to make the most of it, try to learn more about people and reach out as much as possible.

What are you most proud of over the last year?

Definitely Black History Month (October 2020). When I was BME Officer I organised the first Black History Month for Trinity, which was a really big deal. I’m really proud that it will leave a lasting impact on the College, and that people enjoyed it, which was the main thing.

Are there any initiatives over the last few terms you’ve appreciated?

The Welfare Teas had the biggest impact on me. It really helped structure the week, and because it was in the marquee

you could have 90 people eating Krispy Kreme doughnuts and talking – it was a great way to get outside of your room and get people together. Consistent communication has also been really important, like the ‘In Trin’ newsletter for students, which has been great for keeping us up-to-date and connected with College. At the start of the pandemic, we had emails from the Master each week with stories and encouragement to keep your head up. This continuity of communications and events has been really important, so it doesn’t just seem like life has stopped because of COVID-19!

How do you feel about being a future doctor?

The pandemic has really brought perspective to the degree – we’re in the theory stage at the moment, so it’s much more focused on cells rather than being with patients. With the pandemic though, we can learn something about the immune system, for example, and then be able to see real examples in the news. Also, as a medic, people expect you to know what’s going on with COVID-19 and to be able to explain things about vaccines etc. Often it is material we’ve not covered yet, but that means it’s an opportunity to keep reading around the course material. It pushes me to keep up-to-date with current events and connected with the medical community.

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‘ … we were probably better prepared for this than we expected. Being an academic, resourceful community, the students have been great at making the most of an exceptionally difficult situation and we should be proud of how we’ve confronted the challenges’

Ludvig Brekke (2018, Law) TCSU President 2020–2021

What has the last year looked like for you?

How have you stayed motivated?

When I left Cambridge in March, I went home to my family in Norway. This definitely wasn’t a bad experience, though it was a small shock to lose the independence of university life. It was lovely to return to College for Michaelmas, and then I spent Lent Term back in Norway again – in some ways Lent was easier than last Easter because we knew what we’d be going into, though it was also coupled with the exhaustion that we are all feeling at this stage of the pandemic.

It has been very difficult to maintain consistency over the last year – there have been days of complete lethargy and ennui – but also times when motivation has been stronger, knowing you have much more time to focus on your work with very few distractions. I also started keeping a diary a few months back, which has really helped me to focus, keep the days from floating into each other, and is probably something I’ll continue with.

Have you been able to continue with your societies?

What have you missed the most?

TCSU was my main focus last year, especially since most other societies went into hibernation. This year, I’m on the University Challenge team so we’ve done lots of virtual quizzing and practice matches – it’s been great to build that team relationship for when we go on the show. I’m also looking forward to playing squash and football again.

Like many others, I’ve missed the opportunity to relax with friends. When you’re by yourself, it can be difficult to switch off without feeling guilty. That’s much easier with other people, whether by having a drink or meal, watching a film, or playing sports. I’ve also missed the Cambridge experience. You’re only at Trinity for a few years, and we’re missing out on formals, bops and balls, sports and society events – even lectures and in-person supervisions – it’s difficult to not get a bit maudlin when you think about the time and experiences you can’t get back.

What was it like being TCSU President?

What College initiatives have you appreciated?

It was a great experience, although I had little idea of what I was getting into! As a committee, we quickly realised that it would be a bigger time commitment than expected – but that we also had a unique opportunity to do more for our fellow students. It certainly taught me a lot about time management, collaboration, and coping with difficult situations. We were also able to work more closely with the College leadership than previous committees – we’ve really dealt with the challenges as a team and as a community.

It was fantastic to be a part of Freshers’ Week. It was a logistical nightmare, but through very careful collaboration with College we managed to produce something quite special. The Freshers were a big part of that – I think they knew that they needed to make the most of the opportunity to meet people and to get to know the College, so they made an incredible effort. The Alumni Office arranged a marvellous event with TV and radio comedy producer and writer, John Lloyd (Law, 1970) recently. I knew a little about him beforehand from his wonderful Desert Island Discs, but the event exceeded all of our expectations. He was so generous with his time – he answered all our questions and really engaged with us. He’s a man who’s lived such an interesting life and been through a lot, and at the event he talked about everything very openly.

What have you learnt about the Trinity community this year?

That we were probably better prepared for this than we expected. Being an academic, resourceful community, the students have been great at making the most of an exceptionally difficult situation and we should be proud of how we’ve confronted the challenges. I’ve also learnt how many members of the community will go above and beyond to look after the students, such as the Tutors, and our Chaplains, John and Olga, who have been integral to the welfare of those students who have needed to stay in College.

Top left: The amazing catering team have been working so hard to keep us all well-fed. Top right: Out on the rounds, delivering food packages across College. Above: The Choir leading a rendition of Danny Boy in Great Court during the Freshers’ welcome was a moving and memorable moment.

What are you looking forward to?

Hopefully finding out what I want to do with my life! That’s the big concern for most people my age, but since graduation is coming up it feels more pressing than usual. I’m also looking forward to seeing what we all learn from the pandemic – I hope we’ll emerge more open, attentive and appreciative, both of how essential human interactions are to our well-being, and of how fragile the status quo is. Normality is a kind of luxury we had forgotten to appreciate, and I hope this lesson spurs us on to be more proactive and collaborative.

What will you take away from your time at Trinity?

A huge amount of gratitude. First of all, I’ve loved my time here, and that appreciation is not going to fade away any time soon. Also the knowledge that this experience – the people I’ve met here, the things I’ve learned, the lessons from TCSU – will stay with me for a very long time. I am very proud to have been here, and to have been a student during this weird time, which has definitely come with its own lessons.

The Fountain | Issue 30

By Lauren Brown (2014), Litmus Project Coordinator

Why Trinity’s Litmus schools creative writing project is so important When I first heard about the Litmus schools creative writing project through my dear friend and last year’s brilliant project manager and former Trinity Schools Liaison Officer Terri-Leigh Riley, I was so excited. As a former Trinity English student and Trinity Literary Society president-turnedwriter, journalist and soon-to-be author myself, it combined two of my passions: championing underrepresented groups through outreach work, something I did a lot of when I was an undergraduate and which I hugely benefited from as a student from a working class background, and creative writing. Of all the gifts studying at Cambridge gave me, learning how to confidently express myself in my own unique voice, verbally as well as in writing, has been by far the greatest. Oftentimes students from state schools aren’t given as much opportunity to hone these skills as their privately educated counterparts, who broadly have greater access to activities like debating, and when I got to Cambridge I struggled at first to properly articulate exactly what it was I wanted to say. I was intimidated and embarrassed. But as I grew in confidence, and realised that my accent and linguistic idiosyncrasies were not only OK but joyously mine, it was like someone had thrown a window open in my mind and let the fresh air flood in.

Founded last year by author Ali Smith, the College’s first Senior Fellow Commoner in the Creative Arts, who wanted to create a ‘writing collective like no other’, The Litmus Project invites UK students to respond creatively to a theme – in 2019–20 it was ‘in common’, this year it is ‘the green light’ – and be published on the Trinity website. All of the submissions receive feedback – which was how I contributed to The Litmus last year – and in 2019–2020 the number of submissions meant the team were able to print the majority in an anthology, editions of which were signed by Ali and sent to participating students and their schools. In 2019 physical creative writing workshops were held in schools, however due to the COVID-19 pandemic this year the team – comprising myself, Trinity Outreach Coordinator Jon Datta, Schools Liaison Officer Lizzie Bowes and volunteer and alumna Sarah Lusack (2012) – held and continue to hold virtual workshops for students that have been hailed as ‘excellent’ and ‘really fun’. Even though the deadline for submissions is 1 June, as I write this in April, we have, incredibly, already received an unprecedented number

Being able to articulate myself has had not only myriad professional benefits but personal ones too; it’s no secret that creative writing, or any form of self-expression, helps with mental health and personal wellbeing. I saw in the Litmus an incredible opportunity to share this experience with students who might otherwise never have considered

writing, and indeed reading for pleasure, and that’s why I desperately wanted to coordinate this year’s iteration of the project. I’m so glad admissions tutor Professor Adrian Poole (1967) has entrusted me with it.

Lauren (left) with last year’s Litmus Project Coordinator, Terri-Leigh Riley.

of submissions from right across the UK. And while this gives the project a competitive edge never intended, as we will now have to select which pieces go into this summer’s print anthology, we’re extremely keen to emphasise that everyone who participates is a winner and a part of The Litmus. Looking to the future, we have an exciting collaboration with Cambridge Literary Festival in the pipeline, a cameo on BBC Radio Cambridgeshire and a new and ever-growing social media presence. We hope to keep growing this wonderful project, potentially expanding it somewhere along the line to include different categories such as short film making, art and more, and to recruit student volunteers and alumni to write for our blog and participate in future workshops. These are our ambitions. And while we are still in many ways at the genesis of the project, learning what works and doesn’t, what we could change and what we could build upon, already the varied and original work we’ve seen showcased so far is inspiration enough to do everything we can to ensure it keeps getting bigger, better, as inclusive as possible and, most importantly, fun.

Jon Datta, Outreach Coordinator, said: ‘The objective of the project for the College is to respond to an identifiable gap in engagement between Cambridge and other Russell Group universities with schools in terms of English and creative writing; and to increase understanding of the challenges that talented pupils who want to read English face in applying and getting to Higher Education. In a year when the importance of education and the need to address gaping inequalities have become clearer than ever, the aims and achievements of The Litmus Project have taken on a particular significance. Creativity and emotional intelligence have never been more important and we hope, via The Litmus, to foster these skills through both the workshops and student submissions.’

Lauren’s debut, Hands: An Anxious Mind Unpicked is out in January 2022 with HarperNorth. @laurenrbrown95 laurenrbrown.contently.com

The Litmus has been made possible thanks to a generous gift from an anonymous donor. This year’s Litmus was open to students in year 9-11 from non-fee paying schools, who were invited to submit a piece of creative writing no longer than 500 words responding to the theme ‘the green light’. All information can be found at https://web.trin.cam.ac.uk/ litmus/ and you can keep up-to-date with the latest announcements at our twitter page: @litmus_the If you are interested in contributing to The Litmus blog or participating in future workshops, please get in touch with the Alumni Office: alumni@trin.cam.ac.uk

The Fountain | Issue 30

COVID-19: one year in

Three Trinity medics reflect on their year helping to conquer COVID, and on how the global challenge could be resolved. Dr Laith Alexander (2011) I matriculated in 2011, and spent nine years at Trinity reading medicine together with a PhD in neuroscience. I am currently a Foundation Year 1 (FY1) doctor working in acute medicine at St Thomas’ Hospital, London. My work involves covering inpatient medical wards, in addition to working on the admissions ward. coffee with the GPs. We were chatting about our weekends when the senior partner came in, sat down and said, ‘so what’s the deal with this new virus in China?’ The opinion of the doctors at the time was well and truly split: some were worried, some weren’t. The senior partner wolfed down his coffee, sighed, and ominously declared ‘this piece of RNA is going to spread like wildfire – and it’s going to change the way we practice for good,’ before leaving for his morning clinic. Looks like he was right.

Q Q

What was your situation when the world first became aware of COVID-19?

I was in the final year of medical school on GP placement in a small village east of Bury St Edmunds. I had finished my written finals in early December 2019 and I was still riding the postfinals high. The news of the virus grumbled in the background over Christmas and the New Year, but I most distinctly remember a conversation on a Monday morning in early February over

If not for the pandemic, where would you be now?

Some things would have stayed the same. I would still have been an FY1 at St Thomas’ working on acute medicine, although without COVID-19 there would’ve been a lot less respiratory failure and a lot more diversity in the type of medical presentations (which has consequences for training). I felt the impact of the pandemic particularly forcefully in summer 2020. My final year of university was cut short, I missed out on my graduation ceremony (which would’ve been on my birthday) and I couldn’t say goodbye to my friends. Instead, I was recruited into the NHS early as an ‘interim’ doctor and spent most of that summer living in a hotel next to St Thomas’ where we’d been granted accommodation. Very surreal, looking back.

ell us about the work you’re doing in the T fight against COVID-19, and did what you learnt at Trinity help in any way?

The admissions ward and general medical wards were very much at the coalface of the pandemic, and being at Trinity taught me three key skills that were invaluable as a fledgling doctor in these settings. Firstly, prioritisation: performing a mental triage of the tasks at hand is critical to determine what needs to be done now and what can wait. Secondly, resilience: I nurtured coping strategies for times of stress. The day before my first-year anatomy exam, when my capacity to revise was well and truly spent, I sat on the banks of the Cam for two hours to read a book (Jane Eyre, no less). I did exactly the same at St Thomas’ after a difficult shift, except this time I sat on a bench next to the Thames (and the book was Where the Crawdads Sing). Thirdly, valuing diversity of opinion: my favourite thing about Trinity – and Cambridge – is that if you ask two people a question, you’ll get ten different answers. Being able to collaborate and work together in a multidisciplinary team is key in medicine, and having a variety of perspectives is incredibly useful when treating patients with complex medical and social problems, and when deciding on ceilings of care for the most critically ill.

How do you think the COVID-19 situation will resolve itself?

What has helped you through lockdown?

What have you missed most?

Being able to go to work has been a blessing. It certainly hasn’t been easy starting as a doctor in the midst of the pandemic, but at least it has kept me occupied. The hours have been long but I figured that I wasn’t really missing out on much during lockdown, even on the weekend night shifts (except for Line of Duty). I’ve been able to stay involved with research by helping to write papers and review articles. Beyond that, books, exercise and trying to stay in touch with friends and family. I’ve tried to improve my cooking skills too, but that’s very much a work in progress…

Gosh, there’s so much. It’s everything I took for granted before: seeing my friends, travelling, going to the gym, going out for a coffee and going to see plays. Most of all, I miss my family who are in Manchester – I’ve not seen them in person for over a year. After the restrictions are lifted, I’ve promised myself to never turn down an opportunity to go out… let’s see whether that lasts when I’m on my A&E rotation.

Vaccines are clearly key to resolving the pandemic. But vaccines alone aren’t enough: there needs to be ongoing surveillance, testing, tracing, isolating and social distancing, with measures to control the spread established internationally. Controlling transmission of the virus in one country is inadequate if the virus spreads in other places, creating genetic cauldrons for new strains to develop (and potentially ‘escape’ the vaccine

response). It’s also critically important that we continue to address the health inequalities that were made so apparent by the pandemic. The patients I saw become seriously unwell were all too often poorer; black, Hispanic and Latino American; in jobs where they had been exposed to lots of other people (such as supermarket workers) or obese with other lifestyle-related diseases. The famous German pathologist Rudolf Virchow said, ‘Medicine is a social science, and politics is nothing else but medicine on a large scale,’ and I saw this first-hand.

The Fountain | Issue 30

COVID-19: one year in

Dr Rupert Beale (1996) I arrived at Trinity to read Medical Sciences in 1996, followed by the MB/PhD course at Cambridge that afforded some respite from the Gradgrind nature of medical education. I was lucky enough to be in the late, great Michael Neuberger’s (1971) lab in the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology (LMB) for my PhD. After further medical training I was appointed as Clinical Lecturer in renal medicine and immunology at Cambridge. Kidneys are often subjected to immune attack, and so I was able to explore my interest in viruses and immunity in Felix Randow’s lab (again in the LMB). I discovered something strange about how influenza interacts with our cells’autophagy (self-eating) machinery. This forms the basis of my ongoing research, first in the Division of Virology in Cambridge, and subsequently in the Francis Crick Institute, London where I was appointed the first Clinician Scientist Group Leader and I run the Cell Biology of Infection Laboratory.

What was your situation when the world first became aware of COVID-19?

The Francis Crick Institute is the UK’s flagship medical research institute, situated next to St Pancras Station. By late January 2020 colleagues at The Worldwide Influenza Centre, based at the Crick, were seriously alarmed. I was in touch with colleagues at Edinburgh and other universities in the UK who assumed already that we were about to undergo a very serious pandemic, and we started to formulate plans to study the new virus. We obtained a culture of the virus and started to develop simple models to study its cell biology. It soon became apparent that academic study of the virus was not what was imminently needed. A catastrophe was developing on our doorstep in central London, and we had to help as best we could.

ell us about the work you’re doing in the T fight against COVID-19 and did what you learnt at Trinity help in any way?

In March 2020, COVID-19 was rife amongst hospital staff, many of whom were mildly symptomatic but still working, being ineligible for a test. The Crick decided to set up a testing pipeline, and to achieve this pulled together the best and most determined team of scientists I have ever encountered. Within this team I was tasked with working out how to get swab samples of a horrifyingly wide variety into a standardised molecular test. Visiting the local NHS laboratories revealed the extent to which authorities in the UK had messed this up. They were running out of everything, and it was clear we would have to make our own tests in such a way as to not compete with the NHS for scarce resources.

We got great assistance from Public Health Wales, bulk chemicals from Canada, special favours from airline companies and very little sleep. Developing these tests to the highest standard became a collective obsession. We published all our protocols and assisted other labs as quickly as we could. A ‘Lighthouse’ lab asked a technical question on a Sunday lunchtime, we returned them a comprehensive answer within fifteen minutes. We were able to repay our debt to Public Health Wales by sending them a reagent they’d run out of due to failure of commercial supply by making it ourselves and sticking it on a motorbike. The party line was that it couldn’t be done. We did it. There was a lot to be excited about reading Medical Sciences at Trinity in the late 90s. John Brown (1974), our Director of Studies, expected us to go far beyond the taught course (ignoring as best we could the pettifogging requirements of the General Medical Council) and instead to grapple with the experimental basis for our understanding of those branches of physiology and pathology that fired our imagination. Enthusiasts of immunology volunteered for an extra two hour supervision from Doug Fearon (e2001) every week. Doug had been making immunological discoveries of seminal importance since the 70s at Johns Hopkins and Harvard. We would explore the latest publications and be taught the old, half-forgotten observations that underpinned what everyone assumed to be true. ‘That’s the party line’, Doug would say, ‘but…’.

If not for the pandemic where would you be now?

On holiday.

How do you think the COVID-19 situation will resolve itself?

The best way to manage the pandemic would have been to copy those countries that mounted a determined effort not to let the virus get out of control in the first place. It’s not too late to learn this lesson. Fortunately the vaccines are extremely effective, and it’s possible to control the pandemic by using a combination of public health measures (including vaccination) to minimise transmission of the virus. The big question is whether evolving variants will remain susceptible to the vaccines. If we can make vaccines that target the virus in all its potential forms then it might become a bit like measles – we largely eliminate it from the population and only have to deal with sporadic outbreaks. What’s perhaps more likely for the next few years is that the virus evolves to escape partially the current vaccines, and we have to re-vaccinate with updated vaccines every year or two. I’m part of the ‘G2P-UK’ National

Virology Consortium that’s looking at what makes SARS-CoV-2 variants more dangerous, it’s really interesting and very complicated.

What has helped you through lockdown?

What have you missed most?

Long walks, surreptitious drinks with colleagues, writing a series of semi-cathartic articles for the London Review of Books, the odd bit of cricket, a bunch of people I sing with (especially Rachael Beale, (1995).

Choir and subsequent Sunday lunch at a mediocre pub. www.crick.ac.uk/research/find-a-researcher/ rupert-beale Read Rupert’s London Review of Books articles: www.lrb.co.uk

Dr Bronya Gorney (1998) I am a GP (NHS), GP Appraiser, Preventicum doctor, Coach, Trainer in Coaching and Communication skills, and mother of two monkeys intent on mischief.

What was your situation when the world first became aware of COVID-19?

On 31 December 2019, when the initial report of a new SARS virus was being delivered to the W.H.O., I was delivering my own life-changing, paradigmshift-inducing, second child. Oliver was born into a room packed with expertise; brilliant obstetricians, paediatricians, anaesthetists and midwives, who stabilised and looked after us calmly, professionally and with genuine kindness. Receiving such world-class medical care from an NHS I feel passionately about, was emotional and heart-warming. Little did I know then, how this sense of pride in my medical colleagues would be a feeling I would repeatedly return to over the following year.

If not for the pandemic, where would you be now?

If not for the pandemic, I would be in almost exactly the same place, but doing things rather differently. I’m now back from maternity leave, working as an NHS GP again but I’ve returned to a vastly different landscape in Primary Care. Most of my clinics are now by telephone appointment and I only see patients in person if it’s necessary to examine them.

I miss seeing my patients face-to-face for so many reasons. The energy that flows through me when I connect deeply with a patient, has been my deep well of strength throughout a demanding career. That vibrant inter-relational spark has reliably fuelled me through years of interminable clinics, the energy from each interaction bouncing off the walls and injecting me with renewed zest for my next encounter. Sitting alone, phone call after phone call, feels both flat and alarming. I can’t help but think of all the physical pathology I’ve picked up over the years

The Fountain | Issue 30

COVID-19: one year in

by actually laying my hands on someone, as well as the non-verbal clues that alert me when someone is struggling. All of this can be missed over the phone.

people have to effect change in this world. They will be the ones who uncover the creative solutions we need to transform our society.

However, the pandemic has also enabled a staggering level of innovation.

Remote working has become essential for when doctors (or worse still, multiple doctors) need to isolate. The silver lining is how this allows me to come home to do bedtime with my children, restarting my work once they’re asleep. It’s been a game changer for me as a working mother.

ell us about the work you’re doing in the T fight against COVID-19, and did what you learnt at Trinity help in any way?

My main work in the fight against Covid includes managing acutely sick patients, but now seems more focused on the fallout from this pandemic; untangling the mangled and wrangled lives left in the wake of this viral tsunami. Even before Covid hit our shores, mental health was already sliding into an abyss of ever greater need and increasingly scant resources. However, I’ve never witnessed this intensity of need before and it’s especially severe in our teenagers. So many of them are in violent distress. We need much better conversations about what it means to look after our mental health. Few of my patients have ever considered how to ensure their minds and emotional selves survive, let alone thrive. We need to help our young people reclaim back their self-confidence, shatter the hot house that thrusts a negative body image onto so many, and help each individual discover novel ways to bring more joy into the world. What I have learnt from Trinity is the mesmerising brilliance and phenomenal capacity that young

How do you think the COVID-19 situation will resolve itself?

It would be easy in the UK to relax into some kind of reassurance, that with an annual Covid vaccine and some degree of ‘lockdown light’ each winter, we could be buoyed through this storm. However, to really contain this virus, we need a much broader and more inclusive vision as to how we see ourselves and how we define our networks. In a globalised society, our fate has become intertwined with almost everyone else’s on the planet. SARS CoV 2 has become a globe-trotter on steroids, connecting us to places we could never imagine. Covid helpfully highlights the ‘inconvenient truth’, that unless we actively protect vulnerable populations in countries who can’t afford a vaccine roll out, we will continue to be impacted by a virus that has endless opportunity to evolve and mutate. The invitation is for us to step into a more evolved and connected global dynamic. So aside from more healthcare resources, what we really need is more courageous and compassionate leadership.

What has helped you through lockdown?

What have you missed most?

Naked bottoms waddling round the garden searching for snails.

Sharing food with people I love, dancing in fields with people I’ve only just met, and celebrating life surrounded by loved ones. Connection, connection, connection!

Trinity treasures Wrens in the Wren: first edition of Alfred Tennyson’s The Window with music by Arthur Sullivan. Library Graduate Trainee Vicky Gray reveals her ‘hidden’ Trinity treasure. Every year, the College recruits a Library Graduate Trainee who assists the permanent staff in the day-today running of the Library, all the while benefiting from valuable work experience and teaching opportunities prior to seeking a formal qualification in librarianship. With COVID-19, my traineeship has been a lot quieter than usual, and I’ve spent less time with the special collections in the Wren, but this has given me more time to explore the closed-access stacks in the basement. These stacks contain a lot of material that was once shelved in the Wren but has since moved downstairs to make space. This includes several Victorian musical scores which, though not especially rare or of especial provenance, are still beautiful books in their own right. One such book that has caught my eye recently is an original 1871 copy of The Window; or, The Songs of the Wrens – an English song cycle by Arthur Sullivan

with words by Alfred, Lord Tennyson. Each of Tennyson’s poems is printed on its own, with Sullivan’s setting printed opposite. Over eleven songs, the singer woos his love from her window as the seasons pass, undeterred by the bitter cold of winter and the long passage of time. The eponymous wrens appear around the window in the spring, and the singer tries to match their song to win over the ‘Queen of the Wrens’. He refers, of course, to the lady in the window, but we believe the title is equally applicable to the Wren Library! The Window was Sullivan’s only attempt at a song cycle, and predates his comic operettas with W.S. Gilbert. Despite successes such as HMS Pinafore and The Pirates of Penzance, Gilbert and Sullivan’s relationship was notoriously fraught, as Sullivan considered a lot of the silliness of Gilbert’s libretti beneath him. This seems to have been something of a pattern: Tennyson, then Poet Laureate, was at first perfectly happy to team up with Sullivan in 1867, but he later felt that the poems were not serious enough and the project would damage his reputation. Sullivan had to harangue him to hand over the poems so that he could set them to music, and the project eventually took four years to complete. What immediately struck me about this book is the gorgeous front cover, embossed in black and gold, showing a latticed window surrounded by leaves and wrens. This was supposed to be one of many illustrations in the book drawn by the eminent Pre-Raphaelite John Everett Millais. However,

by the time the music was ready to be published, Millais had already given up on the project and sold his illustrations, and he had no intention of creating any new ones. The title ‘The Loves of the Wrens’ only appears on the cover, and is printed inside as ‘The Songs of the Wrens’. Tennyson came up to Trinity as an undergraduate in 1827, and the Library holds several late 19th century copies of his poetry set to music, of which The Window is only one. The book provides a small ‘window’ into the Library’s treasures and curiosities that aren’t displayed upstairs in the Wren.

YOUR HISTORY! The College Archivists preserve and collect records documenting and illustrating the history of Trinity and the lives of its members. We are keen to hear from alumni who have records which they would be happy to donate to the College for permanent preservation. We are interested in a wide range of material, particularly items that illustrate the everyday life of Fellows and students: photographs of rooms, sports, performances, and social occasions; club and society records; letters, diaries, reminiscences, and posters, films, and recordings. If you have items you think might be of interest, please email us at archives@trin.cam.ac.uk or call us on +44 (0)1223 338488.

The Fountain | Issue 30

‘I think you can study at Cambridge!’ ‘Cool, what’s that?’

STUDENT SPOT

Arriving as a wide-eyed Fresher (and missing Great Gate that first time), I didn’t know what awaited me. I was suddenly very aware of being a woman in a male-dominated subject, and a person of colour who is visibly Muslim. Fears of fitting in were very strong. However, I found friends-turned-family and compassionate staff – a huge shoutout to my Tutor, Professor Adrian Poole – who embraced me for who I am rather than who I ‘represent’. Very soon, Trinity and Cambridge became home. Late nights in the library, laughter echoing through Nevile’s Court, sunsets on the Backs and seeing snow for © AREEG EMARAH

Areeg Ashraf Emarah (2017 Engineering)

This is a conversation that I had with Mr. Spence, my A Level headmaster in Kenya. Until then, I was unaware of possible options beyond studying in a public university there or my birthplace, Egypt. His belief in me led me to work tirelessly to pursue Engineering at Cambridge. I wanted to see science-backed policy and not the empty-promise politics I grew up with. While this inspired me to apply to Cambridge, the Beacon University Scholarship enabled me to make it here. It is aimed at African students with leadership potential who will create positive social change. Throughout my time here, I have tried to embody the principles of the Beacon: taking people with you and making a difference now.

the first time (!!) are memories I will hold forever. I am a proud College mother of six, who have grown to head the TCSU, the African Caribbean and Islamic Societies, and the Trinity May Ball – call me the Mother of Leaders! The engineering department has also been a huge part of my life here. The closest place to my heart, its library, is best known for the beanbags that provide brilliant naps in between struggling through Tripos. The collaborative space is where I made most of my friendships, and hopping from one office to the next to chat to different members of staff while procrastinating on work helped me feel like I had a community I could rely on. My biggest character development was moving to the silent section of the library come exam-time. Cofounding the Women in Engineering Society in my final year felt like the best way of contributing to our department – helping inspire and connect fellow women in engineering. In the Beacon spirit of taking people with you, I have tried to make Cambridge more accessible. Organising the first student-led access event in the engineering department for students from underrepresented backgrounds meant the world to me. I mentored applicants, home and international, and worked with the Admissions Office to make Cambridge a reality for other African undergrads. Amazingly, I was approached by a Fresher in my third year who was one of my shadowing scheme mentees two years before! In the spirit of making a difference now, I was part of the founding committee of May Week Alternative. Since our founding in 2018, we have put giving at the heart of May Week celebrations and raised over £200,000 for the Against Malaria foundation to help protect hundreds of thousands of people. These experiences are what I reflect on now that I am close to graduating. I am grateful for the photographs that I have taken along this journey – a comfort, particularly during this challenging last year. Losing my dad to Covid in 2020 has turned my life upside down. However, inspired by my dad’s impact during his life – putting a smile on children’s faces through cleft-lip and palate surgeries – I aim to make the world a better place. I hope I made a start with Cambridge.

A favourite of my photographs, bringing together so many aspects that are very Cambridge – the Corpus clock, King’s Chapel and tourists – taken on my way to the engineering department!

Thank you to Areeg for allowing us to reproduce her photographs on the front and inside cover of this magazine. You can see more of her beautiful photography on her Instagram account: @the_afro_arab

Have a break with technologist Dr Amanda Talhat, who is delivering solutions for Nestlé.

Dr Amanda Talhat (2006)

ALUMNI PROFILE by Rachel Sweet, ARDO

I lead the Department of Technology at Nestlé Research in Switzerland. We work on early stage research projects delivering technical solutions that are relevant for multiple businesses, which are then further developed in the Nestlé Product Technology Centres into a specific product application for launch later. I lead a team of 50 – we are mostly physicists and mathematicians but there are one or two chemical engineers like myself! Day-to-day, I am Project Lead on all the projects from the department, which range from plant-based to new technologies. I am also the link between Nestlé Research and our dairy and ice cream businesses. I was first introduced to research in the food industry during my PhD when I studied the impact of origin and processing conditions on cocoa butter, a key ingredient in chocolate. My PhD was partially sponsored by Nestlé Product Technology Centre in Confectionery in York, and this gave me the opportunity to network with the experts and product developers who are responsible for some of our most recognisable brands, such as KitKat and Aero. After my PhD, I tried consulting but moved back into food & drink in time for all the exciting innovations and challenges in the industry, such as plant-based products, sustainable packaging, and functional food.

I got involved with the TEA and stayed involved as I left Cambridge. I am now Co-Chair with Christie Marrian (1970), and we are supported by a fantastic alumni committee. The TEA is always pleased to welcome new members so if you are reading this and would like to join us, please get in touch! Trinity, in addition to giving me a great education, also gave me a lot of transferable skills. I can think critically, negotiate, motivate, lead, and endure high stress because of these skills. My advice to current students is to make the most of your time there, whether that is in your studies or in your extracurricular activities. Think of it as building muscles that will come in useful when you enter work. Secondly, find yourself a mentor and really invest in that relationship and, in time, mentor others also. Finally, be kind to yourself. Your self-esteem should not be solely defined by your achievements in life, and you are not a failure if you don't have your life plans figured out before graduation. Be you and be happy.

Join the TEA! Sign up via the Alumni Associations web page www.trin.cam.ac.uk/alumni/associations/

I matriculated in 2006 and read Natural Sciences, but what really stuck with me was all the extracurricular activities beyond my course. I remember being overwhelmed by choice at the Chaplain’s Squash in the first week, and getting dragged to a badminton training by the linguist who lived above me. Looking back, I was terrible at it but stayed committed to the club as I loved being a part of a team. I had to focus more on my studies during my PhD. I learnt then that I was someone who needed to see how my work translates into the real world to stay motivated, and that once motivated, I persevere until we find a solution. This realisation has really helped me in delivering projects. During the 3rd year of my PhD I was invited to the Trinity Engineers’ Association (TEA) where I won a poster prize. I was at a point of my studies where I needed to decide on what to do in the future, and I had no idea. Peter Davidson (Engineering 1973) became my mentor and over the years has helped me build a solid career. To pay it forward,

TEA networking and mentoring evening October 2019, with three of our speakers. From left Dr Barnali Ghosh (1999), Dr Rachel Cooke (1996) and Professor Joan Lasenby (1978) and me.

The Fountain | Issue 30

A green haven Tending Trinity’s 36 acres is no mean feat during the best of times. Head Gardener Tom Hooijenga reveals how his team has kept the gardens going and growing throughout an extraordinary year. A team of 12 staff – my deputy, three senior gardeners and seven gardeners – manage the gardens throughout the seasons, and that is quite a task even in an ‘ordinary’ year. When COVID-19 emerged last spring we faced an additional challenge; how could we keep the gardens going while keeping the team as safe as possible? We needed to rethink how the team operated and where all of our facilities were based. We split into two ‘bubbles’ of six so that if anyone fell ill the entire team would not have to isolate, and we could keep the gardens going. One bubble stayed in our compound in Queens’ Road while the other created a second hub over in a section of Adrian House in Burrell’s Field. We each had our own set of tools because sharing was not safe, and the bigger mowers and machinery were sanitised between each use. It was a logistical puzzle but, with no crossover between hubs and good team communication, it worked. Renewal Just before the pandemic took hold, we had the ‘visit’ from protestors and Newton’s Lawn was destroyed. We © SARAH CLAYDON

Last autumn we began the rejuvenation work, bringing in extra soil to level everything off and rotovating twice to make it plantable. In September, we decided to do the turf laying and bulb planting at the same time, so as one team was putting in the bulbs and moving backwards the other team followed behind, laying the turf. It was quite an operation but we pulled it off. Everyone was commenting about the new lawn and I was thinking, ‘but you don’t know what’s underneath this!’ That was the big surprise this spring, and when the crocuses started flowering it was one of the most photographed

spots in Cambridge. Rejuvenating the lawn, going the extra mile, and reaping the benefits this year really uplifted us, especially as residents and visitors will enjoy it every year too. Rejuvenation Throughout the pandemic it has been great to see the students, staff and Fellows who have been on site making the most of all of the different spaces, with plenty of exercising and even open-air tutorials. We have all enjoyed watching nature taking its rightful place again, not only the plants but wildlife as well – the birds and their song have been far more prominent. This February, my team spent a happy hour recording sightings for the RSPB’s annual Big Garden Birdwatch. We spotted 19 different species in that short time, with Blue Tits being our most frequent feathered visitor. The gardens have been essential to the wellbeing of the College community and have been a green haven – uplifting and good for the soul. Growth Despite coping with Covid and unexpected renewal projects, the team has been determined to keep making improvements too. Trinity aims to be as green and energy efficient as possible and, although it is still in the planning stages, we hope we will be able to install solar panels on our tool and machinery shed roofs in the not too distant future. To cut down on noise and fumes from equipment, we have invested in electrical equipment that runs off powerful batteries in backpacks, and we will be installing a charging station for these too. We also want to capitalise on the wetter autumns and winters we are having and put the rain from the heavens to good use, so we are installing a 23,000 litre water storage tank on the nursery site. We will harvest the rainwater, pump it out to our glasshouses and be self-sufficient.

The Newton Lawn crocus carpet in full bloom.

held off from doing anything instantly, carefully considering our options. At a College Gardens Committee meeting later in the year one of the Fellows said, ‘There have always been a few crocuses underneath Newton’s tree, so any chance you could extend the planting, Tom?’ They all laughed, because they know I’m mad about bulbs. So I thought, ‘we could make quite a statement here’ and I ordered a bespoke mix of 20,000 pastel-coloured crocus bulbs from our supplier in Holland.

The College Gardens Committee guides our development, and we meet twice a year to discuss plants, projects and plans for the future. Another future project that is in the planning stages is possibly planting an orchard on an area of the Paddocks, which would be visible from Garrett Hostel Lane. We would plant heritage varieties including apples, pears and greengages, let the grass grow and plant wildflowers to attract bees, insects and wildlife, and be as biodiverse as possible. Another delicious benefit would be that our chefs could use the fruit in Trinity dishes, as they do with our Burrell’s Field honey – Senior Gardener Tony Harte is a beekeeper, looking after our nine hives. A Greener Future With the climate changing, we are also having to adapt our planting schemes.

We have recently introduced new Great Court bedding such as bananas and castor oil plants, which not only look good but can cope with the hotter and drier summers. We are starting to do that with the ‘big stuff’ too, planting more resilient trees such as eucalyptus because some species, including our pines, have struggled with recent successive hot summers. Trinity sits in an important green corridor within the city and is a member of the Backs Committee, comprising the Colleges that border the Cam. The Committee meets annually, and a landscape architect advises us on our strategic plan to protect our strip along the river. We work together to continue making improvements with an immediate impact on the biodiversity of the area, such as creating wetter wilderness

areas to attract more insects and other species, and to keep us all interlinked so that wildlife can wander freely. We are fortunate to be part of this magnificent green strip running from Queens’ to past St John’s, and we must nurture it for future generations. So despite the extraordinary year we have all endured, the gardens continue to flourish, and we hope it will not be too much longer now before we can welcome you back again to explore. There is no greater pleasure for the gardens team than seeing the Trinity community together in our precious green spaces, enjoying our work.

Read more about the team’s Big Garden Birdwatch: www.trin.cam.ac.uk/news/ the-big-garden-birdwatch

Main image: Take a seat in a tranquil spot in the Fellows’ Garden. Below left to right: Planting the 20,000 crocus bulbs under Newton’s Lawn was painstaking work; up on the cherry picker with Senior Gardener Karen Wells for a spot of pruning; and castor oil and banana plants make a brilliant backdrop in our Great Court planting.

The Fountain | Issue 30

By Professor Simon Baron-Cohen (e1995), Fellow in Experimental Psychology and Director, Cambridge Autism Research Centre

Autism and Invention Is there a link between autism and the capacity for invention? I hope to lay out the evidence that shows some links. But first, when did invention begin? learning, forming an association between two items, A and B, with little sign of generative invention (Figure 1).

It is clear that our hominid ancestors could use simple stone tools. For example, Homo habilis and Homo erectus, who both lived 2 million years ago, used stone axes and hammers. And so could the Neanderthals who lived as recently as 40,000 years ago. But despite small changes in the design of their tools, for millions of years there was little evidence for generative invention – the ability to invent in multiple ways, not just as a one-off. And if we look at non-human species alive today, a lot of animals can use simple stone tools. Chimpanzees, for example, can use a rock as a hammer to crack a nut (Figure 2), and crows can drop a stone to raise the water level to be able to reach a worm. Both the behaviour of other animals and our hominid ancestors can be parsimoniously explained as the result of associative

But then, 70 to 100,000 years ago, when Homo sapiens was on the scene, the rate of inventions suddenly took off and it’s been unstoppable ever since. Suddenly we see the capacity for generative invention, not just inventing once, but inventing non-stop. A cognitive revolution had occurred in the human brain. So what was this cognitive revolution? There were two new circuits in the human brain and the first of these was the Systemizing Mechanism. This allowed humans to look for special patterns in the world, that I call if-andthen patterns. These are the basis of any system. If I take something, and I do

Figure 2: Many non-human animals can use simple tools.

something to it, then I get an outcome. The Systemizing Mechanism allowed us to analyse the world to find such patterns and confirm that they hold true. To do

Tool made by H. habilis 2.1m to 1.5 yrs

Tool made by H. erectus 2.1m to 250K yrs

Figure 1: Simple stone tools made by our hominid ancestors, ranging from 2.1m to 40K years ago.

Tool made by H. Neanderthalis 300k to 40K yrs

We can infer the existence of the Systemizing Mechanism in the modern human brain because 75,000 year ago, we see the first jewellery. If I make a hole in each shell, and thread a string through each hole, then the shells will form a necklace (Figure 4). And 71,000 years ago, we see the first bow and arrow. Again, the same if-and-then algorithm: If I attach an arrow to a stretch fibre, and release the tension in the fibre, then the arrow will fly. And 40,000 years ago, we see the earliest musical instrument that has ever been found: a flute made from a hollow bone (Figure 5). If I blow down the hollow bone, and cover one hole,

Figure 5: The earliest musical instrument, 40,000 years old.

then I make a specific sound. But if I blow down the hollow bone, and cover two holes, then I make a different sound. Our ancestor had invented a new complex tool, a musical instrument, and a system of sounds we call music. And 40,000 years ago we see the cave paintings, and by 25,000 years ago we see sculptures. By 12,000 years ago we see the invention of agriculture. If I take a tomato seed, and I plant it in moist soil, then I get a tomato plant. The invention of agriculture transformed our diet, our health, and our lifestyles. And we are still inventing unstoppably today, a recent example being the invention of a vaccine. If I take the genes for Covid’s spike protein, and put them into a harmless virus, then I have a vaccine against Covid. But let’s go back to the first jewellery 75,000 years ago because the Systemizing Mechanism explains how we could make the jewellery, but the empathy circuit explains why we made it. We wear jewellery because we can

this we repeat our observations over and over again. And once confirmed, we then can vary it by experimenting with the if or the and. If we produce a new pattern, that is an invention. I borrow this terminology from the 19th century logician George Boole (Figure 3), who analysed the structure of thought.

Figure 4: The earliest jewellery, 75,000 years old.

Figure 3: George Boole.

imagine what someone else might think or feel – that they might think we are beautiful or of high status, or we make jewellery to give as a gift, because we can think that someone might feel happy. The evolution of empathy enabled a whole raft of complex social interactions, including deception and referential communication.

The Fountain | Issue 30

Let’s go back to our big question: is there a link between autism and invention? Anecdotally, many inventors show a high level of autistic traits. Thomas Edison, who famously invented the first electric lightbulb, invented nonstop. As a teenager he was obsessed with Morse code, a system of patterns, and he even named his children Dot and Dash. His wife moved a mattress into his workshop so that he could carry on inventing and experiment day and night. Anecdotally, many autistic people have a talent at pattern recognition and systemizing. And Max Park is autistic, and despite his social difficulties is the world champion in the Rubik’s Cube, a system of visual patterns. But anecdotes are not evidence. We looked at 600,000 people in the general population and measured their autistic traits using the AQ, the Autism Spectrum Quotient. We found those who work in STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) on average have more autistic traits than those who do not. This shows a clear link between aptitude in understanding systems, and higher levels of autistic traits. Those 600,000 people also took the Empathy Quotient and the Systemizing Quotient. We found you can divide people into 5 brain types based on whether they lean more towards empathy or systemizing. Those who lean more towards empathy are Type E. Those who lean more towards systemizing are Type S. And those who are extreme Type S systemize non-stop, seeing patterns everywhere, but who struggle to understand other people’s thoughts and feelings. We found more women are Type E, more men are type S, and the majority of autistic people are Type S or extreme Type S. So more evidence of a link between autism and hyper-systemizing. But is the link between autism and pattern-seeking genetic? We had the opportunity to work with the personal

genomics company 23andMe, and found that the genetic variants associated with high systemizing overlap with the genetic variants associated with autism. So some of the genes that cause autism also cause talent in pattern recognition. This leads to a prediction: that autism might be more common in places like Silicon Valley. We went to the Dutch city of Eindhoven, where one third of jobs are in IT and which is home to the Institute of Technology, much like MIT, and where the Philips Factory has been for over 100 years. We found autism rates were twice as high in Eindhoven compared to two other Dutch cities, Utrecht and Haarlem, matched for demographics. This is again consistent with a genetic link between autism in the child, and a talent in pattern seeking among their parents. So, we have evidence that the genes for autism have driven human invention. And yet, how are we as a society treating autistic people? The majority of autistic adults are unemployed and have high levels of poor mental health, likely the result of a lack of support and being excluded from education and work. We owe autistic people a huge debt of gratitude for the role their genes have played in human progress, and we have a moral responsibility to ensure no group of individuals are deprived of their human rights to education, employment and participation in society. It’s time for a change. We can learn from the Israeli army that has a special unit who only recruit autistic adults because of their aptitude to look at thousands of aerial photographs to look for unexpected patterns that might be a sign of terrorist activity. They are making sure autistic people are included and are playing their part in society.

What’s your brain type We recently built an online tool to enable people to take surveys at home, so that they can contribute to our research. We will be able to use this data to explore a range of significant questions: do the five brain types vary by culture, age, gender, neurology, occupation, biology and experience? And what advantages does each brain type confer? To join in our research, please go to yourbraintype.com

It’s time to embrace the concept of neurodiversity – the idea that brains come in many varieties – and none is better or worse than another; they are just different. Professor Baron-Cohen’s book The Pattern Seekers is out now with Allen Lane. @sbaroncohen www.autismresearch centre.com

Trinity Cryptic Crossword No.7 Trinity Summer 2021 by Encota Visit The Fountain web page for a word version of the crossword: www.trin.cam.ac.uk/alumni/publications/ the-fountain ACROSS 1 Primarily blinking your eyes and blocking your ears for so long (3-3) 4 Green light / lamp protects damaged bus (6,2) 9 This acid test combined with neat mixture could yield last-minute result (6) 10 It’s sparkling in Italian province making unlimited pastis? (8) 11 Respect for Ministry of Defence research facility (3) 12 Sides of syringe having more than nine applications (11) 14 Finally inventive reason for arousing intense feeling (7) 15 Citizen Kane director informally begins with obituary: Rosebud’s spoken one night (5) 17 Meeting James Clerk Maxwell? (5) 19 Simon’s initially hesitating when speaking and doing calculations (7) 22 Richard’s capital’s in ten lakes specially engineered for this family of American natives (11) 23 Worried that everyone’s bottled it! (3) 24 One that outlives virus reflected ahead of alternative vaccine when initially injected (8) 25 Show international-level batting skills here? (6) 26 Trinity PM’s cuppa (4,4) 27 21’s apple tree is apparently in one grand forest (6)

DOWN 1 Song coming from ‘May’ College celebration nowadays? (6) 2 Desperate old flame meets Trinity’s top servicemen (7) 3 It encourages active young to the hills (5,10) 5 It’s very chilly when at first he’s at back of library, parking books on Lysander’s love (11) 6 I can represent this in one time format after rotation (6,2,7) 7 Busy aboard ship in reservoirs (7) 8 Charming bumpkin describing the far side of Angel (8) 13 The spoilers mistakenly reveal this secret room (7,4) 16 Describing 20 here engaged in the French game (8) 18 Three queens maybe joined one from the kitchens? (7) 20 Indian state governor’s 4 (2-5) 21 English mathematician and physicist’s modern? Not in retrospect (6)

Please email your entry to alumni-comms@trin.cam.ac.uk or send it to us: The Editor, Alumni Relations & Development Office, Trinity College, Cambridge CB2 1TQ Entries are due by 30 September 2021. The first correct entry drawn will win a copy of Trinity Poets, and the winner will be included in the next issue of The Fountain. For the solution to Cryptic Crossword No.6 visit The Fountain web page listed above, or email us at alumni-comms@trin.cam.ac.uk WINNING ENTRIES: Alumni competition Congratulations to Dr Trevor Hawkes (1957), who successfully completed Trinity Cryptic Crossword No.6, winning a copy of Trinity Poets. Student competition Congratulations to Bethany Austin (2018), winner of the third student crossword competition in memory of avid crossword fan John Grenfell-Shaw (2011). The prize of a generous Trinity catering credit is kindly supported by John’s parents, Jenny and Mark.

Tim King (1980) is the Ipswich-based professional crossword compiler Encota. Tim also sets personalised puzzles as unique and thoughtful gifts. If you’d like to know more, contact him at: specialisedcrosswords@gmail.com and visit his website: www.specialisedcrosswords.co.uk

Alumni Associations & Groups: get involved Join our Alumni Associations and ‘Trinity in’ Groups or serve on a committee, and keep our groups going and growing!

Forthcoming

Events July 2021 Saturday 24 July

Associations Trinity Arts and Media Association (TAMA) Trinity Business and City Association (TBCA)

MA Graduation Celebration (For those receiving their MA – 2013 & 2014 matriculation – register online)

Trinity College Choir Association (TCCA)

August 2021

Trinity First and Third Boat Club Association (TF&TBCA)

Wednesday 4 & Sunday 8 August

Trinity Engineers’ Association (TEA) Trinity Law Association (TLA)

Trinity on the Backs (A picnic at Trinity, limited capacity – register online)

Trinity Medics’ Association (TMA)

September 2021

Trinity Women’s Network (TWN)

Saturday 25 & Sunday 26 September Trinity’s Alumni Festival Weekend Events (Save the date)

‘Trinity in’ Trinity in China

Trinity in Japan

December 2021

Trinity in Hong Kong

Trinity in New York

Monday 6 December

www.trin.cam.ac.uk/alumni/associations alumni@trin.cam.ac.uk

Staying in touch

Alumni Carol Service (Temple Church, London, Save the date) We will be bringing back our Trinity Research Talks webinar series in the autumn. You can watch all previous talks at: www.trin.cam.ac.uk/alumni/alumnievents/trinity-research-talks/

Please make sure that the Alumni Office has your up-todate contact details and let us know your communication preferences. We take the protection of your data very seriously. We use it to keep in touch with you, and to keep you informed of College news and activities.

For a full events listing and to book, please visit: www.trin.cam.ac.uk/events

Full details of how your data is held and used are set out in our Data Protection Statement at www.trin.cam.ac.uk/alumni/information/dataprotectionstatement

September 2021

You are welcome to request a hard copy from us. Some sensitive personal information may be held in the database. You have the right to contact us at any time to change how your data is used, or to tell us that you do not wish to receive a specific communication. Please contact us using the details below.

Trinity Online alumni.trin.cam.ac.uk Trinity Members Online (TMO) – www.trincam.aluminate.net TrinityCollegeCambridge @Trinity1546 www.linkedin.com/groups/2633390 search ‘Trinity College Cambridge’

If you would prefer to read The Fountain and/or the Annual Record online, please let us know by email: alumni@trin.cam.ac.uk Don’t miss out on our regular email communications – make sure we have your email address. Alumni Relations & Development Office Trinity College, Cambridge CB2 1TQ E: alumni@trin.cam.ac.uk T: +44(0)1223 761527

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Annual Gatherings Saturday 11 September – 2008, 2009, 2010 Wednesday 15 September – 1965, 1966, 1967 We currently hope to go ahead with our September Annual Gatherings as planned, subject to local and national restrictions, with bookings opening in July. Please keep checking the College website and your email for further information: www.trin.cam.ac.uk/alumni/events

July 2021 – Postponed Sadly, we have taken the difficult decision to further postpone our two Annual Gatherings scheduled for July 2021 due to the ongoing event and travel restrictions in the UK. These were for the matriculation years of 1996, 1997, 1998 and 1968, 1969, 1970, 1971. Over the coming months we will be in touch with those eligible to attend with revised plans.