Staff Newsletter - Lent Term 2016

The magazine for the staff of the University of Cambridge LENT term 2016

Laptops and lattés Top tips for café working

Transforming IT at Cambridge page 5

Super sonic: tuning in to sound page 6

lent term 2016 | UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE Newsletter | 1

snapshot contents

In the clearing stands a boxer: the Terme Boxer is the latest addition to the Museum of Classical Archaeology’s cast gallery. Resting on a rock and wearing fur-lined gloves, the bearded fighter’s broken nose and cauliflower ears reflect a long, hard career. The burnished bronzed plaster cast is a replica of the Hellenistic sculpture unearthed in Rome in 1885.

Cover Thanks to laptops and tablets, cafés can be great places for meetings and quiet work, as well as coffee and cake. We asked staff for their favourite out-of-office workspaces – here are their hot tips.

the magazIn

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Staff of

the UnIverS

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laptops and lattés top tips for café worki ng

transform Cambridgeing It at

page 5

lent term

2-4 News round-up 5 Know your University With work underway to reorganise Cambridge’s IT services, Dr Martin Bellamy explains how the changes will benefit staff, students and University institutions.

Simon Halliday

Strictly come dining: the sequinned success of the Cambridge Dancesport team is the subject of a new exhibition of photographs in the Main Dining Hall at the University Centre. Taken

by Simon Halliday, Chief Custodian at the Faculty of History, the photographs present an intimate portrait of one of the University’s most dominant and successful sports teams.

Fitzwilliam festivities: the Fitzwilliam Museum is celebrating its 200th anniversary in 2016 with a year-long programme of special exhibitions, events and concerts. Kicking off the festivities is The Fitzwilliam Museum: a History, a new book and accompanying exhibition exploring the museum’s past, present and future through key themes, characters and significant objects.

Runs all year.

6-7 Behind the scenes When the Museum of Zoology reopens next year, visitors to its new whale hall will be bathed in sounds of the sea.

Becky Allen takes soundings from four researchers whose research is immersed in sound.

8 Cover feature 9 People 10 Prizes, awards and honours

© William Scott Foundation 2015

11 Small adverts

fitzwilliam museum, Cambridge

Heong Gallery opens its doors: Cambridge’s newest gallery opened at Downing in February. Dedicated to modern and contemporary art, the gallery’s first exhibition is Generation Painting 1955-65: British Art from the Collection of Sir Alan Bowness. A former Director of the Tate Gallery, Bowness is an alumnus of Downing and his collection includes work by Peter Lanyon and William Scott (right). Runs to 22 May 2016. Open Wednesdays 10-8pm and weekends 10-6pm.

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Front cover photograph: Chris Loades

newsletter

The Newsletter is published for the staff of the University of Cambridge and is produced by the Office of External Affairs and Communications.

If you have a story, or ideas for ways we can improve the publication, please get in touch.

Tel: (3)32300 or email newsletter@admin.cam.ac.uk.

Managing Editor: Andrew Aldridge Editor: Becky Allen Design: Creative Warehouse, Cambridge Printer: Printerbello, Cambridge Contributors: Becky Allen and Andrew Aldridge

Newsletter online

www.cam.ac.uk/for-staff

ge

lent term

Super sonic tuning in : to sound

page 6

2016 | UNIVERSITY

OF CAMBRIDGE

NEwSlETTER

|1

2016

WHAT’S NEW

Your comments and contributions are always welcome.

Please send them to the Editor at newsletter@admin.cam.ac.uk

University Library celebrates 600 years Cambridge University Library is celebrating its 600th anniversary this year with a series of events, exhibitions and exciting opportunities for visitors to explore one of the world’s greatest libraries.

Celebrations began in February when Cambridge’s e-Luminate Festival let visitors see the UL’s iconic 17-storey tower in a whole new light.

This will be followed by Lines of Thought: Discoveries that Changed the World, the UL’s first major exhibition for 2016 and centrepiece of its 600th anniversary. It runs from 11 March to 30 September and is free and open to all. On show will be some of the oldest objects in the UL’s collections, including 3,000-year old Chinese oracle bones, a 2nd century CE fragment of Homer’s Odyssey and Western Europe’s earliest substantive

printed book, the Gutenberg Bible.

The exhibition also highlights more recent treasures, including Charles Darwin’s first pencil sketches of species theory and his primate tree, and Stephen Hawking’s draft typescript of A Brief History of Time.

A second exhibition opening in October 2016 will feature some of the UL’s more unusual curiosities.

The UL – which is older than both the British Library and the Vatican Library – was first mentioned by name in two wills dated 1416.

One of six legal deposit libraries in the UK, the UL has been entitled to one copy of every publication in the UK and Ireland since 1710. Today, it holds eight million books, journals, maps and magazines on shelves that stretch for more than 100 miles.

Its two million volumes on open

display make it the largest open-shelf collection in Europe.

Other activities will offer visitors new ways of interacting with the Library’s treasures, including events that are part of the Open Cambridge weekend, videos, curator tours, children’s workshops and Words that Changed the World – a free interactive app for iPad.

UL: open to all

The UL welcomes anyone with a research interest to use the Library whether or not they are a member of the University, or any other university. Undergraduates from other UK universities can use it in the holidays. It is free for most, with a £10 fee for some categories of use.

It only takes 10 minutes to join: call 01223 333030 for details.

Cavendish Lab funding boost The government has announced a £75 million investment in the Cavendish Laboratory as part of its autumn spending review. This will be matched with a further £75 million from the University.

The funding boost will help maintain Britain’s leading position in physical sciences research, and will transform the Cavendish Laboratory.

Among other exciting projects, the Cavendish will be developing new devices with extremely low power for off-grid information technology and communications, creating new smart materials for engineering applications, and looking for signs of life on newly discovered planets in other solar systems.

Welcoming the news Professor Andy Parker, Head of the Cavendish Laboratory, said: “This funding allows us to continue the tradition of innovation and originality that has

been at the heart of the laboratory’s programme since its foundation.”

The Cavendish Laboratory has an extraordinary history of discovery and innovation in physics since its opening in 1874, including the determination of the double-helix structure of DNA by Francis Crick and James Watson.

The Vice-Chancellor, Sir Leszek Borysiewicz, said: “This is fantastic news. The Cavendish is – and will serve as – a national asset, to the benefit of research both in Cambridge and across the UK. “This announcement demonstrates the government’s commitment to regional and national scientific growth and innovation. It presents a major opportunity for us to create a world-leading facility in the heart of the greater Cambridge hightech cluster and deliver a step-change in physical science research capability in the UK.” lent term 2016| UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE Newsletter | 3

what’s new

Teaching and learning in the digital age The University has launched a new learning and teaching strategy that could see iPads and other new technology added to traditional lectures and supervisions.

Building on existing efforts to ensure high-quality teaching and learning across the University, one of the strategy’s new priorities is to enhance education through new technology, including the introduction of ‘digital champions’.

Technology could also be used to improve access to learning materials, making them available to students outside term-time or for examinations, and to open up new opportunities for teaching staff to engage with students.

According to Professor Graham Virgo, Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Education: “Our primary aim is excellence in teaching and learning – and we will use all tools, both traditional and innovative, to achieve this goal. So while the supervision and lectures remain right at the heart of a Cambridge education, we must ensure we make the best use of technological advances to enhance our provision.”

“In lectures and supervisions, we are considering how we might introduce greater digital interaction.

For example, students might work from iPads or other personal devices, with information being transferred from the lecturer

directly to the student.”

The new strategy also includes a review of the University’s examination arrangements and plans to improve student wellbeing. The

Celebrating 25 years of service

Forty-seven staff celebrating 25 years of service gathered at the Old Schools in January for a special reception hosted by the ViceChancellor.

The guests of honour included academics and other staff from across the University who between them have provided a combined total of 1,175 years of service.

Thanking them for their long service, Vice-Chancellor Sir Leszek Borysiewicz said: “Twenty-five years is a mark of your faith in the University as your employer, and a wonderful commitment to the life of this institution. The University is proud of the numbers of its staff with long service records – even half-centuries

occur from time to time.”

Those honoured were: John Turner, Chris Mortimer, Dr Stephen Cowley and Professor Adrian Kent from the Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics; Rachel Agnew from the Botanic Garden; Rosalinda Fella from the Careers Service; Professor Martin Jones and Professor Susan Bayly from the Department of Archaeology and Anthropology; Dr Neil Harris and Professor Roderic Jones from the Department of Chemistry; Linda Booth, Martin Walker and Professor Keith Priestley from the Department of Earth Sciences; Tim Ablett, Cathy Salkield, Igor Wowk, Professor Malcolm Smith and Robert Leroy

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from the Department of Engineering; Professor Steve Russell from the Department of Genetics; Professor Sir Colin Humphreys from the Department of Materials Science & Metallurgy; Dr Richard Sandford from the Department of Medical Genetics; Krishna Chatterjee from the Department of Medicine; Mark Smith, Professor Christopher Ford and Richard Gymer from the Department of Physics; Professor Sarah Bray and Fiona Duncan from the Department of Physiology, Development and Neuroscience; Tracey Theobald-Greaves from the Department of Psychology; Julie Jenkins from the Department of Public Health and Primary Care; Professor David Lomas from the Department of Radiology; Madeline Fordham, Julie Milner and Dr Alana Thackray from the Department of Veterinary Medicine; John Neve from Estate Management; Dr Sara Horrell and Dr Ha-Joon Chang from the Faculty of Economics; Dr Michael Evans from the Faculty

strategy and its action plan will be reviewed annually by the Education Committee.

For more information, visit http://tinyurl.com/j5xjfah.

of Education; Dr Stephanie Palmer from the Faculty of Law; Andrew Bowker from the Fitzwilliam Museum; Isabella Warren from the Scott Polar Research Institute; Carol Miller and Adam Perkins from the University Libaray; Dr Andrew Bannister from the Wellcome Trust/Cancer Research UK Gurdon Institute; and Mark Smith, Robert King, Alistair Kitching and Nick Cole from University Information Services.

in brief Calling creatives A new network has been set up to give creative staff at Cambridge a forum to share ideas and promote their artwork. Director of International Programmes Sarah Ormrod said: “The University is full of creative minds and also cares for and researches its remarkable collections of artworks. The group will be a way for those of us who are driven to create art ourselves to easily engage in conversation, even if it’s just about where to buy the best art materials.”

Email: sjo1001@cam.ac.uk.

Chris Loades

know your university

Vital connections Why should you care about how IT is provided at Cambridge?

Because information is at the heart of what universities do, says Director of Information Services Martin Bellamy.

And there are some important changes underway Over the past 18 months, Martin Bellamy has been leading one of the most significant transformations of Cambridge’s IT services for 20 years.

The task: to take four specialist and highly independent providers – the University Computing Service, the Management Information Services Division, the High Performance Computing Service, and the Centre for Applied Research in Educational Technologies – and mould them into a single organisation capable of providing outstanding support for the University’s research, teaching and administration.

Dr Bellamy – who took up his post in March 2014 – has been guided by the recommendations made in the Joint Report of the Council and General Board on IT infrastructure and support. But he has also spotted other opportunities for service enhancement that have the potential to forge productive interactions with the wider IT and academic community.

“A key opportunity is the potential to

“Whatever the discipline, it is important to access, analyse, visualise, share and communicate information”

harness the innovation that goes on in individual research projects, as well as those using technology for teaching and learning,” he says.

“We would like to create a climate where those innovations are more readily discoverable and sharable with others.”

One initiative that Dr Bellamy hopes will stimulate this kind of exchange is a new information services catalogue for institutions across the University, a version of which was trialled in the School of Arts and Humanities.

The catalogue describes, and gives access to, IT services offered by the School and its faculties, as well as those managed by UIS. The hope is that it will provide a platform where academics, and those such as computer officers who support academics, can offer information on what is being done locally so that others might benefit.

Another important service enhancement is an enterprise agreement with Microsoft to provide Microsoft Office software to staff and students free of

charge on up to five devices at home and at work. The agreement also provides access to other services for departments, institutions and the 26 Colleges that have taken advantage of it. Other areas of focus include digital education, security management and data storage.

Much of the work that UIS has focused on to date has been about establishing core capability. This has fallen into two key categories: first, establishing a governance framework; and second, developing the people and structure within UIS. On the former, the provision of IT at the University is now overseen by the Information Services Committee (ISC), which is chaired by the Senior ProVice-Chancellor. The new governance structure is designed to help UIS consult widely and systematically, and get support for decisions and forward planning.

The design and restructure of UIS itself is now complete although some recruitment is still underway. A significant and notable investment has gone into the formation of two outward-facing teams, each of which will deploy Relationship Managers to work with different areas of the University. The idea is that each represented area feels that it has its own virtual information services organisation, with an expert and advocate who can bring their needs back to UIS and the people who provide central IT services and systems.

That aside, why should an individual academic or administrator care that the University is reorganising its IT? “I would say that this is the digital era, that IT is increasingly pervasive in all walks of life, and whatever the discipline it is important to be able to access, analyse, visualise, share and communicate information. This is one of the areas in which universities are investing,” says Dr Bellamy.

“The internet is also a tool that helps researchers create impact, share their work with others, collaborate, and network with academics on a global scale. All of these things can be enhanced by the right information services.”

The work delivered over the past 18 months, and continuing into 2016, will mean that the collegiate University will be in a position to develop a cohesive IT strategy and vision for the longer term.

A strategy that genuinely supports the University’s mission, and creates services, systems and teams that give Cambridge a leading edge.

lent term 2016 | UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE Newsletter | 5

Anna Betts

behind the scenes

Surround sound When the Museum of Zoology reopens next year, visitors will be greeted by Ocean Song, a new composition of marine mammals and human voices.

Becky Allen talks to sound recordist Chris Watson about the project and takes a sonic journey through engineering, neuroscience, history and music with four Cambridge researchers whose work revolves around sound

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If you close your eyes in Cambridge, what do you hear? Standing on Garret Hostel Lane, eyes shut, my ears tune into the swish of traffic on the Backs; over the bridge, bicycle bells ring; and from the river, laughter bubbles up from tourists waiting to board a punt.

I’m replicating an exercise from Ian Cross’s student days. Now Professor of Music and Science at Cambridge, as an undergraduate at City University, London he remembers Canadian composer Murray Schafer leading a sound walk through the City of London.

“We had to hold hands and walk in a chain with our eyes closed. If you can do it safely, close your eyes and move from one space to another – it’ll be quite a shock.”

From next year, Cambridge’s familiar soundscape of bike bells, tourists and traffic will be joined by sounds you’d usually need to travel 50 miles to hear – the sounds of the sea.

Composed by award-winning sound recordist Chris Watson, Ocean Song has been commissioned by the Museum of Zoology for the new entrance hall and home to its emblem, the fin whale.

Throughout 2015 Watson (best known for BBC natural history blockbusters from Frozen Planet to Life of Birds), choir leader Rowena Whitehead and Rosalyn Wade of the Museum of Zoology collected human song at 20 workshops in Cambridge and beyond. “It evolved into this very collaborative piece,” he says, “because the museum wanted to include the voices of people as well as recordings of sea mammals and sounds of the ocean.”

Watson has a clear vision of the atmosphere he wants to create in the new whale hall: “What I’ve learned through my public installations is that the presentation of the work is crucial to people’s engagement with it. It’s very easy to drown people out with sounds, and that’s a complete turn-off.”

Instead, people can opt to immerse themselves in the piece – or ignore it.

“I’d like simply to fill the space with these disembodied voices from the oceans and the choirs we recorded, so rather like being in warm bathwater you’re bathed in this acoustic,” he explains. “It won’t be like audio wallpaper – it will ebb and flow in the way tides do, dynamically.

There will be times when it’s not there, because like any piece of music the gaps are important.”

Open your ears Finding quiet places where we can hear less but listen more is increasingly difficult, something Watson – who listens for a living – finds disturbing. “I was with the dog on the beach one evening over Christmas. Standing in a place where there’s no noise pollution, you can open your ears and start to listen and engage with your environment. It changes your perception of the whole world,” he says.

Compared with the care we invest in our visual environment, we seem much less careful – and know much less – about our sonic surroundings, says Cross. “While we have a good understanding of concert hall acoustics and robust measures of noise, much remains a mystery about how the sounds that surround us in our everyday lives influence the quality of our emotions and the effectiveness of our thought processes,” he says.

One of Cross’s fields of research is acoustic archaeology and, together with Dr Elizabeth Blake of the McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research, he has pioneered a framework for mapping ancient soundscapes: not only special sites such as the caves and chasms that might be marked by ancient rock paintings and carvings, but also the surrounding landscapes these sites would have been a counterpoint to.

“The framework is to measure and describe all the environments someone would have inhabited and work out which are more normal and frequented, and which, such as caves, are anomalous,” says Cross.

History is deaf Across Cambridge and across centuries, Dr David Trippett of the Faculty of Music is also looking for new ways to hear our silent past. “The way we write about history has typically relied on documents, objects and artefacts, and they are silent,” he says. “We can’t hear anything before sound recording was invented in the second half of the 19th century.”

“Much remains a mystery about how the sounds that surround us influence our emotions and our thought processes”

A musicologist and cultural historian, Trippett is studying similarities between scientific and musical thought, arguing that certain technologies – such as the stethoscope and the steam train – changed the way that people listened.

“Suddenly you have this incredibly noisy form of transport,” he says. “It’s hard to overestimate how noisy it was – from the clackety-clack rhythm of the trains to the dynamiting of the tunnels – and many composers wrote musical responses to this new environment.”

Over the next five years Trippett, with colleagues in Engineering, will be conducting a sort of sonic time travel experiment. Using data from track length and train speed to the number of wheels and density of materials, they will attempt to create an acoustic replica of these monstrous machines.

As well as giving us a genuine acoustic foothold in the lost historical past, he hopes the project will also illuminate the present: “We live in an age of dizzying technological change, so it is illuminating to look at previous ages when technological advancement was similarly rapid and affected social behaviour.”

‘Rubbing out’ sound Whereas Trippett wants to re-hear longlost sound, Dr Richard Turner from the Department of Engineering is working on ‘rubbing out’ so-called texture sounds. “An often neglected family of sounds – pattering rain drops, howling wind or running water – they have this loose definition that they’re comprised of lots of independent events,” he explains.

Turner is developing ways to model these sounds so that they can be erased just as spam filters remove unwanted email, and one potential application is to suppress background noise for people who wear hearing aids. “Ideally, we’d like to make an intelligent device that can anticipate the user’s needs and deliver sound that’s appropriate for the tasks that the user wants to perform.”

Hearing and seeing, however, are not passive processes, and how the brain shapes perception is what concerns Professor Paul Fletcher of the Department of Psychiatry. “Our experience of the world laid out in front of us, as if we’re peeping through our eye holes at reality, is an illusion,” he says.

“Our brain does an awful lot of the work.”

Fletcher is currently studying auditory hallucinations, a feature of psychosis which can affect people with

schizophrenia, depression and certain neurological disorders. Sometimes benign, they are more often unpleasant, critical, hostile voices – yet they do not originate in sound waves from the outside world.

“There’s an increasing recognition that the brain creates voices and sounds that reflect not what’s coming in, but rather what’s already in the brain. That’s something that really intrigues me, this notion that whether in illness or not, your brain is making stuff up,” he says.

Faced with the need to assemble a model of its world from intensive and noisy inputs, it seems likely that the brain uses prior experience to shape current inputs, which means perception is a negotiation between the two. Fletcher’s hypothesis is that hallucinations arise when the balance is weighted too heavily in favour of what’s already in the brain, rather than incoming signals, and test results bear this out.

By giving people particular perceptions and then manipulating what they know or expect about those perceptions – for example by playing them garbled sound clips, then an intelligible version – he has found that people with early psychosis perform significantly better, suggesting they place more weight on prior experience.

The results could help us understand the mechanisms by which such symptoms arise, something that until now psychiatry has been unable to do. “We don’t know why someone would hear voices and this research is about trying to get at a mechanism by which the experience arises,” Fletcher concludes. “And it might be a way of finding markers for the early development of illness and for guiding cognitive treatments.”

Find out more ➔O cean Song is funded by the Heritage

Lottery Fund and Arts Council England.

For more information visit https://oceansongproject.wordpress.com ➔ F ind out more about acoustical instruments at the Whipple Museum at www.hps.cam.ac.uk/whipple/explore/ acoustics ➔D o you have a favourite Cambridge sound? Send us a recording and a description and we’ll post it with the online version of the Newsletter.

lent term 2016 | UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE Newsletter | 7

cover feature

Thinking and drinking Meeting space may be at a premium across the University but cafés and open spaces can make a great alternative to departments and colleges. We asked staff to share their favourite out-of-office workspace

Courtyard Café, Fitzwilliam Museum The Fitzwilliam Museum’s bright and busy Courtyard Café is a firm favourite among staff. “There’s a certain serenity that hits you whether in the café or the galleries and that serenity and calm is really good for getting a clear head. The whole place offers a delicious change of pace to the Disability Resource Centre,” says Disability Adviser Kirsty Wayland. “As a mentor on occasion I’ve met with students in the museum, either in the café or in a quiet corner. Both provide a certain distance from the University. The access is good for wheelchair users and I can negotiate most of the ground floor alone.”

pictures chris loades

The great outdoors West café, Hauser Forum

Hot numbers, Trumpington St

One of West Cambridge’s newer social spaces, this café wins praise for its pleasant buzz, its bright and airy atmosphere and its mix of colourful chairs, tables and couches. Dr Sasha Turchyn of the Department of Earth Sciences is a regular. “It’s a great place to wait until I need to pick my daughters up from the nursery opposite, so it allows me to get an extra 20 minutes of work done,” she says. “You can sit by the window and look out at the fields or the duck pond. There’s a nice mixture of people there, from academics and admin staff, to families with kids. And it makes great filter coffee.”

The second branch of Hot Numbers in Cambridge, this is the place for coffee connoisseurs: “Hot Numbers is cool – it looks good, and its sole purpose is to accommodate people doing something around a coffee, whether that is chatting, reading or just sitting and thinking,” says Sigrid Fisher, Head of Equality & Diversity in the HR Division.

“Being close to the office, it is a great place to meet colleagues from other parts of the University or from outside – it offers a space that, because it’s not ‘gown’, isn’t intimidating to external guests, as well as a neutral backdrop to discuss business matters.”

Cambridge’s commons and college gardens are great places to work once the weather warms up.

Professor Bill Sutherland of the Department of Zoology recommends Coe Fen for fresh air or al fresco meetings. “After spending too much time working intensely indoors, visitors love walking amongst these beautiful, cow-grazed wet grasslands,” he says. “And in the spring I enjoy searching for the peculiar purple toothwort – a chlorophyll-free plant that parasitises the roots of many of the willows.”

grads café, university centre Tucked away at the top of the University Centre, Grads (right) is worth visiting for the view alone and is a popular place for quiet work or meetings. According to Anne-Cécile Larribau of the Office of External Affairs and Communications: “It’s a very versatile space, where you can concentrate on work or relax with a book whilst enjoying the great view over the river, or meet up with friends for a chat. It’s relaxed and unassuming, very accessible, and I love its brightness.

It’s a place that fits every mood – whether lazy, solitary, active or sociable.”

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To find other spaces to work or study, visit https:// spacefinder.lib.cam.ac.uk

people New PVCs for Research, and Enterprise and Regional Affairs Two new Pro-Vice-Chancellors began their term of office on 1 January: Professor Nigel Slater, Pro-ViceChancellor for Enterprise and Regional Affairs, and Professor Chris Abell, ProVice-Chancellor for Research.

Professor Nigel Slater leads the Bioscience Engineering Research Group, which investigates new ways to make and stabilise bio-pharmaceutical products including proteins, DNA, viruses and cells. He is a Fellow and former President of Fitzwilliam, and former Head of the Department of Chemical Engineering and Biotechnology.

According to Slater, who also represents the University on the Cambridge City Deal Executive Board and is charged with enhancing the University’s interests in the East Anglia region: “Part of my new role will be to develop closer collaborations with industry, both large and small, in research and training.

“We also need to improve transport and housing so that our staff can travel into work safely and efficiently. During the next three years I would like to make an impact on working with industry, spinning out the Cambridge effect to the broader region, and with the City Deal make some impact on transport. Then we’ll be moving in the right direction.”

Professor Chris Abell is a biological chemist and today leads two research teams in the Department of Chemistry pioneering the use of fragmentbased approaches in drug discovery, and developing microdroplets as an experimental platform. Co-founder of several companies, including Sphere Fluidics and Aqdot, he was a founding director of Cambridge Enterprise.

An undergraduate and postgraduate at Cambridge, he returned to the University after doing postdoctoral research at Brown University, and from 2013 to 2015 was the first Director

Professor Nigel Slater

Professor Chris Abell

of Postdoctoral Affairs at Cambridge.

Professor Abell said: “I am thrilled to be joining the PVC team and excited about promoting the incredible research agenda in the University.”

The role of Pro-Vice-Chancellors is to take forward strategy and policy development and to support the ViceChancellor in providing institutional leadership for the University, particularly in their areas of responsibility. The ProVice-Chancellors work closely with the Heads of Schools and senior professional administrators.

The full team of Pro-Vice-Chancellors is: Professor Duncan Maskell (Senior Pro-Vice-Chancellor); Professor Chris Abell (Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Research); Professor Eilis Ferran (Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Institutional and International Relations); Professor Nigel Slater (ProVice-Chancellor for Enterprise and Regional Affairs); and Professor Graham Virgo (Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Education).

other appointments ➔ Dr Rob Wallach has been appointed Director of Postdoctoral Affairs. He is a Life Fellow – and recently Vice-Provost – of King’s and an Emeritus Senior Lecturer in the Department of Materials Science & Metallurgy. His research has focused on joining materials, developing new approaches and addressing challenging applications from aircraft engine turbine blades to electronic circuits. He is committed to teaching and has run summer schools and outreach activities to raise awareness of sustainability issues and materials science, and to broaden access for school pupils and teachers.

The number of postdocs at the University has doubled over the past 15 years and, says Wallach, they are crucial for maintaining Cambridge’s world-leading position. “Much of our ground-breaking research is undertaken by our younger researchers, and improving recognition and integration of this key group of employees is timely and essential,” he said.

Building on the success of the Office of Postdoctoral Affairs in Mill

Lane, which opened in 2014, further offices will open on the Biomedical Campus this summer and at North West Cambridge next year. ➔ Emma Rampton is the University’s new Academic Secretary following the retirement of Graham Allen.

Formerly Deputy University Secretary and Head of the Council Secretariat at the University of Oxford, Ms Rampton worked as a lawyer before joining Oxford. The Academic Secretary’s principal role is to support the General Board, which is responsible for the University’s academic policy, overseeing the teaching and research undertaken by the Schools, faculties, departments and other institutions. ➔ January saw Nick Brooking start work as the University’s first Director of Sport. Before joining Cambridge, Brooking worked in the same role at the University of Hertfordshire, leading the team that developed Hertfordshire’s sports facilities and its award-winning student social sport programme. “Cambridge has unique complexity in its sporting provision with so many individuals, clubs and organisations involved,” he said. “The

Emma Rampton

Nick Brooking

Professor Eske Willerslev

first key task we are embarking on is development of a strategy for sport at Cambridge so that this diversity and complexity can be effectively harnessed as a strength when planning priorities for future investment.” ➔ Caroline Van Eck has been appointed Cambridge’s first established chair in the History of Art. A noted authority on European architecture and the figurative arts, Professor Van Eck joins the University in October 2016.

She received her PhD in the Department of Philosophy at the University of Amsterdam, was appointed Professor of Architectural History and Theory at Leiden University in 2006 and has been a visiting professor at the universities of Yale, York and Ghent. ➔ Eske Willerslev succeeds Tim Clutton-Brock as the new Prince Philip Professor of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, joining Cambridge from Copenhagen University. Willerslev is an evolutionary biologist known for his pioneering work on ancient DNA, and over coming years plans to establish an ancient DNA facility in Cambridge that will be used by a broad range of researchers and departments.

lent term 2016 | UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE Newsletter | 9

prizes, awards and honours

Awards ➔ Professor Dame Ann Dowling of the Department of Engineering has been appointed to the Order of Merit

by HM The Queen, and is one of several members of the University recognised in the New Year’s Honours list. Professor David MacKay (Department of Engineering) was knighted ‘for services to scientific advice in government and science outreach’. Harvey McGrath, an Honorary Fellow of St Catharine’s and co-chair of the £2 billion fundraising campaign for the University and Colleges of Cambridge, was also knighted.

Professor Alastair Compston (School of Clinical Medicine) was appointed CBE ‘for services to multiple sclerosis treatment’ and Dr Emily Shuckburgh of the Faculty of Mathematics has been appointed OBE ‘for services to science and public communication of science’. ➔ Andra Adams, a PhD student in the Computer Laboratory, has won the ‘transforming society’ category at the 2015 UK ICT Pioneers awards.

Her research involves the application of affective robotics as therapy for individuals with autism spectrum conditions. ➔ Professor John D Barrow of the Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics has been awarded the Gold Medal in astronomy by the Royal Astronomical Society. The award is the society’s highest honour and previous recipients include Albert Einstein, Edwin Hubble and Stephen Hawking. ➔ Professor Jenny Clack (Department of Zoology) has been awarded the Palaeontological Association’s Lapworth Medal. ➔ Polly Courtice, Director of the Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership, has been awarded Stanford University’s Bright Award for 2015.

Given annually, the award recognises individuals who have made significant contributions to environmental preservation and sustainability. ➔ The inaugural Royal Academy of Engineering Armourers and Brasiers Company Prize has been awarded to Professor Judith Driscoll of the Department of Materials Science & Metallurgy. She has also been awarded the 2015 Joule Medal and Prize by the Institute of Physics. ➔ Professor Brad Epps of the Department of Spanish and Portuguese

Professor Dame Ann Dowling

Polly Courtice

Professor Judith Driscoll

Dr Golan Gur

Professor Peter Hutchinson

Professor Adam Ledgeway

10 | lent term 2016 | UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE Newsletter

has been awarded the Medal of Honour by the Universidad Complutense de Madrid. ➔ Dr Claire Fenton-Glynn (Faculty of Law) has been awarded the 2015 Inner Temple new author’s prize for her book Children’s Rights in Intercountry Adoption. The Faculty’s Professor Neil Andrews was runner-up in the main book prize competition for his work Andrews on Civil Processes. ➔ Professor Phil Gibbard of the Department of Geography has been appointed Secretary General of the International Commission on Stratigraphy (ICS). Part of the International Union of Geological Sciences, the ICS sets global standards for the fundamental scale for expressing Earth history. ➔ The GK Batchelor Prize for 2016 has been awarded to Professor Raymond Goldstein (Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics).

The prize is sponsored by the Journal of Fluid Mechanics and awarded to scientists whose research has made a significant contribution to fluid mechanics over the previous decade. ➔ Dr Golan Gur of the Faculty of Music has won the Austrian Musicological Society’s 2015 Publication Prize for his essay The Other Marxism: Georg Knepler and the Anthropology of Music.

Gur’s current research is on music and aesthetic culture in the former German Democratic Republic. ➔ Professor Christopher Hill (POLIS) has been awarded an honorary Doctorate from the University of the Peloponnese at Corinth. ➔ Professor Peter Hutchinson (School of Clinical Medicine) has been awarded the Herbert Olivecrona Award – known as the ‘Nobel Prize of neurosurgery’ – in recognition of his important contributions to the specialty. ➔ Professor Steve Jackson of the Gurdon Institute has been awarded the 2015 Gagna A & Ch Van Heck Prize 2015. The €75,000 prize is awarded every three years by the Brussels-based Fonds de la Recherche Scientifique for work contributing to the treatment of a currently incurable disease. ➔ Professor Martin Jones (Division of Archaeology) received a research award and Professor Colin Renfrew (McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research) was given a lifetime achievement award at the 2015 Shanghai Archaeology Forum.

➔ Deborah Howard (Department of History of Art) has been awarded an Honorary Doctorate of Letters at University College Dublin. ➔ Dr Dinakantha Suramya Kumararatne (Department of Medicine) has won the 2015 UK Primary Immunodeficiency Network’s Lifetime Achievement Award for ‘unstinting service to the primary immune deficiency community throughout his career, specifically in the field of mycobacterial disease and cytokine defects’. ➔ Dr Nancy Lane of the Department of Zoology has been awarded an honorary Doctorate of Science by Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh, in recognition of her contribution to the advancement of women in the communities of science, engineering and technology, and distinction in the field of cell biology. ➔ Professor Adam Ledgeway of the Faculty of Modern and Medieval Languages has been awarded an honorary Doctor Honoris Causa by the University of Bucharest. ➔ Professor Robert Mair of the Department of Engineering has been appointed to the House of Lords as an independent crossbencher. ➔ The University of Florence has awarded its Gold Medal for Outstanding Research to Professor Sir John Meurig Thomas of the Department of Materials Science & Metallurgy. ➔ Professor John O’Brien (Department of Psychiatry) has received a distinguished service award from the International Psychogeriatric Association for his extraordinary service and contribution to geriatric mental health. ➔ The 2016 Marjory Stephenson Prize has been awarded to Professor Steve Oliver of the Department of Biochemistry by the Microbiology Society for his contributions to the discipline. According to Oliver: “I’ve been a member of the society since I was an undergrad student, so this prize means an awful lot to me. It is also, I hope, a recognition of the fact that studying microbes as model organisms continues to advance not only microbiology, but the life sciences as a whole.” ➔ The Collected Works of Gerard Manley Hopkins, Volumes 1 and 2: Correspondence, edited by R K R Thornton of the University of Newcastle upon Tyne and Dr Catherine Phillips (Faculty of English) has won the Modern Language Association of America’s Morton N Cohen Award for a

advertisements distinguished edition of letters. ➔ Dr John Rudge (Department of Earth Sciences), Dr Suchitra Sebastian (Department of Physics) and Dr Renaud Gagné (Faculty of Classics) have been awarded Philip Leverhulme Prizes in recognition of their outstanding research work. ➔ African Modernism: Architecture and Independence, a book co-edited by Ingrid Schröder of the Department of Architecture has won the gold medal for the best art book of 2015 at the Festival International du Livre d’Art et du Film.

Focusing on architecture of the 1960s and 70s in sub-Saharan Africa, the book accompanied a major exhibition at the Vitra Design Museum Gallery. ➔ Fighting Cancer: Animal Research at Cambridge, a film by Jonny Settle in the Office of External Affairs and Communications about how scientists use mice to study cancer, has received a 2015 Openness Award from Understanding Animal Research. ➔ Professor Florin Udrea of the Department of Engineering has been elected Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering. ➔ The prestigious Rosetrees Trust

Professor Robert Mair

Professor Steve Oliver

Ingrid Schröder

Interdisciplinary Prize 2015 has been awarded to Professor Sir Mark Welland (Department of Engineering) and Professor Andres Floto (Department of Medicine) for research on tuberculosis drug treatments.

Together they developed an innovative approach to improve efficacy, reduce side effects and prevent the development of drug resistance in the treatment of the disease. ➔ Dr James Westbrook of the Faculty of Music has received the 2015 Terence Pamplin Award for Organology given by the Musicians’ Company. ➔ Professor Per-Olof Wikström of the Institute of Criminology has been awarded the 2016 Stockholm Prize in Criminology. The prize is awarded for outstanding achievements in criminological research or for the application of research results by practitioners for reducing crime and advancing human rights. Wikström’s work – including his ten-year study of 716 families in Peterborough – has provided detailed evidence on the dynamic processes by which children negotiate their daily lives between their parents and peers.

Sports to the fore in UAS awards Sports staff at Cambridge won two awards in the UAS Employee Recognition Scheme. Announced at a ceremony in December, the awards recognise the outstanding work done by UAS staff – both as individuals and teams.

Sports Service ground staff were joint winners of the team award in the ‘We deliver an effective and high-quality service’ category and the Sports Centre Fitness Team won the team award in the ‘We respect others and value diversity’ category. The individual winner in the same category was Caroline Newman, Senior HR Adviser at the School of Clinical Medicine.

The individual award in the ‘We collaborate and work in partnership’ category was won by HR Adviser Kat Willcox, with joint team winners from Payroll and the Higher Education Statistics Agency teams.

The individual award in the ‘We are open, responsive and innovative’ category went to Disability Adviser Helen Duncan.

Advertising on this page is open to University staff. The cost is £15 for a single insertion or £75 for six insertions. Send your copy – up to 70 words – to the Editor at newsletter@admin.cam.ac.uk. We reserve the right to edit contributions.

HOUSES TO RENT (UK)

➔ Butley, Suffolk Comfortable, spacious, well equipped cottage with piano in Butley, Suffolk. Available for Aldeburgh Festival, weekends and short breaks throughout the year.

Close to Orford, Sutton Hoo, Snape and Minsmere. Sleeps up to eight.

Call Miranda on (01223) 357035 or email info@butleycottage. co.uk. More information at www.butleycottage.co.uk. ➔ Cornwall Traditional granite cottage in peaceful countryside between St Ives and Penzance. Sleeps five in three bedrooms, with comfortable sitting room, kitchen-breakfast room and bathroom. Sunny garden and off-road parking. Close to beaches and coves, coastal path, sub-tropical gardens, historic properties. Email Penny on pb29@cam.ac.uk or phone (01638) 507192. Details and photos at www.tinminerscottage.co.uk. ➔ Minnis Bay, Kent Two bedroom well equipped bungalow in a quiet seaside village on the north Kent coast within easy reach of Whitstable, Canterbury and the Turner Gallery in Margate.

Off-road parking and an enclosed sunny garden five minutes walk from the sea. Sleeps four comfortably but flexible enough to sleep seven.

Available for weekends and weekly breaks throughout the year. For details contact Gill on (01223) 360541 or email Vince at vrw10@ cam.ac.uk. ➔ Scottish Highlands Highland holiday cottage with sea view near Helmsdale. Palm Tree Cottage Retreat. Sleeps four to six people (two double bedrooms and two small chair beds suitable for small children). £350 per week or £820 per month (mention this advert). Sit in front of an open fire, 10 minutes walk to the beach, Wifi, washing machine, dishwasher and breadmaker. Ideal for a writing retreat, golf or fishing holiday. To find out more visit www.palmtreecottageretreat.com, telephone 07954 358174 or email carandlor@yahoo.co.uk. ➔ Southwold, Suffolk 17th century Leman cottage, three bedrooms, well equipped, Wifi, in peaceful countryside. Off-road parking, enclosed sunny garden.

Weekly lets in school holidays, flexible short breaks rest of year.

Easy walk, cycle or drive to explore Heritage Coast, historic churches and more. Personally managed. One hour 40 minutes drive from Cambridge.

For more information and for more cottages sleeping two to eight see www. suffolkcoastalcottages.co.uk or phone Trish Gower on (01502) 478078. ➔ Yorkshire Dales Beautifully refurbished cottage at Pateley Bridge on the borders of Yorkshire Dales National Park. Very comfortably furnished. Sleeps up to six in three bedrooms. Underfloor heating and log burner. Courtyard garden with studio. Linen and towels provided. Excellent local amenities, spectacular countryside and many wonderful places to visit nearby.

Prices are £425–£695 per week with short breaks available. For further details and booking visit www. cuckoocottageyorkshire.co.uk, email cuckoocottageyorkshire@gmail.com or phone 07528 595295.

HOUSES TO RENT (OVERSEAS)

➔ Athens, Greece Beautiful fourth floor apartment with veranda in the city centre furnished to a high standard. Double

bedroom, study/living/ dining rooms, kitchen, bathroom. Close to amenities with easy access to University and historical centre.

Available January-June (negotiable).

Price £400 per month for one, £600 for a couple, including bills. Contact am934@cam.ac.uk. ➔ Prodromi, Cyprus Large, spacious, well equipped townhouse in the village of Prodromi, between Latchi and Polis.

Small complex (13 properties) with shared pool and private parking.

Two double bedrooms. Available for short and long-term lets. Prices start from £300 per week. For further details and bookings email Bridget on bridgetwoodley@tiscali.co.uk. ➔ Amalfi Coast, Italy Small B&B in peaceful, traffic-free mountain village above Positano.

Ideal for those seeking a quiet mountain retreat with modern conveniences. All rooms ensuite with panoramic sea views of the Amalfi coast. Situated on famous Sentiero degli Dei (Footpath of the Gods).

English speaking host. Double room and breakfast from 70 euros per night. Easyjet flights to Naples from Stansted. Phone Penny Marrone on 01954 210681. Further information

and photos at http://ninobb. moonfruit.com.

SERVICES

➔ The University Social Club Bar, restaurant and meeting rooms for all University staff, students and their guests. Come to the USC for a relaxed lunch or to catch up with University colleagues. Our friendly staff can prepare a range of hot meals, vegetarian dishes and freshly made sandwiches to eat in or takeaway. We are based by the river at the bottom of Mill Lane.

More information at www.socialclub. cam.ac.uk. ➔ Healthy volunteers needed We are looking for new treatments for chronic pain. We will mimic pain in healthy volunteers using chilli pepper extract and test the efficacy of a marketed drug. Participants should be aged 18-64 years, in general good health, without any pain and not on any medication.

There are three hospital visits each lasting for three to four hours and we can pay £160 if you complete all three visits. If you are interested please email pain@wbic.cam.ac.uk or telephone (01223) 217888.

lent term 2016 | UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE Newsletter | 11

www.cam.ac.uk/YoursCambridge