Fellows and Academics

I arrived in the UK in 1993 to take my fellowship in Somerville and lectureship in the Physics Department. The UK is my fourth country after my native Poland, Switzerland and Germany where I lived and worked for many years; quite a long journey from state schools in Poland to Oxford. In 2019 I retired my Tutorial Fellowship to become a Senior Research Fellow.

Most of my research so far has been in experimental particle physics but in recent years I have been moving my main interests from particle to accelerator physics. In plasma (ionised gas, for example hydrogen), using a laser, one can move electrons away from ions creating a huge electric field; many orders of magnitude bigger then what one can get using current technology. Such a field can be used to accelerate particles and to build accelerators beyond the Large Hadron Collider era and beyond current X ray sources (synchrotron radiation), like Diamond near Oxford. Acceleration using plasma would move particle physics to a new territory and simultaneously would make tuneable wavelength, short pulse X ray sources affordable for Universities and hospitals.

My main expertise in particle physics is in the design of wire chambers and calorimeters and on physics beyond the Standard Model as well as on some aspects of Quantum Chromo Dynamics. I worked at the following accelerators: CERN: PS, ISR, SPS; and DESY: PETRA, HERA. At John Adams Institute for Accelerator Science at Oxford University, I am leading the Lasers for Accelerators (L4A) group.

Besides physics, I am working on a small family farm and I am a keen swimmer; I am holding one national swimming record in my age group.

My advice to my students: Only beginners compete. When you go to a higher level, your aim is quality.

I teach Biology at Somerville, and most of my teaching concerns plant biology because this is the interesting part of the subject.

In the first year the topics I cover include plant life histories including pollination, biological classification, the use of plants in medicine, the emergence of agriculture, and conservation.  In the second year I teach about plant adaptations (particularly those found in Mediterranean-type regions), ecology, and ethnobotany.  In the final year I run an option on species conservation and I teach on the Tenerife Field Trip.

Prior to coming Somerville I worked at the Oxford Botanical Gardens and Harcourt Arboretum for the best part of 34 years, the last 26 as Horti Praefectus (i.e. director).  My particular interests are plant conservation and the genus Euphorbia which is a fascinating group of 2000 species found all over the world.

http://www.timothywalker.org.uk

My name is Wantoe T. Wantoe, and I am from Liberia. I am currently an MSc candidate in Comparative and International Education at the Department of Education, University of Oxford. Previously, I completed a Master in Public Policy at the Blavatnik School of Government, Oxford.  

I serve as the Oxford Student Union Representative for the Middle Common Room (MCR) at Somerville College, where I ensure inclusivity and advocate for the voices of Somerville students within the larger Oxford Student Union. My role focuses on fostering a supportive environment where diverse perspectives are valued, and students’ needs and concerns are effectively represented in university-wide decision-making. 

I am a Junior Research Fellow at the University of Oxford.

My main research interests are in the ‘human side’ of the future of work, the emotional bases of political behavior, and the economic determinants of subjective wellbeing (or “happiness”).

My work has been published in various academic journals including the Review of Economics and Statistics, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, and American Journal of Political Science. I am also passionate about science communication and public engagement, and have written about my research for various outlets including Harvard Business Review, VoxEU, The Conversation, SPSP Character & Context, The Hill, and UN World Happiness Report. My research has also been featured by news outlets including The Economist, Financial Times, BBC, CNN, The Atlantic, Business Insider, Newsweek, and The Guardian.

Stephen Weatherill works on the constitutional, institutional and substantive law of the European Union.

He retired from the Jacques Delors Chair in European Law in 2021, and is now Professor Emeritus in the University and a Senior Research Fellow of the College.

His research interests embrace the field of European Law in its widest sense, although his published work is predominantly concerned with European Union trade law. . He is the author of LAW AND VALUES IN THE EUROPEAN UNION (Oxford University Press, 2016), PRINCIPLES AND PRACTICE IN EU SPORTS LAW (Oxford University Press, 2017), THE INTERNAL MARKET AS A LEGAL CONCEPT (Oxford University Press, 2017), CONTRACT LAW OF THE INTERNAL MARKET (Intersentia, 2017), EU CONSUMER LAW AND POLICY (Edward Elgar, 3rd edition, 2013), CASES AND MATERIALS ON EU LAW (Oxford University Press, 12th edition, 2016) and co-author of CONSUMER PROTECTION LAW (Ashgate Publishing, 2nd edition, 2005, with Geraint Howells), EUROPEAN ECONOMIC LAW (Dartmouth Publishing, 1997, with Hans Micklitz), and WEATHERILL AND BEAUMONT’s EU LAW (Penguin Books, 3rd edition,1999, with Paul Beaumont). The areas in which he has published papers in journals and edited collections in recent years include; the impact of subsidiarity in EU law; the involvement of the EU in private law; aspects of “flexible” integration in Europe; the elaboration of strategies for the management of the internal market; sport and the law; and the law and practice of product safety.

Jennifer Welsh is a Professor in International Relations and a Fellow of Somerville College, University of Oxford.

She offers courses to undergraduates and graduate students in various sub-fields of International Relations; acts as supervisor to masters and doctoral students; and sits on a variety of College and Departmental Committees. Jennifer is also the co-director of the Oxford Institute for Ethics, Law and Armed Conflict within the Department of Politics and International Relations, University of Oxford. She was previously the UN Secretary-General’s Special Adviser on the Responsibility to Protect.

At Somerville I teach Renaissance English literature and Shakespeare to second and third year students, and the paper ‘An Introduction to Literary Studies’ to first years. I also greatly enjoy supervising finalists working on dissertations about early seventeenth-century poets such as John Donne, Ben Jonson, and George Herbert.

For the English Faculty at Oxford I give undergraduate lectures on a variety of seventeenth-century poets and writers. For graduates I teach a course in Renaissance palaeography and manuscript culture designed to assist MSt and DPhil students learning how to interpret early modern handwriting and to find & work with manuscripts in the Bodleian Library. I regularly supervise MSt dissertations, and welcome inquiries from DPhil applicants interested in early seventeenth-century poetry, manuscripts, devotional poets, and writing of the 1630s.

My research focuses on literature of the early seventeenth century, particularly the Caroline poets and the work of John Donne. I am currently completing a critical edition of James Shirley’s poems, and have published several articles and chapters about how Shirley’s writing was composed and circulated in the period. My edition will appear as a volume in The Complete Works of James Shirley, gen. eds. Eugene Giddens, Teresa Grant, and Barbara Ravelhofer, 10 vols (Oxford University Press). My previous work has focussed on the poetry of Henry Vaughan (1622-95) and on the work of poets he admired, including Ben Jonson and George Herbert. Alongside my Shirley edition I am also editing a volume of The Oxford Edition of the Sermons of John Donne, gen. ed. Peter McCullough, 13 vols (Oxford University Press, 2013- ) containing the sermons Donne preached to select audiences at private houses.

Sam (or, in Outlook’s global address list, Samuel) Wetmore is the person to whom you can turn for anything AV-related.

Based in the AV Office in Maitland, Sam provides a range of services to support the audio and visual needs of meetings, conferences and events, and manages the technical aspects of the meeting rooms. Sam is also happy to collaborate on any projects which involve photography or filming, and to provide support and advice with composition and editing. If you have an AV query, contact the AV desk by emailing av.desk@some.ox.ac.uk.

Professor Clair Wills writes about the social, cultural and literary history of Britain and Ireland in the twentieth century.

Professor Wills works across the disciplines of literature, history, and cultural theory and is keen to explore new genres of academic writing. Her research focuses upon: migration in post-war Europe and the ways in which it gets represented by migrants and others; literature and culture in Northern Ireland; contemporary British fiction; feminism and women’s writing; and the history and experiences of coercive confinement in institutions (including psychiatric institutions) in Britain and Ireland in the twentieth century.

Clair is the King Edward VII Professor of English Literature at the University of Cambridge and a Professorial Fellow of Murray Edward College. She previously taught at Queen Mary University of London, at Princeton, and via numerous visiting fellowships. She has been a research associate at the Centre for Contemporary Irish History, Trinity College Dublin since 2007, and was elected an Honorary Member of the Royal Irish Academy in 2016.

In 2017, she was the recipient of the Irish Times International Non-Fiction Book of the Year for her book Lovers and Strangers. She also received the International PEN Hessell-Tiltman Prize for History and the American Conference for Irish Studies Michael J. Durkan Prize for her 2008 book That Neutral Island. A keen jazz dancer, Professor Wills set up an interdisciplinary workshop with colleagues in Cambridge to explore the question, ‘What do we write about when we write about dance?’

Victoria manages the processes for awarding scholarships and funding to students.

This includes administering grants for travel, personal development, sport and music, as well as academic prizes and scholarships. She co-ordinates the selection process for graduate and undergraduate scholarships, including the Thatcher Scholarships and Oxford India Centre Scholarships. Victoria is also Secretary to the MTST Committee, the OICSD Management Committee and the Travel and Special Project Grants Committee.

Professor Alison Wolf CBE is the Sir Roy Griffiths Professor of Public Sector Management at Kings College London, and a cross-bench peer (Baroness Wolf of Dulwich) in the House of Lords.

She specialises in the relationship between education and the labour market. She has a particular interest in training and skills policy, universities, and the medical workforce. The latter is particularly appropriate to the Chair she holds, established in memory of an influential government adviser on medical management. Alison’s publications include The XX Factor: How Working Women Are Creating A New Society (Profile Books 2013) and Remaking Tertiary Education (Resolution Foundation 2016).

Alison is highly involved in policy debate, both in this country and more widely and is currently seconded part-time to the government as an expert adviser on skills policy. In February 2018, she was appointed to the English Government’s Review of Post-18 Education and Funding, as a member of the independent expert panel. The report of the panel (‘the ‘Augar Review’) was published in 2019: the government has published an interim response, accepting some of the key recommendations.  In 2019 Alison delivered the annual King’s lectures, on ‘Universities. the economy and the state’.  She has been a specialist adviser to the House of Commons select committee on education and skills; writes widely for the national press and is a presenter for Analysis on BBC Radio 4; and in March 2011 completed the The Wolf Review, written by Professor Wolf, a Review of Vocational Education for the Secretary of State for Education.  In 2015/16 she was a member of the independent panel on technical education, chaired by Lord David Sainsbury, whose report formed the basis of the Government’s 2016 Skills Plan.

While most of Alison’s current work focuses on the interface between education institutions and labour markets, she also has long-standing interests in assessment, and in mathematics education. She was the founding Chair of Governors of the King’s College London Mathematics School, established by King’s College London. Alison was awarded the 2008 Sam Aaronovitch memorial prize for her article in Local Economy on the Leitch Review of Skills. She has been an adviser to, among others, the OECD, the Royal College of Surgeons, the Ministries of Education of New Zealand, France and South Africa, the European Commission, the International Accounting Education Standards Board, and the Bar Council. She was educated at the universities of Oxford (MA, MPhil) and Neuchatel.

Alison spent her early career in the United States working as a policy analyst for the federal government, and spent many years at the Institute of Education, University of London, where she is a visiting professor. Alison was awarded the CBE for services to education in the Queen’s 2012 birthday honours.