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I am Sir Henry Wellcome Fellow, Principal Investigator (PI), Junior Research Fellow (JRF) at Wolfson College, and NHS doctor.

I completed a BSc degree in Biochemistry from Imperial College London and my medical degrees (BMBS, BMedSci and MRes) from the University of Nottingham. I then spent few years working in junior doctor posts before coming to Oxford to start a DPhil in Clinical Medicine. My DPhil studies focused on vaccine development against arthropod-borne viruses supported by Innovate UK funding. I was awarded highly prestigious NDM Graduate Student Prize 2020 (Overall Prize Winner) for my overall performance during my DPhil at the Nuffield Department of Medicine (NDM) and a NIHR Oxford BRC Grant to support my research as a Postdoctoral Fellow. In 2022, I was awarded the Sir Henry Wellcome Fellowship to start my independent research on vaccine development against emerging arboviruses. In 2022-2023, I have been awarded MRC HIC-VAC and MRC IAA grants to develop serological assays against typhoid and paratyphoid fever and the MLSTF grant to develop a vaccine against Chagas disease.

I am currently a Sir Henry Wellcome Fellow, a Principal Investigator (PI) at the Oxford Vaccine Group (OVG), a JRF Fellow at Wolfson College, a Lecturer in Medicine at Somerville College, and a doctor in Acute Internal Medicine in the Oxford University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust.

Professor Patricia Kingori is a Wellcome Senior Investigator at the Wellcome Centre for Ethics and Humanities, a Professor of Global Health Ethics at the University of Oxford’s Ethox Centre and a Senior Research Fellow of Somerville College.

Professor Kingori’s research explores the intersection between the Sociology of Science and Medicine. She has studied the ethical issues experienced by clinical trial fieldworkers, Ebola treatment staff, emergency healthcare professionals, and frontline responders in humanitarian crises. As a health ethicist, Professor Kingori has also advised international organisations including the WHO and the UK government’s SAGE COVID-19 advisory group.

Professor Kingori’s work also seeks to reveal the systemic inequalities persisting in today’s global society. Her Wellcome research project “Fakes, Fabrications and Falsehoods” explores notions of authenticity as a global means of perpetuating privilege, while her “After the End” project investigates who decides when a crisis is over. Her work on the billion dollar “fake essay” industry in which uncredited Kenyan scholars write academic papers for students in the Global North, was the subject of the 2025 film The Shadow Scholars, directed by award-winning filmmaker Eloise King.

In 2021, Professor Kingori made history by becoming the youngest Black woman to receive a full professorship in the history of Oxford and Cambridge universities. Patricia has also been awarded a Merit Award by the University of Oxford in recognition of the standards of academic excellence in her role. In 2015, she was awarded a place on the prestigious Powerlist in recognition of her position as among <1% of Black British female academics employed by an Oxbridge institution.

Dame Carolyn Emma Kirkby, DBE, is an English soprano and one of the world’s most renowned early music specialists.

She has sung on over 100 recordings. Kirkby was a founding member of the Taverner Choir, and in 1973 began her long association with the Consort of Musicke. She took part in the early Decca Florilegium recordings with both the Consort of Musicke and the Academy of Ancient Music, at a time when most college-trained sopranos were not developing a vocal sound appropriate for early music.

She taught for many years at Dartington International Summer School, the Guildhall School of Music & Drama, as well as the Bel Canto Summer School. In 2010 she became President of Dartington Community Choir. In 1994, she was awarded an Honorary Degree (Doctor of Music) from the University of Bath. On 21 January 2011 it was announced that Kirkby had been awarded the Queen’s Medal for Music, an award funded by the Privy Purse and given to an individual who has had a major influence on the musical life of the nation.

I am a planetary physicist and a Tutorial Fellow in Physics at Somerville. My research is focused on theoretical and numerical studies of the atmospheric dynamics and climate of exoplanets. This work covers a broad range of planetary climates, including the extreme atmospheres of close-in extrasolar gas giant (or “hot Jupiter”) planets, atmospheres of temperate Earth-sized rocky planets, and regimes in between. I completed my bachelor’s degrees in Geophysical Sciences and Physics at the University of Chicago and my Ph.D in Planetary Sciences in the Lunar and Planetary Laboratory at the University of Arizona. I was previously a 51 Pegasi b postdoctoral fellow at the University of Chicago and an Assistant Professor at the University of Maryland before moving to Oxford in 2024.

Markos joined the University in September 2022 after spending three years leading the people strategy at the House of Commons. Prior to this, he spent over a decade advising on people practice and organisational development at London South Bank University, becoming its Group People Director in 2019. Throughout his career, Markos’ focus has been on improving workplace cultures, leadership capability, staff engagement and inclusion, and capability for digital transformation. Markos has a PhD in Modern European History from Kings College London, and has studied in his native Greece, as well as in Italy and the UK. He is a qualified executive coach, a Freeman of the Guild of HR Professionals, a graduate of the first cohort of McKinsey Senior Leadership Master Class for senior LGBT executives and a Stonewall Leadership programme alumnus.

Philip Kreager is Senior Research Fellow in Human Sciences at Somerville College; Tutor and Lecturer in Demography in the Institute of Human Sciences; and Director, Fertility and Reproduction Studies Group and Research Associate, School of Sociology, Oxford.

He is currently Sanofi Chair, Centre Virchow-Villermé, at the University of Paris-Descartes. He is also a Research Associate of the Department of Sociology in Oxford, Senior Research Fellow, Oxford Institute of Ageing, and Honorary Professor, Institute of Ageing, University of Indonesia.

His current research, with Professor Kevin Baird of the Oxford-Eijkman Institute in Jakarta, is Determinants of treatment-seeking behaviour and equality of access to early detection and treatment averting severe and fatal malaria in rural, impoverished settings of Nusa Tenggara Timur, Indonesia, a medical and anthropological demographic study of social structural and other impediments to malarial treatment, under the Wellcome-ISSF funding scheme. From September 2015-2018 he will be co-investigator with Professor Mark Harrison and others on a Wellcome Trust project in the history of medicine, Malaria and the Dilemmas of Development. In 2011-12 he was, with Giang Thanh Long, Sri Moertiningsih Adioetomo, P. Loyd-Sherlock, chief consultant to the National Team for Accelerating Poverty Reduction, Office of the Vice-President, Government of Indonesia (TNP2K). During 1999-2007 he was Director of Ageing in Indonesia, a multi-site longitudinal study of ageing in three communities, supported by the Welcome Trust. 

Apoorva is an ecologist, primarily interested in all aspects of human-animal interactions and applied conservation. Her DPhil research draws from interdisciplinary fields of natural and social sciences to investigate farmer-wildlife conflict and co-existence, crop losses and livelihood interventions in transitional forest landscapes. Her research is based out of the Central Western Ghats of Karnataka, India, alongside the marginal farmers of Indo-African Siddi community, local NGOs and government stakeholders. Her study adopts the UN Sustainable Development Goal 2 Zero Hunger and Goal 15 Life on Land.

She is currently an associate at the Linnean Society of London, an honorary member of the Indigenous Peoples’ and Community Conserved Areas (ICCAs) Consortium and a steering committee member of the IUCN SSC Pigeon and Dove Specialist Group. Her past work includes community-based species conservation, animal movement ecology, bioacoustics studies and documenting traditional ecological knowledge, both in terrestrial as well as marine realms.

Apoorva holds a Masters in Ecology (2013) from Pondicherry University and is the second Indian woman to have received the Global Fellowship in Marine Conservation by Duke University. For her Master’s research, she was funded by the International Otter Survival Fund (IOSF) to study the conflict situation between Smooth-coated otters and fishermen, and associated socio-economics in the Cauvery River, India. After her Masters and stint at Duke, she received a follow-up grant by Oak Foundation to collaborate with Conservation International, Brazil and founded the Marine Conservation without Borders initiative with her colleagues at Bahia, Brazil.

On returning to India, Apoorva worked as a Research Associate at the Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and the Environment (ATREE) on the India Biodiversity Portal project. She then went on to work as a Research Assistant at the University of Lethbridge, Canada for a year to study the acoustic communication of the endemic Adelaide’s warbler in Puerto Rico. On her return, she found the need to facilitate field research in India, engage local communities and children in field ecology studies, and thus began the Curious Naturalists Initiative in the Western Ghats. She also collaborates as a research affiliate with the Wildlife Information Liaison Development (WILD) Society in India.

Alongside research, Apoorva is also an active participant at policy based global forums such as the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity- Conference of the Parties (UN CBD-COP) and Convention on Migratory Species (CMS) COP representing youth and indigenous communities for wildlife conservation. She is also a trained Natural History Illustrator and sketches the wonders of nature, which inspire her to keep going in the midst of all the socio-ecological crisis.

After finishing an MSc at the School of Interdisciplinary Area Studies, Oxford University, and an MPhil in Development Studies at the Oxford Department of International Development, both with distinctions, I am now pursuing a DPhil in International Development.

I was awarded Somerville’s 2017 Principal’s Prize for academic excellence. My Masters at Oxford was funded by the Louis Dreyfus-Weidenfeld scholarship, while the MPhil-Dphil is supported by the university’s Indira Gandhi scholarship.

Prior to this, I worked for over 7 years as a journalist with a leading national newspaper The Hindu in Bangalore. I reported on topics ranging from higher education, technology and finance to more specialized focus areas such as the state of labour, work and wages of the vast urban working class in India. My occasional stints with reporting in rural areas got me interested in contemporary development theory. After this academic stint, I intend to return to the field of journalism with grounding and expertise in development studies. As a development expert, with the experience and know-how of mainstream journalism, I hope to be able to make vital interventions. My long-term goal is to be able to lead a team that can steer the agenda on development reporting, both in terms of grassroots reportage and incisive commentary.

My DPhil research focusses on the political economy of social protection programmes in India. It interrogates whether social sector schemes can ‘transform’ the social relations of production in village societies, and probes the determinants of such transformation. My research takes a comparative political economy approach to understanding transformative processes in rural India.

My research focuses on developing accessible mental health interventions for adults with different types of brain injuries, such as a stroke, traumatic brain injury, or brain tumours.

Specifically, my research aims to: 1) identify risk factors for poor mental health unique to brain injury populations; and, 2) develop and experimentally test novel mental health interventions that are accessible to brain injury survivors in light of cognitive impairments. My ultimate aim is to improve treatment options for mental health in neuropsychological populations. To achieve these goals, I use a mixture of advanced quantitative (mixed-effects models, structural equation models, risk prediction modelling) and qualitative (thematic analysis, interpretive description) methods.

After completing my Bachelor’s and Master’s degree in Canada, I completed my PhD training at the MRC Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit at the University of Cambridge with Dr Tom Manly. For my PhD, I developed and evaluated an intervention for depression and low mood in adults with acquired brain injury in a randomised controlled trial.

In the Translational Neuropsychology Group, I work with Prof Nele Demeyere on developing an improved cognitive care pathway for stroke survivors. In this role, I aim to elucidate the relationship between cognitive impairments and emotional outcomes following stroke, with an eye toward leveraging cognitive strategies as a means of improving mood and vice versa.

Afua was appointed Chief Financial Officer, Executive Director of the Bank of England aged 36 in 2019, making her the first black senior executive in the Bank’s 329 year history. Her tenure so far has seen the Bank handle unprecedented challenges, including Brexit, the Covid-19 pandemic, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the September 2022 mini-budget, and the ongoing inflation and cost of living crises. Her current responsibilities include developing the Bank’s strategy and the financial governance of the Bank’s c. £1 trillion balance sheet.

Afua also serves as the Bank of England’s co-executive sponsor for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, and co-executive sponsor for Climate Change disclosure. In 2021, she won CFO of the Year at the Women in Finance Awards UK, and in October 2022 she was named in the Powerlist, which profiles 100 of Britain’s most influential Britons of African heritage. She was a 2022 listee in the Kindness & Leadership, 50 Leading Lights UK campaign. Afua is a key note speaker and represents the Bank in the Community, with Businesses and at international fora e.g. International Monetary Fund, G20, World Finance Forum & COP.

Afua joined the Bank from Barclays Bank (2012-2019) where she was the Chief Financial Officer Mortgages and played a key role in Barclays’ strategic cost transformation program, TRANSFORM, whilst in the Investment Bank and in Group COO. Previously, during the Global Financial Crisis, she was an Investment Banker at UBS (2007-2012) in the Financial Institutions Group and in Mergers and Acquisitions, Group Strategic Advisory. After university, Afua qualified as a Chartered Accountant (ICAS) with Ernst & Young, London.

Afua matriculated at Oxford University one year early, gaining an undergraduate Master’s in Chemistry (2000-2004). She was awarded a Junior Research Fellowship in Organic Chemistry by Princeton University.

Of her Honorary Fellowship, Afua said, “To be invited to be an Honorary Fellow of Somerville is the greatest honour and took me completely by surprise!”

“I loved my time at Somerville. It played such an instrumental role in my career and I made lifelong friends.”

I have specific research interests in the etiology and management of sleep disturbance and the interaction between sleep disturbance and mental health.

Professor Lahiri’s interests are in phonology, phonetics, historical and comparative linguistics, psycholinguistics and neurolinguistics. She is also the Director of the University’s pioneering Language and Brain Lab.

Her work combines theoretical and experimental approaches to answer questions such as why sound alternations exist between different forms of one and the same word and how such words are represented in the mental lexicon, how words change over time, and how they are processed in the brain.

Recent advances from her team include the development of a cutting-edge flexible speech recognition system, Flex-SR. The technology was used to create a mobile phone app to help second language learners improve their pronunciation by analysing words and sentences spoken into the app and giving specific personal feedback. Her leadership on the project was recognised by the University with a Vice-Chancellor’s Innovation Award in 2018.

The first Indian woman to hold a professorial chair at Oxford, she helped to found Oxford University’s Faculty of Linguistics, Philology, and Phonetics. She served as its inaugural Chair in 2008, and returned to the role for a second term in 2019. In the 2020 Queen’s Birthday Honours, she was made a CBE in recognition of her services to the study of Linguistics.

In 2010, she was eleted a fellow of the British Academy, and currently serves as Vice President (Humanities) for the body. She has also been elected a member of the Academia Europaea and an Honorary Life Member of the Linguistic Society of America. She is Principal Investigator on European Research Council grants, as well as two Arts and Humanities Research Council grants, including one for a project involving Somerville Senior Research Fellow Professor Frans Plank.

http://brainlab.clp.ox.ac.uk

http://www.ling-phil.ox.ac.uk

Renaud Lambiotte is a Professor of Networks and Nonlinear Systems.

His main research interests are the modelling and analysis of large networks, with a particular focus on clustering and temporal networks, and applications in social and neuronal systems. He is Associate Editor for Science Advances and a Turing Fellow. See more here.

Renaud Lambiotte has a PhD in Physics from the Université Libre de Bruxelles. Following postdocs at ENS Lyon, Université de Liège, UCLouvain and Imperial College London, and a Professorship in Mathematics at the University of Namur, he is currently Professor of Networks and Nonlinear Systems at the Mathematical Institute of Oxford University.

Hannie Lawlor holds a BA and MSt in Spanish and French from Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford and completed her DPhil on twenty-first-century Spanish and French women’s writing at Wolfson College, Oxford, under the supervision of Dr Daniela Omlor and Professor Marie-Chantal Killeen. Prior to taking up her current post at LMH and Somerville, she held stipendiary and departmental lecturer posts in Spanish at Oxford and was Lecturer in Spanish at University College Dublin.

Research Interests

Hannie’s research focuses primarily on women’s autobiographical practices in the twentieth- and twenty-first century. She is particularly interested in comparative approaches, whether it be considering works across languages and cultures or across media. Her first monograph, Relational Responses to Trauma in Twenty-First-Century French and Spanish Women’s Writing, analysed intergenerational responses to traumatic loss and her current project builds on these findings to explore what she defines as the impossible conversation as a crucial mode of narrative transmission.

Teaching

Hannie teaches the full Prelims course for students in Spanish at LMH and Somerville College and convenes Introduction to Spanish Film (XI) for students of Spanish Sole. For FHS, she teaches peninsular options in literature and film for the modern period paper (VIII) and special authors including Ramón del Valle-Inclán, Federico García Lorca, and Benito Pérez Galdós for Paper XI. She co-teaches Paper XII ‘Women Writers in Modern Spain’ and supervises extended essays (XIV), bridge essays, and master’s theses on twentieth- and twenty-first-century women’s writing, life writing, film, memory, and trauma. She welcomes expressions of interest from prospective PhD candidates working on related modern peninsular topics.

As a former first-generation student from a non-selective state school, Hannie is keenly committed to access and outreach initiatives. She is Schools Liaison representative for the Spanish Sub-Faculty and eager to receive applications from students from schools who do not have a history of sending students to Oxbridge.

Anna Laura Lepschy is Emeritus Professor in Italian at University College London.

After studying at Somerville, she began a career in academia. In 1977 she co-published The Italian Language Today with her husband Giulio Lepschy, a reference book of the structure and grammar of contemporary Italian. She later co-edited a collection of essays titled Book Production and Letters in the Western European Renaissance: Essays in Honour of Conor Fahy.

In 1984, Lepschy was appointed a Head of the Italian Department at the University College London and founded the Centre for Italian Studies. While teaching, Lepschy co-edited a book with Verina R. Jones titled With a Pen in Her Hand: Women and Writing in Italy in the Nineteenth Century and beyond. The book was a collection of essays delivered at the Conference on Women and Writing in Nineteenth-Century Italy in February 1997. In 2002, Lepschy co-edited another book titled Multilingualism in Italy, Past and Present with Arturo Tosi.

Lepshy was awarded the Order of Merit of the Italian Republic, the Order of the Star of the Italian Solidarity and, in 2011, the British Academy’s Serena Medal for in recognition of her work.