Support Staff

Dame Judith Parker DBE QC is a former High Court judge.

She was called to the Bar in 1973, took Silk in 1991 and was elected a Bencher in 2000. She was appointed an Assistant Recorder in 1998, a Deputy High Court Judge in 1999, a Recorder in 2000 and a Judge of the High Court (Family Division) in 2008. She was a Family Division Liaison Judge from 2011 to 2016 and a Judicial Role Model from 2016 to 2019.

My current research examines English translations of a selection of German language novels, from Irmgard Keun’s Das kunstseidene Mädchen and Gilgi to Sasha Marianna Salzmann’s Ausser Sich. I focus on consciousness narratives whose authors have attempted to (and sometimes struggled to) articulate the mind of a gendered subject, and investigate how, and how successfully, these attempts have been translated into English. I am particularly interested in how creative, radical translational decisions seem especially suited to recreating the force and flavour of the original text.

I have a particular interest in teaching translation from German to English, at all levels and in a variety of ways. Recently I held a feminist translation micro-conference with second years, in which students workshopped German extracts together and presented their findings in the form of lightning talks. Other recent classes have focused on the translation of wordplay, children’s books, newspaper reports, and prose poetry. I also teach the core German Literature paper, and offer modules on Psychoanalysis, ‘Postwar Restoration Frenzy’ in Austria, Representing Trauma, as well as Goethe, and the Enlightenment.

I design and deliver outreach sessions for the Medieval and Modern Languages Faculty, to promote progression to languages A-Levels and GCSEs. I am working with schools in the North of England as part of the Faculty’s VOx programme, and have developed and led sessions around tactile translations of German poetry, the bilingual identity, and English-to-English translation classes.

Hi! I am Jairus, a third-year DPhil student in Experimental Particle Physics working on one of the four main experiments at the Large Hadron Collider. I like techno, Common Ground Oat Flat Whites, and thrifting. During my time at Somerville, I’ve been active in Committee – previously as Social Secretary and one of the a Equality & Diversity Rep’s – and I’m now honoured to be the MCR President. In my role, I oversee the MCR committee, ensuring everyone responsible in committee is fulfilling their roles effectively. Therefore, I oversee the social, welfare, and financial aspects of the MCR as a whole. From this, I lead meetings within the MCR and MCR committee, have regular updates with the Principal and other senior management, and represent the MCR within the College and the Oxford SU. But most importantly? I’m here to listen. Our MCR is wonderfully diverse, and I’m committed to ensuring everyone feels heard and supported. If you’ve got ideas to make our community even better (big or small) I’d love to hear it.

Professor Phillips holds the Professorship in Linguistics, and he currently is head of department (“Faculty Board Chair”) in the Faculty of Linguistics, Philology, and Phonetics, a department whose existence owes a great deal to the efforts of legendary Somervillian Anna Morpurgo Davies, Professor of Comparative Philology from 1971-2004.

Professor Phillips returned to Oxford in 2024 after 33 years based in the United States. As an undergraduate student in Oxford he came to Somerville for tutorials in medieval German. Later, in a career spent mostly at the University of Maryland, where he retains a part-time role, he built an interdisciplinary research programme on the moment-by-moment processes involved in speaking and understanding, drawing on diverse languages and methods from linguistics, psychology, cognitive science, and computational modeling.

Beyond his primary research focus, Professor Phillips is also a passionate evangelist for language science. During more than two decades in Maryland he built a broad community of language scientists that spans 17 departments and centres across the university, from education to engineering, leading to the creation of the Maryland Language Science Center, a unique interdisciplinary hub that he directed from 2013-2023. As part of these efforts he led innovations in postgraduate training that trained 100 PhDs from 10 fields. In Oxford he is working on building connections across language experts across the university.

Outside work, Professor Phillips is enthusiastic about community building through running and walking. He supported the spread of parkrun events in Maryland and across the US, and in Oxford he supports healthy communities through his role in the weekly University Parks parkrun and the Oxford University Cross Country Club.

Recent publications

Colin’s website

Hey, I’m Chloe the First Generation and Low Income Student Rep in the MCR.

I am a first year DPhil Student in Primary Healthcare Sciences, exploring Sarcoma and AI using social science research methods, I’m a Sociologist by background. I am also a first-gen student! In the coming year I will be running some events and workshops within the MCR to support the first gen and low income graduate students. Outside of my DPhil I am a powerlifter, coffee lover and reader.

Feel free to contact me with any concerns or queries.

Matt leads Somerville’s Communications team.

Matt manages Somerville’s social media presence and website, as well as working on the team’s regular publications and reporting on College life and research. 

Luke Pitcher teaches ancient Greek and Roman literature.

He is principally interested in the writing of history in antiquity. His recent works include Writing Ancient History: An Introduction to Classical Historiography (London, 2009) and chapters in the Blackwell Companions to Julius Caesar and Greek and Roman historiography. At present he is engaged in a study of the historian Appian.

Hey! I’m Lucy, one of two of Somerville’s LGBTQ+ Reps. Our role is to represent and support the queer community at Somerville. This mostly involves running events, but it also includes supporting student welfare and running the Gender Expression Fund (GEF). Our biggest events are the LGBTQ+ Formal, a formal dinner held in Michaelmas; and Pride Week, but there are smaller events on almost every week.

I am a Professor in the Department of Mathematics at UCLA. Previously, I was Professor of Nonlinear and Complex Systems in the Mathematical Institute at University of Oxford.

I was also a Tutorial Fellow in Somerville College. Before then, I studied at Caltech and Cornell, before a postdocs at Georgia Tech and and Berkeley.

I am also a die-hard fan of the Los Angeles Dodgers. You can also find me on Facebook and Twitter (@masonporter). I am also involved with the Legends of Caltech movie and co-edited Legends of Caltech III.

I joined Oxford as the Sybille Haynes lecturer after an enjoyable career as a content developer for museum exhibitions and visitor attractions in New Zealand, Australia, Southeast Asia, and the United Kingdom, between degrees from Victoria University of Wellington (New Zealand), University College London, and the University of Oxford.

These experiences have given me special interest in the stories we tell about the past through its material culture. My research focuses on using archaeology, and in particular architecture, to reconstruct the beliefs, institutions, and economies of societies with little or no surviving literature. I am especially interested in how the remains of buildings reveal information about perceptions of the divine and the role of cult, as shown by my work on the civic, social, and economic functions of temples in Archaic central Italy. My research also challenges traditional divisions between pre-Roman and Roman archaeology by examining continuities in material culture and refining our perceptions of early Rome.

My teaching likewise spans pre-Roman and Roman material. I teach papers on the archaeology of Italy between the Iron Age and end of the Roman Empire, and have special interests in Roman art and the archaeology of religion.