People

Oxford Centre for Diabetes, Endocrinology and Metabolism (OCDEM)

Richard Stone (FREng, FSAE, FIMechE) is one of Somerville’s Engineering Fellows, having been one of the first men to join the Governing Body of Somerville College in 1994.

Professor Stone is a world-renowned authority in the mobility industry, and the author of Introduction to Internal Combustion Engines, arguably the definitive textbook on the topic. His research interests are the modelling and measurement of combustion and heat transfer in spark ignition engines, cryogenic systems, and the measurement of laminar burning velocities in zero gravity.

Read Professor Stone’s retirement feature in the Somerville Magazine

The distinguished jurist Gopal Subramanium is a former Solicitor General of India and a Senior Advocate of the country’s Supreme Court.

Mr Subramanium was born in 1958 in Bangalore, and studied law at the University of Delhi. He was the youngest lawyer to be designated a Senior Advocate by India’s Supreme Court and has appeared as lead counsel in a number of landmark cases. Between 2009 and 2011 he served as Solicitor General of India, and was presented with the National Law Day Award for Outstanding Jurist by the President of India in 2009. One of Mr Subramanium’s most important contributions to legislation in India was to improving India’s sexual violence laws.

Somerville is a place where anybody who is interested in discovering himself and more importantly solutions for the world will find a vital wellspring of opportunity.

GOPAL SUBRAMANIUM

Mr Subramanium is a generous benefactor of the Oxford India Centre for Sustainable Developement. He endowed the Gopal Subramanium Scholarships in honour of his teacher His Holiness Shri. Bharati Tirtha. The scholarships support talented Indian postgraduate scholars to study at Oxford, with the first matriculating in 2017. He also supported the college choir’s tour of India in December 2018, which featured concerts and workshops with disadvantaged children in Goa and Mumbai.

In 2019, Mr Subramanium was elected as a Foundation Fellow of Somerville, the College’s highest recognition for philanthropy.

In its commitment to tackling the pressing challenges of the world, Somerville must be regarded not merely as an avant garde institution of promise and ability, but one that is deeply committed to the fundamental canons of humanism.

GOPAL SUBRAMANIUM

For the last three years, I have been involved in Oxford’s first Marie Curie international training network in the humanities: the project on ‘Mobility of Ideas and Transmission of Texts’ (MITT) studies the medieval transmission of learning from the univiersities to the wider readership that could be reached through the vernacular.

Together with partners in Antwerp, Freiburg, Lecce, and Leiden, we have built up a network og 20 graduates and post-docs and held regular interdisciplinary workshops. One of the early stage researchers, Racha Kirakosian, is based at Somerville, and together,we organized a conference on ‘Medieval Women and their Books’, held jointly at the Talyorian and at Somerville.

Arising from this project, I have completed a series of articles on the use of song in mystical writing, and am planning a joint colloquium with a musicologist on the ‘Jenaer Liederhandschrift’ and the ‘Carmina Burana’ manuscript, as well as a project on voice and style as medieval literary concepts. I am interested more generally in the relationship between cultures in the middle ages – Latin and the vernacular, manuscript and voice, lay and institution, and in the role which gender plays in negotiating such cultural tensions.

Further details of my research interests, as well as an updated list of my publications, can be found on my departmental page.

Ritheka Sundar holds an undergraduate degree in economics from Stella Maris College in Chennai. She aims to contribute towards building an empathetic society, with reduced poverty, so that people from marginalised social and economic backgrounds have an increased access to better opportunities and subsequently, a better life.

While performing research for a course in Agricultural Economics, she learned that women farmers are more constrained by the lack of access to land, technology, and financial resources.

In this light, she is specifically interested in analysing gender-based income inequalities within the agricultural labour market in India while also considering the effect the current trends in climate change can have on the target population. As one of the nine students chosen from her college to pursue the Millennium Fellowship in
2021, hosted by MCN and United Nations Academic Impact, she undertook a project on financial literacy to demystify personal banking and finance for college students in Chennai.

Ritheka has worked as a Senior Research Associate with The Parley Project, a youth-led organisation called where she has spearheaded the Prep with Parley Initiative that aims to improve students’ access to information related to graduate admissions process. She is currently a mentor at Project EduAccess, a non-profit initiative that aims to improve access to higher education for learners from marginalised communities in South Asia. Working with Bhumi, she volunteered as a mentor to engage students creatively and teach them about preserving the environment.

As a first generation student, she is deeply grateful for the support offered by the Oxford India Centre for Sustainable Development (OICSD). Here, she aims to refine her research and work closely with the other scholars.

Ramakash graduated from Tamil Nadu National Law University in 2021 with a gold medal. He completed his LL.M. from O.P. Jindal Global University in 2022 with a gold medal again. Before joining Oxford, he worked as a Young Professional at the Department of Legal Affairs, Ministry of Law and Justice, Government of India.

During his undergraduate course, Ram developed interest in legal issues concerning environment and climate change and he explored its intersection with other areas of law as part of the mandatory research projects across his courses. One such essay exploring the law governing inventions that seriously prejudice the environment won him the first prize at the 2^nd Shamnad Basheer Essay Competition on IP Law. Similarly, his interests led him to pursue an LL.M. in Environment, Energy and Climate Change wherein he studied these subjects at an advanced level.

As a first generation lawyer, Ram aspires to become a researcher-litigator/Judge in India, with a focus on law and climate change. During the B.C.L., he hopes to study law subjects through the lens of the ways they can be used to further climate change mitigation and adaptation. His specific interest lies in the manner in which principles from other subjects of law are used in climate change litigation, with a view to promote justice. 

Ram thanks his alma mater for providing opportunities that enabled him develop as an individual and explore his interests. He is grateful to the Oxford India Centre for Sustainable Development, the Somerville College and HSA Advocates Scholarship for enabling him pursue the B.C.L. which he believes would enhance his skills necessary to contribute to resolving legal and social issues that are of serious concern to him.           

At Somerville, I teach Old English to first-year students and Middle English to the second years.

I also supervise finalists who have chosen to write dissertations on Anglo-Saxon or later medieval topics and authors.

In the English Faculty, I teach a wide variety of medieval literature to undergraduates, though I particularly enjoy lecturing on religious texts and cultures of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. In conjunction with these lectures, I regularly take students to workshops in the Ashmolean, where we have the opportunity to view, handle and discuss the Museum’s extensive collection of devotional objects. I also play a role in the provision of teaching for second and third-year students who have chosen to specialise in the literature and language of the medieval period (we call this Course 2). At graduate level, I supervise a range of MSt and DPhil students, particularly those who work on religious and biblical literature, and on devotional texts written by and for women. Current and recent DPhil students have worked on the language of suffering in thirteenth-century pastoral texts for women, the practice of prayer in early medieval and contemporary contexts, the manuscripts of devotional texts, and the Wycliffite translation of the Bible.

In my own research, I am interested in English religious literature of the early Middle Ages, particularly that which was intended for the use of female audiences. At the moment I am working on a collection of thirteenth-century prayers which were apparently composed for (and possibly by) a group of women living on the borders between England and Wales. These women seem to have been highly intelligent individuals, very possibly from wealthy backgrounds. Yet they chose to spend their lives in seclusion, voluntarily locked into small cells in which they could focus their attention on God. I am fascinated by what motivated them to live such lives, and by the books that they read in their isolation. My edition of these prayers (known collectively as the ‘Wooing Group’) is to be published by Liverpool University Press. Below is a list of my further publications.

I am a Hooke Fellow at the Mathematical Institution.

My research interests include large scale numerical linear algebra (theory and applications), data assimilation, and treatment of covariance matrices. Alongside my research I’m interested in outreach and scientific crafting. Previously, I was a postdoctoral research associate in the School of Mathematics at the University of Edinburgh. 

Kiri Te Kanawa is a New Zealand lyric soprano best known for her repertoire of works by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Richard Strauss.

After leaving school, she won various singing competitions in New Zealand and Australia, and in 1966, after a period as a popular singer and recording artist, she became a student at the London Opera Centre.

As a soprano, Te Kanawa shot to stardom in the 1970s with a series of appearances at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, London, and the enthusiastic support of conductors such as Colin Davis and Georg Solti. Her first big success was as the Countess in Mozart’s The Marriage of Figaro in 1971. That was followed by a run of Mozart operas and, among others, a production of Giacomo Puccini’s La Bohème in which she sang Mimi. Her debut at New York’s Metropolitan Opera in 1974 as Desdemona in Giuseppe Verdi’s Otello was widely acclaimed. In 1981 she sang at the wedding of Prince Charles and Lady Diana Spencer, and her rendering of George Frideric Handel’s “Let the Bright Seraphim” reached a worldwide television audience of more than 600 million. She was created a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire (DBE) in 1982. She received similar honours in Australia (1990) and New Zealand (1995).

In addition to singing in a great number of opera recordings, Te Kanawa produced a number of popular recordings, including such works as Kiri Sings Gershwin (1987), Kiri Sings Porter (1994), Kiri Sings Berlin (1998), and Maori Songs (1999).

Although in 2002 she began to scale back her appearances on the opera stage, she actively continued to perform concerts and recitals in connection with the Kiri Te Kanawa Foundation (2004), whose mission it is to provide support and financial aid to struggling singers and musicians of New Zealand. In August 2009 Te Kanawa announced that she would fully retire from opera the following year. However, she continued to sing in public until 2016, when she performed her last concert. During this time she played Australian opera singer Nellie Melba in an episode (2013) of the TV series Downton Abbey.

Rajesh Thakker (FRCP, FRCPath, FmedSci, FRS) is the May Professor of Medicine at the University of Oxford, and a Fellow of Somerville College, Oxford.

He was previously Professor of Medicine at The Royal Postgraduate Medical School, The Hammersmith Hospital, London, until 1999, when he took up his present position in Oxford.

His main research interests include the molecular basis of disorders of calcium homeostasis. He has published over 350 articles, and has been the recipient of many prizes which include Young Investigator Award from the ASBMR (USA), the Raymond-Horton Smith Prize (Cambridge University, UK), the Society for Endocrinology (UK) medal, the European Journal of Endocrinology Prize (EFES), the Graham Bull Prize from the Royal College of Physicians (UK), the Parathyroid Medal from the Fondazione Raffaella Becagli (F.I.R.M.O.), the Jack W. Coburn Endowed Lectureship from the American Society of Nephrology, and the Louis V Avioli Founder’s Award from the American Society for Bone and Mineral Research (USA). In addition, he has served on the MRC Physiological Medicine and Infections Grants Committee (1994-1997), the MRC Clinical Training and Career Development Panel (1997-2000), the MRC Physiological Medicine and Infections Board (2000-2005), as Secretary to the Forum on Academic Medicine for the Royal College of Physicians (UK) and the Academy of Medical Royal Colleges (2002-2005), and on the Council for the Society for Endocrinology (2003-2006). He has been Chairman of the National Institute of Health Research (NIHR) / MRC Efficacy and Mechanisms Evaluations (EME) Board since 2008. He was elected Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS) in 2014.

To respond adaptively in novel settings, intelligent agents must develop certain invariances (or abstractions) to map the infinite variety of the natural world to some smaller number of concepts, features, or values. Dr. Jessica Thompson investigates the computational principles that govern how those abstract representations develop through experience.

As a postdoctoral researcher in Chris Summerfield’s group at University of Oxford, she uses careful experimental design to establish the functional role of various computational ingredients in artificial neural networks trained on visual reasoning tasks. She completed her PhD at the International Laboratory for Brain, Music & Sound Research (BRAMS) and the Quebec Artificial Intelligence Institute (Mila) at University of Montreal where her research focused on characterizing and comparing representational hierarchies in artificial neural networks and the human auditory system.

Benjamin Thompson (FHRS) is a medieval historian who specialises in the role of the church in society and politics between the Norman Conquest and the Reformation in England.

He is working on a book provisionally titled The Alien Priories Transformed: Church, Society and Politics in Late Medieval England which examines the ‘alien’ priories, lands and monasteries in England owned by French abbeys as a result of the Conquest.  These came under increasingly xenophobic scrutiny during the Hundred Years War, which provoked a public debate about the correct use of ecclesiastical resources.  Their eventual confiscation – more than a century before the Dissolution of the Monasteries – established the legitimacy of the secular power’s intervention in re-ordering the church.

Professor Thompson has investigated these broad themes across a range of material.  Recent articles have focused on the underlying ideology of the church in its relation to society and politics, for instance the tension between the clergy’s sense of difference from the laity based on their spiritual function of ministering to souls, and their practical integration into a society which embraced religious culture and practice, and in which they were powerful officials and landowners.

He explored the ‘polemic’ of ecclesiastical reform as part of the Somerville medievalists’ interdisciplinary research group’s second project: their book on Polemic: Language as Violence in Medieval and Early Modern Discourse was published in 2015: http://www.ashgate.com/isbn/9781472425089

http://www.history.ox.ac.uk/faculty/staff/profile/thompson/index.html

Some chemotherapeutic agents, such as doxorubicin, have severe cardiotoxic side effects, which can lead to congestive heart failure in 5% of patients.

There are currently no imaging techniques available to detect patients before the onset of functional decline and there are no specific cardio-protective drugs. My research focuses on both the early detection of cardiotoxicity using the novel metabolic imaging technique, hyperpolarized magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and the repurposing of existing drugs that target cardiac metabolism as potential cardio-protective therapy. 

Before I came to the UK I trained as a vet at the Freie Universitaet Berlin (Germany). I then undertook an MRes in “In Vivo Imaging in Biology and Medicine” and a PhD in Biochemistry at the University of Cambridge. During my PhD in Prof Kevin Brindle’s laboratory I used hyperpolarized MRI to assess tumour metabolism and redox state in mouse models of cancer. I was then awarded a British Heart Foundation (BHF) Immediate Postdoctoral Basic Science Research Fellowship to move to the Department of Physiology Anatomy and Genetics (DPAG) at the University of Oxford. During my time in Prof Damian Tyler’s lab at DPAG I established a clinically-relevant rat model of doxorubicin-induced cardiotoxicity and found that hyperpolarized MRI can detect early changes in cardiac mitochondrial metabolism that precede functional decline. I am now in the process of testing existing drugs that boost mitochondrial metabolism and have some early encouraging data that shows prevention of functional decline with this approach in rats treated wit doxorubicin. 

In addition to my role as Career Development Fellow at the Department of Pharmacology, I am also the Isobel Laing Career Development Fellow in Medical Sciences at Oriel college. This involves tutorial teaching in metabolism for first year Medical and Biomedical Sciences students. I am furthermore a Stipendiary Lecturer in Medicine at Somerville College (since 2017), where I conduct tutorials in the ‘Organisation of the Body’ course for first year medics, for whom I am also personal tutor. In addition I offer FHS tutorials in cancer metabolism and I act as College Adviser to graduate students in Medical Sciences. In the past I was a Lecturer in Metabolism at Corpus Christi College (2016-2020). I am passionate about disseminating research to the wider public and have thus taken part in outreach events such as ‘Pint of Science’ and ‘FameLab’ as well as events organised by the BHF and Somerville College.

John Traill is a prominent conductor, composer, and educator.

He values musical endeavours at all levels and he fervently promotes music for all, with a particular focus in higher education. As Director of Music at St. Anne’s, John co-ordinates music across the breadth of the academic community. With twenty years experience combining freelance performance with academic positions at leading UK conservatoires and universities, John is currently also director of the Oxford Conducting Institute, the St Anne’s Camerata, Ensemble ISIS (the new music group at Oxford Faculty of Music), the City of Southampton Orchestra, and the Oxfordshire County Youth Orchestra.  Previous academic positions include acting Head of Performance at Bangor University, Teaching Fellow positions at Royal Holloway and King’s College, University of London, and lectureships at the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama, and Bristol University.

I am reading for the Doctor of Philosophy in Law (DPhil) at Faculty of Law, University of Oxford. My research focuses on judicial review exercised by the Supreme Court of India. I aim to focus on the judicial tools of Public Interest Litigation and Suo Moto cognizance and argue that although created to achieve ‘substantive justice’, the use of these tools has done more harm than good. I aim to propose a theory that shall achieve ‘substantive justice’ without compromising procedure, like these tools do.

I completed my Bachelor of Civil Law (BCL) degree in July 2021, with a focus on Comparative Equality Law, Constitutional Theory, Comparative Constitutional Law and Children, Families and State. Prior to Oxford, I obtained an undergraduate degree in law from National Law University (Jodhpur) India.

I am interested in the exercise of judicial review by the Court and believe that if the power exercised carefully can result in significant reforms to the judicial system. My interest in the field stems from my time appearing before the Supreme Court of India and the Delhi High Court as an advocate and as an intern before. This interest was further solidified during my BCL degree, in the papers of Constitutional Theory and Comparative Constitutional Law.  I am passionate about making the law accessible to the citizens, and to that effect have been running an online personal blog titled “The Basic Structure” since the past two years, wherein I simplify the constitutional law of India for a common man’s understanding.

The Oxford India Centre for Sustainable Development has very kindly given me the opportunity to pursue my DPhil at the University. I am particularly excited to join Somerville College, an institution that has significant ties with India. Being the first person from my family to study abroad and also pursue a DPhil, I am truly grateful to the OICSD and Somerville College.

Awards and Previous Qualifications:

JN Tata Scholar, JN Tata Endowment for the Higher Education of Indians (Tata Trusts) (July 2020)).

Enrolled as an Advocate with the Bar Council of Delhi, India (August 2019)

Recipient of Vice Chancellor’s Gold Medal (Best All-Round Student), National law University, Jodhpur

BBA. LLB (Constitutional Law Hons.), National Law University, Jodhpur (June 2019)

Judith Unwin read Philosophy Politics & Economics at Somerville College and subsequently spent 35+ years in international banking in the City.

She initially joined the merchant bank Lazard Brothers & Co., Limited as their first female graduate trainee and worked in the Bank’s International Division arranging financing for infrastructure projects in a range of overseas markets. Having first visited India in 1984 she has been a regular and frequent visitor ever since. 

After 10 years at Lazard Judith joined ANZ Grindlays Bank in London specialising in South Asia, particularly India. She was appointed to various UK Government advisory positions including the South Asia Advisory Group under the auspices of the then Department of Trade & Industry and participated in many Ministerial Trade Missions to India. 

From 2000 she held a number of senior roles at BNP Paribas London the last being head of a team working with the international Development Finance Institutions and Multilateral Agencies. She was a founding member of the Indo British Partnership and subsequently Director and Chair of the Nominations Committee of the UK India Business Council (2008-2014). She took a sabbatical from the Bank in 2006 to travel to rural India researching and working with women’s self help groups and microfinance schemes and has supported several Indian charities. 

In parallel with her professional career, Judith has held a number of Non Executive Director and pro bono trustee roles. 

She retired from banking in 2016 and is currently Chair of Contemporary Applied Arts in London as well as being involved with an Adult Literacy programme.

Judith was awarded an OBE in 2000 for Services to Export promotion to South Asia.

I am the Lord and Lady McNair Early Career Fellow in Law at Somerville College, teaching Criminal Law and Constitutional Law. My doctoral research, supervised by Professor Laura Hoyano and funded by the Gopal Subramaniam OICSD scholarship, examined how rape adjudication takes place in India.

Prior to taking up doctoral studies, I read on the Bachelor of Civil Law (BCL) programme and the MPhil in Law at Oxford as a Cornelia Sorabji Scholar. I also hold a Bachelor of Laws (LL.B.) degree from the National Law University, Delhi (India).

Awards and Previous Qualifications

• BA, LLB (Hons), National Law University Delhi (July 2017)
• Bachelor of Civil Law, University of Oxford (July 2018)
• Master of Philosophy in Law, University of Oxford (October 2019)
• Awarded Archibald Jackson Prize for securing a Distinction on the BCL
• Awarded Suresh Shroff Gold Medal for First Rank Holder of Batch of 2012-17, National Law University, Delhi.
• Recipient of Cornelia Sorabji Scholarship by Somerville College, University of Oxford and Goa Education Trust (British Council) Scholarship to pursue Bachelor of Civil Law (BCL) at University of Oxford for the year 2017-18.
• Recipient of Somerville College Alumni Scholarship and scholarship by Oxford India Centre for Sustainable Development (OICSD) to pursue MPhil (Law) at University of Oxford for the year 2018-19.
• Recipient of Gopal Subramanium Scholarship by OICSD Somerville College to pursue DPhil (Law) at University of Oxford starting October 2019.
• Awarded Modern Law Review Scholarship 2021.
• Awarded Mike Redmayne Award for research into Criminal Law and the Law of Evidence (MLR) 2022.
• Awarded Best Doctoral Student Prize at the Society of Legal Scholars’ Annual Conference 2023.

In 2014 Baroness Vadera was appointed as the first woman to chair a major UK bank.

Her move to Santander follows a remarkable career that has seen her at the heart of banking, business and politics in the UK and abroad. We asked her about the global financial crisis, trouble in the Eurozone, the outlook for women in the workplace and the lessons she learnt from an exceptional childhood.