People

My research lies at the intersection of probability, statistics and computation, applied to problems in genetics.

I am interested in what we can learn about evolution by analysing sequenced genomes: for instance, through reconstructing the shared genetic history of a sample of individuals, we can gain insights into past demography, understand how genetic variation arises and how it is shaped by natural selection to produce the patterns we observe in the data. 

Trained in soil science, Associate Professor John Ingram gained extensive experience in the 1980s working in Africa and Asia in agriculture and forestry research projects.

In 1991 he was recruited by UK’s Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) to help organise, coordinate and synthesise research on global change and agroecology, part of IGBP’s international global change research programme. In 2001 he was appointed the Executive Officer for the international research project “Global Environmental Change and Food Systems” (GECAFS). On the close of GECAFS in 2011 he was appointed NERC Food Security Leader until assuming his current role of Food Systems Programme Leader at the University of Oxford’s Environmental Change Institute in May 2013.

John’s interests are in the conceptual framing of food systems; the interactions among the many actors involved and their varied activities, and the outcomes of their activities for food security, livelihoods and environment; and food system resilience. He has designed and led regional food system research projects in Europe, south Asia, southern Africa and the Caribbean and has conceived, developed and/or led a range of major international research initiatives. He has had substantial interaction with FAO, UNEP and CGIAR and many other international organisations, with national departments and agencies, with NGOs, and with businesses in the food sector, helping to establish research on the links between food security and environment through the analysis of food systems. In addition to leading the food systems research group within ECI, he also leads the multi-university post-graduate Interdisciplinary Food Systems Teaching and Learning programme (IFSTAL), and coordinated the UK Global Food Security programme ‘Resilience of the UK Food System‘. He is an Associate Professor in Oxford’s School of Geography and the Environment, and Senior Research Fellow at Somerville College.

I grew up in Britain and in the US. I studied at Cambridge, and was a tutorial fellow at Somerville for 36 years, 1982-2018. I hold the title of Professor of Modern History from the university, and continue to supervise graduate students.

I am interested in government, society and ideas, in Britain, Europe and the larger European world, between the later seventeenth and mid nineteenth centuries. More specifically, my research and writing has two main strands. One concerns developments in British, especially English social policy during the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries: my monograph Inferior Politics pulls together some of writings on that topic. In addition, for about twenty years I have been running an international collaborative project about changing attitudes to and practices associated with democracy in Europe and both Americas in the same period. We have published three books arising from that project, and are now at work on a fourth and final volume, which focusses on what we call central and northern Europe: broadly, Germany and lands adjacent. I see the academic study of history as a collaborative exercise, and have been involved in collaborative projects throughout my career. Between 1990 and 2000 I was co-editor of Past and Present, and have recently retired from a position as chair of that journal’s editorial board. I’m also on the boards of several other English and French-language history journals. I have spent several periods teaching or researching abroad: in Australia, Germany, Japan, France and most recently Finland.

My research interests pertain to public international law and climate change. I seek to study the impact of rising sea levels on international maritime boundaries and maritime entitlements, to better understand how the law on this subject may be developed to accommodate such change.

My attraction to the law stems from the pivotal role it plays in shaping society. It is for this reason that I have nurtured a deep interest in public international law. I believe it possesses tremendous potential to change the lives of the most vulnerable, and mold society for the better.

During my undergraduate studies at the National Law School I pursued every opportunity to further my passion for international law. I was fortunate to argue the finals of the ICC moot before sitting judges of the International Criminal Court, at The Hague. I worked extensively on the law of statehood whilst competing at the Jessup Moot. Through my internship with Mr. Soli Sorabjee, I worked on a major international maritime dispute, the Enrica Lexie case.

The Rhodes Scholarship enabled me to read for the Bachelor of Civil Law at the University of Oxford, where I engaged more deeply with the subject through courses such as International Law and Armed Conflict as well as International Law of the Sea. I added breadth to this engagement in my second year at Oxford where I read for an MSc in Refugee and Forced Migration Studies, gaining a better understanding of the real-world hurdles that reside in the practice of international law.

I hope to nurture this passion further, as an Indira Gandhi Scholar at the Oxford India Centre, whilst reading for my DPhil in Law at Somerville.

Awards and Previous Qualifications

• Oxford – MSc in Refugee and Forced Migration Studies (Distinction)
• Oxford – Bachelor of Civil Law (Distinction)
• NLSIU – B.A., LL.B. (H)
• Rhodes Scholar (India & Exeter, 2017)
• Oxford Department of International Development Faculty Prize for Best Thesis in the MSc (RFMS) [2019]
• Volterra Fietta Prize for International Law of the Sea (BCL) [2018]
• Gold Medal for Best Student Advocate [2017]

Savy is reading for the MSc in Law and Finance offered jointly by the Faculty of Law and the Saïd Business School. He graduated from the National Law University, Delhi in 2015 and previously worked with an international law firm in London. Savy is admitted as a solicitor in England and Wales and as an advocate in India.

Our world today is increasingly introspecting the role of the corporation. While it remains to be seen whether the shift towards stakeholder capitalism by the 2019 Business Roundtable was just empty rhetoric, socio-economic inequalities continue to widen further. I am keen to explore the economic interests underpinning corporate decision-making, the financial tools used to evaluate corporate success and the balancing of legal relations of the corporation with its stakeholders.

The Oxford India Centre and the Zaiwalla scholarship have given me the incredible opportunity to study while at Somerville College for which I am grateful. I am keen to immerse myself in the programme with the hope that I can meaningfully contribute to the above-mentioned issues which I believe will come to define my generation.

‘I want to develop a greater understanding of the interrelationship between law and the social embeddedness of energy transition in India. By viewing energy transition through the brackets of law we see a powerful story of how it stimulates social justice. Transition creates access to electricity, improves standards of living and stimulates sustainable development’

Navya Jannu is a Doctor of Philosophy candidate at the University of Oxford. She is an Indira Gandhi scholar at the Oxford India Centre for Sustainable Development at Somerville College and the Convenor of the Environmental Law Discussion Group at the Oxford Law Faculty.

Navya’s research focuses on law, climate change and clean energy infrastructure in India. Through her doctoral research, Navya explores the role of lower courts and tribunals in India’s transition to renewable energy. In particular, she studies the role of the Appellate Tribunal for Electricity (APTEL) and National Green Tribunal (NGT) in this process. Prior to the DPhil, Navya read for an MPhil in Law in 2018 and completed the Bachelor of Civil Law (BCL) with Distinction in 2017 at the University of Oxford as an HSA Advocates Scholar. She holds a Bachelor of Arts and Bachelor of Laws with First Class Honours from Jindal Global Law School (JGLS), India.

Awards and Previous Qualifications:

• Oxford- MPhil in Law (2018)
• Oxford Law Faculty Scholarship (2017)
• Oxford- Bachelor of Civil Law (Distinction) (2017)
• HSA Advocates Scholarship (2016)
• Archibald Jackson Prize for Distinction on BCL (2017)
• JGLS- B.A., LL.B (Hons) (Distinction) (2016)
• University Gold Medal for Outstanding Academic Performance and All-Round Excellence (JGLS, 2016)

Margaret Ann Jay, Baroness Jay of Paddington PC, is a Labour party peer and former Leader of the House of Lords.

Margaret’s father was former Labour Prime Minister, James Callaghan, and she was educated at Blackheath High School and Somerville College, Oxford.

Between 1965 and 1977 she held production posts within the BBC working on current affairs and further education television programmes. She then became a journalist on the BBC’s prestigious Panarama programme, and Thames Television’s This Week. She went on to present the BBC2 series Social History of Medicine, as well as being a contributor to Newsnight, Any Questions, Question Time and other current affairs programmes. She has a strong interest in health issues, notably as a campaigner on HIV and Aids. She was a founder director of the National Aids Trust in 1987. She is also a patron of Help the Aged.

She was appointed a life peer in 1992 with the title of Baroness Jay of Paddington, of Paddington in the City of Westminster, and acted as an opposition Whip in the House of Lords. In association with the shop workers’ union, she led opposition to the liberalisation of Sunday trading hours.

After her party’s election victory in 1997, she became Health Spokesman and Minister for Women in the House of Lords. From 1998 she was Leader of the House of Lords, playing a pivotal role in the major reform that led to the removal of most of its hereditary members. She retired from active politics in 2001.

Among numerous non-executive roles that she has taken on since retiring from politics, she was a non-executive director of BT Group. She is currently co-chair of the cross-party Iraq Commission (along with Tom King and Paddy Ashdown) which was established by the Foreign Policy Centre think-tank and Channel 4.

Carole Jordan’s career has centred on the use of x-ray and UV spectra as plasma diagnostics.

She was a pioneer of the calculations required to determine the relative number densities of elements in different stages of ionization. As her career progressed she became heavily involved with observations of stellar spectra, especially ones obtained from space platforms such as the International Ultraviolet Explorer (IUE) and the Hubble Space Telescope.

Throughout her career she worked on the interpretation of solar spectra. In both solar and stellar areas, she was the first to identify the atomic or molecular origins of many emission lines, including molecular fluorescence in cool giants that has revealed the inhomogeneous structure of their chromospheres.

Later, she transferred her solar techniques to the analysis of the spectra of cool stars.

The broadening of emission lines in both dwarf and giant stars exceeds that expected from the local kinetic temperature. In dwarf stars she has interpreted this broadening as being associated with the passage of magnetohydrodynamic waves through the outer atmosphere, which go on to heat the corona. Such waves can originate from magnetic field motions, or through magnetic reconnection, at low levels of the outer atmosphere. 

To test proposed theories she has developed techniques to determine from spectra the temperature of the plasma as a function of height and has applied these to the Sun and many cool stars. She has an international reputation as an authority on the coronae of the Sun and cool stars. 

Throughout her career Carole has been active in the research community. She has been an editor of Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, Solar Physics, and The Observatory.

She was a member of the Councils of both SERC and PPARC, and under SERC, Chair of the Solar System Committee. She has served twice on the Council of the IOP and was its first Vice-President, Science. She was a Secretary and then the first female President of the Royal Astronomical Society. 

She is valued for her hard work and forthright, no-nonsense approach to people and problems, her honesty, and her total commitment to science.

Daniel is a barrister and currently a Probationary Tenant at Wilberforce Chambers.

Daniel teaches Roman Law at Somerville, having previously taught FHS Contract Law on behalf of the College in 2023. Daniel also teaches FHS Company Law on behalf of the Law Faculty. Alongside his academic and professional commitments, Daniel is a DPhil (part-time) candidate researching the control of discretionary powers and duties in company law, contract law, and insolvency law and is supervised by Professor Christopher Hare.

My research focuses on developing and integrating advanced NMR and mass spectrometry–based multiomics approaches to characterise metabolic pathways underlying neurodegenerative diseases, particularly Alzheimer’s disease and multiple sclerosis.

I aim to bridge analytical chemistry, physical chemistry, and data science to identify blood-based biomarkers for early disease detection and progression prediction.

At Oxford, I combine NMR metabolomics with proteomic and imaging biomarkers to develop predictive models for cognitive decline and disease progression, working in close collaboration with groups in Pharmacology and Biochemistry. Alongside my research, I tutor medical students at Somerville College, offering insights into disease from a molecular and analytical chemistry perspective.

I completed my DPhil in Chemistry at the University of Oxford in 2025 and am now an EPSRC-funded postdoctoral fellow in Physical Chemistry.

Hi, my name is Aparajita (She/Her), and I am a graduate student reading for the Bachelor of Civil Law. 

I am an intersectional feminist and aim to view the world from this lens to be conscious of, and reveal, the various ways in which our policies, infrastructures and values reflect and perpetuate women’s oppression. I enjoy studying both private and public law issues from a feminist perspective, ranging from insolvency law to domestic violence.  

As the MCR Women’s Representative, my aim is to ensure that Somerville is and remains an inclusive space that champions women from all walks of life. This ranges from organising events that celebrate women to ensuring that women feel safe and comfortable on campus. 

I am always available for a quick chat, coffee, or if you just need a study partner. 🙂 I am happy to discuss any concerns with full confidentiality and an open mind. 

I am currently working on two related research projects:

First, in my dissertation project, I analyse the relationship of movement control and state building processes. By drawing from ideational critical juncture and institutional order arguments and by comparing political developments in Europe, the British Empire, and the United States, I show that there exist long exclusionary traditions of movement control in today’s Western democracies. I argue that practices of movement control are often underpinned by ideas about colonialism, race, and differential humanity. The monopolisation and institutionalisation of movement control in the late 19th and early 20th centuries is closely entangled with the rise of the modern nation state system.

Secondly, I am interested in the phenomenon of illiberalism in liberal democracies. As outlined in a recent article, I argue that what is commonly referred to as illiberalism should be analytically separated into two concepts: one anti-democratic variant termed disruptive illiberalism and one rooted in the politics of exclusion termed ideological illiberalism. By analysing these two strains individually, I develop a general theory of illiberalism in liberal democracies and try to answer the central question that motivated both of my projects: Why do even purportedly liberal democracies regularly and frequently engage in glaringly illiberal acts?

In my research, I combine approaches from history and the social sciences to uncover distal causes of political traditions and the interactions of ideas and institutions. My work employs qualitative, historical, and comparative methods. My primary supervisor is Desmond King. My secondary supervisors are Andrew Thompson (College) and Matthew Gibney (Department).

Before starting the DPhil in Politics at Oxford’s Department of Politics and International Relations and Nuffield College, I completed the MSc in Politics Research (St Hilda’s College, Oxford). I hold a double-major BA in History and Political Science from Heidelberg University, Germany. During my studies at Heidelberg, I spent a year at St Hugh’s College. My Bachelor and Master’s programmes in Heidelberg and Oxford were funded by the German Academic Scholarship Foundation and St Hilda’s College. My doctoral studies have been jointly funded by Nuffield College and the Economic and Social Research Council’s Grand Union DTP (Migration Pathway). I previously acted as the Action Reconciliation Service for Peace Fellow (ARSP) at the Holocaust Center of the Jewish Federation and the August Wilson Center for African American Culture, both Pittsburgh, PA, and as the Allianz Foundation Fellow at ARSP in Philadelphia, PA.

I teach Prelims Politics at Somerville College and offer undergraduate teaching of papers 205: “The Government and Politics of the United States” and 212: “International Relations in the Era of Two World Wars”. I offer postgraduate seminars in Qualitative Methods.

As of 2022, I am an AFHEA.

Dame Mary Keegan was born in 1953 and educated at Brentwood County High School and Somerville College, Oxford.

She was with Price Waterhouse (later PwC) from 1977 until 2001, occupying a number of senior roles during that time. She was a founder member of the International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) Interpretations Committee and of the European Financial Reporting Advisory Group Board.

In 1997 she was appointed the UK member of both the council and the executive of FEE (Fédération des Experts Comptables Européens) and she was also a founding member of the International Forum on Accountancy Development. She was also a member of the UK’s Urgent Issues Task Force.

She chaired the UK’s Accounting Standards Board from 2001 until her move to Whitehall in 2004.

In 2007 she was awarded Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire in recognition of her hugely significant and lasting contribution to both HM Treasury itself and to the wider government agenda in financial management, government accounting and public spending. In 2014, she was given the accountancy profession’s most prestigious award – the ‘Award for Outstanding Achievement’ from the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales (ICAEW).

She has been a keen rower, sailor, gardener and musician, and has since 2008 been involved in a non-executive capacity in the National Audit Office, the Royal Horticultural Society, Falmouth University and the Business School at Exeter University.

Margaret read modern languages at Somerville College, Oxford, then took up a teaching post at Cheadle Hulme School. After nine years at CHS, Margaret moved to Withington Girls’ School, where she became Headmistress in 1986.

Margaret was appointed North West Chairman of the Girls’ Schools Association for three years, and National President in 1994, when the annual conference was for the first time, at her insistence, held in Manchester.

Margaret was appointed a Deputy Lieutenant of Greater Manchester in 1998. Her other local appointments have included membership of the Granada Foundation since 1986, the Court of the University of Manchester from 1991 to 2004, and Trusteeship of the Museum of Science and Industry from 1998 to 2004.

In retirement, she has been a governor of Bolton School and Cheadle Hulme School since 2001, and Chair of the Manchester University Press Board since 2000.

Dr Radhika Khosla is Associate Professor at the Smith School of Enterprise and Environment and Research Director of the Oxford India Centre for Sustainable Development at the University of Oxford. She is the Programme Leader in Zero Carbon Energy Use at Oxford’s ZERO Institute. 

Radhika’s research portfolio includes being Principal Investigator of the Oxford Martin School’s interdisciplinary and multi-country programme on the Future of Cooling, which examines rising extreme heat and the unprecedented increase in cooling energy demand in relation to the sustainable development goals. She is the Co-Investigator of Oxford Net Zero, an interdisciplinary research programme aimed at informing effective, equitable, and ambitious climate action, where she co-leads the workstream on inclusive and just net zero transitions.

Radhika works closely at the interface of research and policy. She is Editor-in-Chief of the high-impact peer reviewed journal, Environmental Research Letters. She has been Special Scientific Advisor to the UK’s House of Commons Environment Audit Committee for the inquiry on heat resilience and sustainable cooling (2023-24). She serves on the UK Government’s Foreign Commonwealth and Development Office UK-India Advisory Board. 

She has supported authorship of a number of international scientific reports and is lead author of the UNEP’s spotlight report on the first Global Cooling Watch (2023). She has also been an author of the UNEP Emissions Gap Report (2020) and the IPCC’s Sixth Assessment Report (2022). 

An urban climatologist by training, her work seeks to advance understanding of one of the most fundamental questions of our time: how can societies improve human well-being while preserving and enhancing the natural environment? Her interdisciplinary research examines the productive tensions between energy consumption trajectories, urban transitions, and climate change governance – in the context of development – that lie at the heart of this global challenge.

Radhika has led research agendas and international knowledge networks on cooling, urban energy demand, sustainable development, and climate change policy. Using socio-technical systems analysis she examines these themes across levels of governance. Her research priorities include interrogating how, when, and why does energy use change as households urbanize and lifestyles change? What forms of governance and political rationalities characterize the varied urban responses to climate change, given their (often competing) objectives to provide urban services? Whether, and how, can emerging economies accelerate energy demand transitions? And how can we understand and equitably shape the future of global cooling demand in response to unprecedented extreme heat?

In 2023, she received an Honourable Mention for the Bina Agarwal Prize in Ecological Economics for her work on energy consumption pathways. As Research Director of the Oxford India Centre for Sustainable Development, she helps bridge research and networks on India at Oxford and international and was recognized as one of the ‘most influential people’ in UK-India relations (2019).

Radhika’s research has been covered widely in over 2,700 articles across 53 countries since 2021, including by The New York Times, The Times, The Independent, Reuters, the FT, The Guardian, Al Jazeera, CNN, Time Magazine, Times of India, The Conversation and Carbon Brief. She has appeared on podcasts and broadcast television including the Sky News Daily Climate Show, Channel 5 News (1 million+ live viewers) and DW News (47,000 views).

Radhika’s other current academic affiliation is at the University of Pennsylvania (USA). She is on the boards of various organizations, journals and book presses; and holds a range of advisory roles within and beyond Oxford. Previously, she has been a Research Affiliate at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (USA), Fellow at the Centre for Policy Research (India), and Staff Scientist at the Natural Resources Defense Council (USA). Radhika holds a PhD in the Geophysical Sciences from the University of Chicago and an undergraduate and master’s degrees in Physics from the University of Oxford.

Teaching

Spaces, Infrastructure and Technology for Net Zero, Sustainable Development, for the MSc in Enterprise and the Environment

Governance, Policy and Politics for the MSc in Nature, Society and Environmental Governance, School of Geography and the Environment

Environmental Governance and Development for the MSc in Nature, Society and Environmental Governance, School of Geography and the Environment

Climate Change Negotiations: Policy Challenge for the Master’s in Public Policy, Blavatnik School of Government

Global Opportunities and Threats: Oxford Program for MBA students, Saïd Business School

Climate Change School, Oxford Climate Society, University of Oxford