Boris Motik
Senior Research Fellow in Computer Science; Professor of Computer Science
Boris Motik
Senior Research Fellow in Computer Science; Professor of Computer Science
Before coming to Oxford, I worked in the Information Management Group, School of Computer Science, University of Manchester.
I got my PhD from the University of Karlsruhe under supervision of Prof. Rudi Studer. While in Karlsruhe, Germany, I was employed at the Research Center for Information Technologies (FZI). I have worked with companies including EDF and Samsung.
I am interested in developing algorithms and techniques necessary for realizing advanced applications in the Semantic Web. In the past, my research is focused around the ontology language OWL. More recently, I became interested in applying ontology techniques to data management problems in databases and big data. Specifically, I am investigating ways in using variants of datalog — a language at the intersection of logic programming and databases — to represent and access data, and I am studying the related theoretical and practical problems, such as efficient evaluation of datalog programs and efficient maintenance of datalog materialisations. My research involves the development of tools that demonstrates the techniques I am working on.
You can view a complete list of my publications with downloadable papers here.
Awards
- Distinguished Paper at the 2017 International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence for the paper “Foundations of Declarative Data Analysis Using Limit Datalog Programs”
- Best Applications Paper at the 2016 International Semantic Web Conference for the paper “Semantic Technologies for Data Analysis in Health Care”
- The 2013 Roger Needham award by the British Computer Society (BCS) for “a distinguished research contribution in computer science”
- Selected as one of “2008 AI’s 10 to Watch” by the IEEE Intelligent Systems magazine
- The 2007 Cor Baayen award by the European Research Consortium for Informatics and Mathematics (ERCIM) for “a most promising young researcher in computer science and applied mathematics”
- Best Paper at the 2005 International Semantic Web Conference for the paper “On the Properties of Metamodeling in OWL”
You can view a complete list of my publications with downloadable papers here.
Halima Mughal
MCR Social SecretaryHi! My name is Halima Mughal (my friends call me Himi) and I’m currently one of Somerville MCR’s social secretaries! I am originally from Seattle, Washington and I am an MPhil student in comparative government at the DPIR. My research is on capital punishment and the death penalty. Outside of my research, I love watching movies, journaling, and listening to music (especially Taylor Swift). As a social secretary, my primary job is to help organize social events for our graduate students including formal/bar exchanges and wine and cheese nights 🙂 I’m looking forward to organizing lots of different events, feel free to contact me if you have any questions or ideas!
Sanghamitra Mukherjee
Matric Year: 2018 – Subject: DPhil Economics – Scholarship: Indira Gandhi Scholar
Sanghamitra Mukherjee
Matric Year: 2018 – Subject: DPhil Economics – Scholarship: Indira Gandhi Scholar
My research interests are in financial inclusion and sustainable agricultural development. I seek to understand the constraints that hinder the adoption and effective usage of savings and loans amongst smallholder farmers in developing economies.
My academic training is shaped by a Masters in Economics, Delhi School of Economics and a Masters in Public Policy, University of California, Berkeley. Keen to work on the intersectionality of sustainable development and finance, I focus on applied econometrics and development economics.
My tenure at Goldman Sachs cultivated my interest in financial markets, and also motivated me to apply my skills to the developing country context where issues of credit constraints, barriers to savings and missing insurance markets are very pertinent.
My experiences led me to appreciate that development policies do not operate in a vacuum but are fundamentally dependent on the social and institutional contexts in which they are devised. I received the Global Development Fellowship from USAID to undertake research on the “Enterprise Development Program” run by SaveAct in South Africa. I have experience as a researcher in the Economics department at U.C. Berkeley, working on randomized control trials in Kenyan maize markets. As a Project Manager at the Center for Effective Global Action, I worked with USAID in Uganda to design sustainable policies for solar waste management.
Academic Publications
Enterprise Development: A Deeper Understanding – Spring edition, 2018 of the Berkeley Public Policy Journal
Winner of the PBPPJ Prize for Outstanding Editorial Collaboration
Medha Mukherjee
Matric Year: 2022 – Subject: DPhil in Geography and the Environment – Scholarship: Oxford-Indira Gandhi Scholar
Medha Mukherjee
Matric Year: 2022 – Subject: DPhil in Geography and the Environment – Scholarship: Oxford-Indira Gandhi Scholar
Medha currently examines the intersections of politics, public policy, governance and finance in the delivery of essential services, such as safe drinking water to every household in rural India. Focusing on inequalities and intersectionality, she is interested in how inclusive and sustainable outcomes can be reached through national, state and individual choices. Gathering extensive and in-depth empirical evidence is a critical component of her work. She grounds her academic research in the lived experiences and narratives of communities, government decision-makers, political leaders and anyone in between. In 2023, she became the first Indian woman to receive the Frederick Soddy Postgraduate Award from the Royal Geographical Society – Institute of British Geographers.
Growing up in India, Medha has been sensitized to the juxtaposition of excess and inadequacy, in both rural and urban settings. Travelling across India’s diverse landscape, particularly the Himalaya, has shaped her perception of the delicate balance that exists between humans and the natural world. Her study of the Ethics and the Classics, as an English Literature undergraduate, has been pivotal in informing her research interests. Her five-year background as a writer in the film industry, especially for documentaries, contributes to her diverse methods which include photo-documentation, semi-structured interviews, surveys, multi-sited ethnography and archival research. She remains a strong advocate of transcending disciplinary boundaries, and is happy to engage in any discussion, academic and beyond, to further inclusivity.
Previous Qualifications
- Master of Science in Water Science, Policy and Management (with Distinction), University of Oxford, UK
- Bachelor of Arts (with First Class Honours) in English Literature, Jadavpur University, Kolkata, India
Previous Scholarship
- Felix Scholarship for MSc in Water Science, Policy and Management, University of Oxford, 2020-2021
Grants and Awards
- Travel and Special Project Grant awarded by Somerville College, University of Oxford, 2024
- Scholar Development Award from the Oxford India Centre for Sustainable Development, 2023
- Frederick Soddy Postgraduate Award from the Royal Geographical Society-Institute of British Geographers, 2023
- Catherine Hughes Grant awarded by Somerville College, University of Oxford, 2022
Publications
Peer-Reviewed Research Article
- Mukherjee, M. (2023) Power, paralysis and action: understanding flood risk management in Kerala, India. Environmental Hazards. pp. 1-32.
Working Paper
- Hope, R., McNicholl, D., Mukherjee, M. and Dickinson, N. (2023) Keeping piped water flowing in rural India. Uptime Global and Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment, University of Oxford.”
Research Article
- Mukherjee, M., 2023. Power, paralysis and action: understanding flood risk management in Kerala, India. Environmental Hazards, pp.1-32.
Working Paper
- Hope, R., McNicholl, D., Mukherjee, M. and Dickinson, N. (2023). Keeping piped water flowing in rural India. Uptime Global and Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment, University of Oxford.
Meghmala Mukherjee
Matric Year: 2022 – Subject: BCL – Scholarship: HSA Advocates ScholarMeghmala graduated from National Law University Odisha, in 2018 with B.B.A., LL.B. (Hons) topping her batch with 7 gold medals. She is reading for the BCL at Somerville College, and hopes to continue her time in Oxford by studying for a DPhil as she intends to frame and simplify the manner in which corporate law is taught in India.
She thanks her alma mater for providing a generous academic scholarship for 4 years which funded her studies, and provided her the impetus to become an advocate and practice in India. Professionally, she has represented both established and start-up clients receiving equity and debt investments over the past 4 years. These few years of practice has also helped her in refine her understanding of corporate law and its evolution.
She is interested in exploring the convergences of company law across common law jurisdictions and the influence of British colonialism on corporate law in India. Her specific interest lies in investor rights, and the interplay of their rights vis-à-vis the company as an entity, and is keen to explore how the exercise of investor rights may also lead to the downfall of corporations.
She is grateful to the HSA Advocates Scholarship, the Oxford India Centre for Sustainable Development and Somerville College for having given her the rare opportunity of pursuing her passion and read the BCL. She is looking forward to learn from some of the world’s leading professors and engage with a group of accomplished individuals where she will be able to discuss how local customs and practises are impacting multinational corporations as they enter niche jurisdictions.
Louise Mycock
Fellow & Tutor in Linguistics; Associate Professor in Linguistics
Louise Mycock
Fellow & Tutor in Linguistics; Associate Professor in Linguistics
My research focuses on syntax and how it interfaces with other aspects of linguistic structure, in particular with intonation and information structure.
I have worked with spoken and written data from languages including Hungarian, Japanese, and Slovenian, as well from different dialects of British English. In my research, I work within the theoretical framework of Lexical-Functional Grammar (LFG).
At the undergraduate level, I teach grammar and syntax to Prelims and FHS students in lectures, classes, and tutorials. I am proud to have been shortlisted three times in the category Most Acclaimed Lecturer (Humanities) at the OUSU Teaching Awards, and to have won the award in 2014 when I was a Departmental Lecturer in the Faculty of Linguistics, Philology and Phonetics.
Further information is available on my website.
A full list is available here: https://users.ox.ac.uk/~cpgl0023/publications.html
Peer-Reviewed Articles
- Funny that isn’t it: ProTags in combination at the right periphery
Mycock, L & Pang, C L
“Pragmatic marker combinations””, Journal of Pragmatics 182 (2021) 92
eds C Koops & A Lohmann
DOI: 10.1016/j.pragma.2021.06.008 - Lone pronoun tags in Early Modern English: ProTag constructions in the dramas of Jonson, Marlowe and Shakespeare
Mycock, L & Misson, J
English Language & Linguistics 25 (2021) 379
DOI: 10.1017/S1360674317000399
Somerville College News - The intonation of the Q-marking construction: A comparison of Hungarian and Slovenian
Mycock, L
Journal of Linguistics 56 (2020) 359
DOI: 10.1017/S0022226719000148 - Right-dislocated pronouns in British English: the form and functions of ProTag constructions
Mycock, L
English Language & Linguistics 23 (2019) 253
DOI: 10.1017/S1360674317000399 - Analysing ‘Wh’ echo questions: a typological perspective with special reference to Hungarian
Mycock, L
Argumentum 15 (2019) 575
Oxford University Research Archive: ORA - Prominence in Hungarian: alignment and the syntax-prosody interface
Mycock, L
Transactions of the Philological Society 108 (2010) 265
DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-968X.2010.01241.x - Multiple-clause constituent questions: intonation and variation in Hungarian
Mycock, L
Acta Linguistica Hungarica 57 (2010) 268
DOI: 10.1556/aling.57.2010.2-3.5 - Constituent Question Formation and Focus: a new typological perspective
Mycock, L
Transactions of the Philological Society 105 (2007) 192
DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-968X.2007.00188.x - The Role of Prosody in Constituent Question Formation: a comparison of Hungarian and Japanese
Mycock, L
Phonetician 95 (2007) 7
Oxford University Research Archive: ORA
Books, Chapters, Edited Volumes
- ‘Wh’-question intonation in Standard Colloquial Bengali: A Lexical-Functional Grammar analysis
Mycock, L, Xu, C & Lahiri, A
Chapter contribution to “Modular Design of Grammar: Linguistics on the Edge”
Oxford University Press (2021)
eds Arka, I W, Asudeh, A & King T H
Oxford University Press (2021)
DOI: tbc - The Oxford Reference Guide to Lexical Functional Grammar
Darymple, M, Lowe, JJ & Mycock, L
Oxford University Press (2019)
DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780198733300.001.000 - Syntax and its interfaces: an overview
Mycock, L
Chapter contribution to “Syntax-Theory and Analysis. An International Handbook.”
Handbooks of Linguistics and Communication Science. 42.1-42.3
Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter (2015)
eds T Kiss, A & Alexiadou, A
DOI: 10.1515/9783110377408.24 - Special Issue: The prosody-syntax connection
eds Vincent, N & Mycock, L
Transactions of the Philological Society 108 (2010) 265
Table of Contents
Reviewed Conference Proceedings
- Discourse functions of question words
Mycock, L
CSLI Publications 419 (2013)
Proceedings of the LFG13 Conference, University of Debrecen
eds M Butt & TH King - The prosodic encoding of discourse functions
Mycock, L & Lowe, J
CSLI Publications 440 (2013)
Proceedings of the LFG13 Conference, University of Debrecen
eds M Butt & TH King - The prosody-semantics interface
Dalrymple, M & Mycock, L
CSLI Publications 173 (2011)
Proceedings of the LFG11 Conference, University of Hong Kong
eds M Butt & TH King - ‘Wh’-in-situ in constituent questions
Mycock, L
CSLI Publications 313 (2005)
Proceedings of the LFG05 Conference, University of Bergen, Norway
eds M Butt & TH King - The ‘wh’-expletive construction
Mycock, L
CSLI Publications 370 (2004)
Proceedings of the LFG04 Conference, University of Canterbury, New Zealand
eds M Butt & TH King
Ain Neuhaus
Stipendiary LecturerDr Ain Neuhaus is a Specialty Registrar (Resident) in Radiology at Oxford University Hospitals and a Stipendiary Lecturer in Medicine at Somerville College.
Ain matriculated at Somerville in 2009 and completed his medical degree in 2019. During this period, he also intercalated a DPhil in Medical Sciences at St John’s College, Oxford, under the supervision of Prof. Alastair Buchan and Prof. Daniel Anthony, investigating blood flow regulation in the brain.
Ain’s ongoing research focuses on imaging in acute stroke, in particular how to use computed tomography for optimal selection of patients for clot retrieval treatment (endovascular thrombectomy) and predicting long-term outcome after stroke. He also has an active interest in artificial intelligence and machine learning, and how these techniques can be applied to image analysis in radiology.
Neuroprotection in stroke: the importance of collaboration and reproducibility
AA Neuhaus, Y Couch, G Hadley, AM Buchan
Brain 140 (8), 2079-2092
A systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials ofendovascular thrombectomy compared with best medical treatment for acuteischemic stroke
Joyce S. Balami, Brad A. Sutherland, Laurel D. Edmunds, Iris Q. Grunwald, Ain A. Neuhaus, Gina Hadley, Hasneen Karbalai, Kneale A. Metcalf, Gabriele C. DeLuca, and Alastair M. Buchan
International Journal of Stroke 10 (8), 1168-1178
2015
Submaximal angioplasty in the treatment of patients with symptomatic ICAD: a systematic review and meta-analysis
Seyedsaadat SM, Yolcu YU, Neuhaus A, et al
Journal of NeuroInterventional Surgery 2020;12:380-385.
Baroness Lucy Neville-Rolfe
Honorary FellowBaroness Neville-Rolfe DBE CMG is a business leader, Conservative peer, and former civil servant.
She served as Minister of State at the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy from 2016-17.
Lucy was convent educated and studied philosophy, politics and economics (PPE) at Somerville College Oxford. She is also a Fellow of the Institute of Chartered Secretaries.
She joined the House of Lords as a Conservative Peer in October 2013 and served as Parliamentary Under Secretary of State at the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (jointly with the Department of Culture, Media and Sport) and Minister for Intellectual Property from May 2015 until July 2016.
Lucy worked at Tesco Plc from 1997 to 2013 and was an executive director on the main Board from 2006.
She has also served on the boards of ITV, PwC and Metro AG and the China Britain Business Council and was Chairman of Dobbies Garden Centres Plc. She was also President of EuroCommerce, the EU trade association, between 2012 and 2014.
Until 1997 she was a senior civil servant in the Cabinet Office, the Prime Minister’s Policy Unit and the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food.
She was awarded her CMG for her time on the FCO Board and her DBE for services to industry and the voluntary sector.
Karen Margrethe Nielsen
Fellow & Tutor in Philosophy; Associate Professor in Philosophy
Karen Margrethe Nielsen
Fellow & Tutor in Philosophy; Associate Professor in Philosophy
I work on ancient philosophy, with special emphasis on Aristotle’s ethics and moral psychology. My current research is funded by a Leverhulme Major Research Fellowship (2022-24), which enable ‘well-established, distinguished researchers in the humanities and social sciences to complete a major piece of research’. My leave will result in a monograph titled Prohairesis: Aristotle’s Theory of Decision and its Legacy. At the time of award, I was the first philosopher in Oxford to receive the fellowship since John Hyman (2009) and Timothy Williamson (2008), and one of only three recipients (out of thirty) who was not yet a full professor.
I have recently published a book in the Cambridge Elements series titled Vice in Ancient Philosophy: Plato and Aristotle on Moral Ignorance and Corruption of Character (CUP, 2023) and was the editor (with Devin Henry) of Bridging the Gap between Aristotle’s Science and Ethics (CUP, 2015). My articles have appeared in specialist and generalist journals, including Phronêsis, Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy, Philosophical Review, Classical Quarterly and Philosophical Perspectives, as well as in edited volumes. My doctoral students include Bradford Kim (Van Leer Institute) and Katharine O’Reilly (Toronto Metropolitan University). My academic career spans four countries and five universities: Oxford, Western University, Canada, Cambridge (very briefly), Cornell, and The Norwegian University of Science and Technology.
I like to explore first-order philosophical questions in the course of analysing ancient Greek and Roman texts, covering topics ranging from deliberation and its preconditions, compulsion and voluntariness, coincidence and necessity, developmental biology, virtue and vice. In the more distant future, I hope to explore ancient theories of compelled and coerced action in a project I have dubbed ‘Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea: Coercion and Compulsion in Ancient Greek Thought’. I am also thinking about voluntaria mors in antiquity. But unless Oxford increases academic pay and reduces our workloads, you may instead find me working 8-3:30 as a mid-level bureaucrat somewhere in Norway, much like the last soul to choose a life in Plato’s Republic.
Career & Education
- 2022-24: Leverhulme Major Research Fellowship, for the project Prohairesis: Aristotle’s Theory of Decision and its Legacy
- 2013 – present: Associate Professor, Faculty of Philosophy and Tutorial Fellow, Somerville College, University of Oxford. Member of the Faculty of Classics 2022-
- 2012: Visiting Scholar by Election, Corpus Christi College, University of Oxford, Michaelmas
- 2012-13: Member of the Center for the Study of Greek and Roman Antiquity, Corpus Christi College
- 2005-12: Associate and Assistant Professor (TT), Department of Philosophy, Western University, Canada
- PhD, Sage School of Philosophy, Cornell University (2006); Fulbright Fellowship 2000-1. M.A. and B.A., Department of Philosophy, Norwegian University of Science and Technology
Teaching
Recent graduate seminars
- Aristotle’s Defence of Natural Slavery and its Legacy (TT 2022)
- Vice in Ancient Philosophy (HT 2020)
- Aristotle on Intellect and Virtue, with Dhananjay Jagannathan (Columbia) and Terry Irwin (TT 2019)
- Aristotle’s Three Ethics, with Terry Irwin (HT 2014)
- Latin Philosophy (TT 2014)
Lectures
- Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics, Latin Philosophy
Tutorials
- Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics (Greek and translation)
- Plato’s Republic (Greek and translation)
- Latin Philosophy: Cicero and Seneca (Latin and Translation)
- Aristotle on Nature, Life, and Mind (Greek and Translation)
- Plato on Knowledge, Language and Reality in Theaetetus and Sophist (Greek and Translation)
- Ethics
- Moral Philosophy
- General Philosophy
- Early Modern Philosophy
- Plato’s Meno & Euthyphro (Greek and translation)
- Early Greek Philosophy (Greek)
BOOKS
1. Vice in Ancient Philosophy: Plato and Aristotle on Moral Ignorance and Corruption of Character, Cambridge Element (Cambridge University Press, 2023)
2. Bridging the Gap Between Aristotle’s Science and Ethics, D. Henry and K. M. Nielsen (eds.) (Cambridge University Press, 2015)
IN PROGRESS
3. Prohairesis: Aristotle’s Theory of Decision and its Legacy. Funded by a Leverhulme Major Research Grant
JOURNAL ARTICLES; ARTICLES IN BOOKS
30. “Moral Theory in the Rhetoric” paper commissioned for Pierre Destrée and Laura Viidebaum (eds.), the Cambridge Critical Guide to Aristotle’s Rhetoric (CUP, est. submission 2024)
29. “Aristotle’s Ethics”, paper commissioned for Sophia Connell (ed.), New Cambridge Companion to Aristotle (CUP, est. submission 2024)
28. “The Magna Moralia on Prohairesis” to appear in Christopher Bobonich, Corinne Gartner and Martha Jimenez (eds.), Aristotle’s Other Ethics (OUP, 2023)
27. “Deliberation and Decision in the Eudemian Ethics”, in Giulio di Basilio (ed.), Essays on Aristotle’s Eudemian Ethics (Routledge, 2021)
26. “Guided Practice Makes Perfect: Habituation into Full Virtue in Aristotle’s Ethics”, in Komarine Romdenh-Romluc and Jeremy Dunham (eds.), Habit in the History of Philosophy (Routledge, 2021)
25. “Aristotle: Justice”, in K. Albrecht (gen. ed.), and J. Tasioulas (ed.), Encyclopedia of the Philosophy of Law and Social Philosophy (Springer Press, 2021)
24. “The Definitions of Phronêsis and Euboulia in Nicomachean Ethics VI”, in Carlo Natali and Pierre-Marie Morel (eds.), ‘Aristote. Les definitions en philosophie pratique’, special issue of Revue de Philosophie Ancienne, tome 38, no 2 (2020), pp 291-318
23. “Why Self-Knowledge Matters for Virtue”, in Fiona Leigh (ed.), Self-Knowledge in Ancient Philosophy (OUP, 2020), pp. 45-70
22. “The Tyrant’s Vice: Pleonexia and Lawlessness in Plato’s Republic”, Philosophical Perspectives (supplement to Nous), special issue on Ethics no 33 (2019), pp 146-69
21. “Deliberation and Decision in the Magna Moralia and Eudemian Ethics”, in Brink, Sauvé-Meyer & Shields (eds.), Virtue, Happiness and Knowledge: Essays for Gail Fine and Terence Irwin (OUP, 2018), pp. 197-215
20. “Spicy Food as Cause of Death: Coincidence and Necessity in Metaphysics E 2-3”, Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy vol. 52 (2017), pp. 303-42
19. “Vice in the Nicomachean Ethics”, Phronesis vol. 62, 1 (2017), pp. 1-25
18. “Aristotle”, in Timpe, Griffith and Levy (eds.), The Routledge Companion to Free Will (Routledge, 2016), pp. 227-235
17. “The Constitution of the Soul – Aristotle on Lack of Deliberative Authority”, Classical Quarterly, 65.2 (2015), pp. 572-86
16. “Introduction”, with Devin Henry, in D. Henry and K. M. Nielsen (eds.), Bridging the Gap Between Aristotle’s Science and Ethics (CUP, 2015), pp. 1-25
15. “Aristotle on Principles in Ethics”, in D. Henry and K. M. Nielsen (eds.), Bridging the Gap Between Aristotle’s Science and Ethics(CUP, 2015), pp. 29-48
14. “Aristotle on Economy and Private Property”, in Marguerite Deslauriers and Pierre Destrée (eds.), A Companion to Aristotle’s Politics (CUP, 2013), pp. 67-91
13. “The Will – Origin of the Notion in Aristotle’s Thought”, Antiquorum Philosophia 6 (2012), pp. 47-68
12. “The Nicomachean Ethics in Hellenistic Philosophy”, in Jon Miller (ed.), The Reception of Aristotle’s Ethics (CUP, 2012), pp. 3-30
11. “Ancient Ethics”, in H. LaFollette, S. Stroud and J. Deigh (eds.), The International Encyclopedia of Ethics (Wiley Blackwell, 2012)
10. “Deliberation as Inquiry: Aristotle’s Alternative to the Presumption of Open Alternatives”, The Philosophical Review, vol. 120, no 3 (2011), pp. 383-421
9. “The Good Will: Aristotle, Kant and the Stoics on What is Good without Qualification”, in S.Carson, J. Knowles and B. Myskja (eds.), Kant: Time, Space, and Ethics (Paderborn: Mentis Verlag, 2011), pp. 193-205
8. “The Private Parts of Animals: Aristotle on the Teleology of Sexual Difference”, Phronesis no 4-5, 2008, pp. 373-405
7. “Did Plato Articulate the Achilles Argument?” in Tom Lennon and Robert Stainton (eds.), The Achilles of Rationalist Psychology (Springer Press, 2008), pp. 19-42
6. “Dirtying Aristotle’s Hands? The Analysis of ‘Mixed Acts’ in Nicomachean Ethics, III, 1”, Phronesis no. 3, 2007, pp. 270-300
5. “Against Better Judgment? Davidson and Aristotle on Weakness of Will” in I et filosofisk terreng, Festskrift til Sverre Sløgedal, M. Dybvig, B. Molander, A. Øfsti (eds.) (Trondheim: NTNU, 2000), pp. 179-197
4. “Hvorfor begår mennesker onde handlinger?”, Interview with Prof. David Luban on Hannah Arendt’s Eichmann in Jerusalem – A Report on the Banality of Evil, Parabel, vol. III, no 1 (Trondheim: Tapir Publishers, 1999), pp. 77-86
3. “Hva er sannhet?”, Parabel, Journal for Philosophy and Theory of Science, vol. II, no 1 (Trondheim: Tapir Publishers, 1998), pp. 75-88
2. Hva er sannhet? — en studie i Martin Heidegger’s Sein und Zeit, Department of Philosophy Publication Series, no. 27 (Trondheim: NTNU, 1997)
1. “Tradisjon, sannhet og forståelse – en studie i Hans-Georg Gadamers hermeneutikk”, Agora, Journal for metafysisk spekulasjon, no 3 (1996), pp. 89-123
REVIEWS AND REVIEW ESSAYS
9. M. Deslauriers, Aristotle on Sexual Difference. Metaphysics, Biology, Politics (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2022), in preparation for Archiv für Geschichte der Philosophie (2024)
8. C. Olfert, Aristotle on Practical Truth (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017), Philosophical Review (2019) 128 (2), pp. 219-224
7. A. Kenny, The Aristotelian Ethics, revised ed. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017), Classical Review 68.2 (2018)
6. D. Scott, Levels of Argument (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015), review essay, Mind (2016), pp. 289-99
5. H. J. Curtzer, Aristotle and the Virtues (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012), review essay, Mind (2014), 1180-4
4. J. Miller, Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics: A Critical Guide (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011), Journal of Hellenic Studies, 2013, pp. 290-91
3. S. Goetz and C. Taliaferro, A Brief History of the Soul (Wiley-Blackwell, 2011), review essay, Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews, April 16, 2012. (with Angela Mendelovici)
2. G. Pearson and M. Pakaluk (eds.), Moral Psychology and Human Action in Aristotle (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011), Polis, The Journal of the Society for Greek Political Thought, vol. 29, no 1 (2012), pp. 199-205
1. H. Lorenz, The Brute Within: Appetitive Desire in Plato and Aristotle (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006), Journal of the History of Philosophy (2008), pp.477-8
Natalia Nowakowska
Fellow & Tutor in History; Professor in Early Modern History
Natalia Nowakowska
Fellow & Tutor in History; Professor in Early Modern History
Natalia Nowakowska is a historian of late medieval and early modern Europe, with a focus on the history of Poland in its European context.
She is a University Lecturer in History, and a Tutor & Fellow in History at Somerville College.
Brought up in the Polish post-WW2 diaspora community in London, Natalia read History at Lincoln College, Oxford (1995-8). After a spell working in social policy research, she returned to Oxford to complete a doctorate on a Polish Renaissance cardinal, and subsequently held postdoctoral research positions at King’s College London and at University College, Oxford. She joined the Oxford History Faculty in 2007.
Natalia has published on religious change in Renaissance Europe, and on the role which the Polish monarchy and its Jagiellonian dynasty played in those processes. Her first book Church, State and Dynasty in Renaissance Poland (co-winner of the Kulczycki Prize in the USA, 2008) explored the career of the allegedly syphilitic Polish cardinal-prince Fryderyk Jagiellon (d.1503). Her current book, Elusive Church: Luther, Poland and the Early Reformation, is the first major research project in over a century on the early Reformation in this sizeable sixteenth-century monarchy, and asks how the Polish story can inform our understanding of the European Reformations as a whole. Natalia has been awarded a British Academy Mid Career Fellowship for 2012-13 for this project.
Natalia teaches a range of late medieval and early modern papers at Oxford, encompassing European, British and South American history. She gives a lecture course on Jagiellonian Central Europe in the Renaissance period.
Natalia has a regular blog, Somerville Historian, about teaching and writing History at Oxford. While on British Academy leave in 2012-13, she has a new blog about the ups and downs of writing a historical monograph, History Monograph.
Zielinska, Agata. (2019). Nowakowska (ed.), Remembering the Jagiellonians (Routledge, 2019). Royal Studies Journal. 6. 126.
Nowakowska, N.. (2018). King Sigismund of Poland and Martin Luther: The reformation before confessionalization.
Maryks, Robert. (2008). Church, State and Dynasty in Renaissance Poland: The Career of Cardinal Fryderyk Jagiellon (1468–1503) (review). Renaissance Quarterly. 61. 583-584.
Tracz, Szymon. (2012). Natalia Nowakowska, Królewski kardynał. Studium kariery Fryderyka Jagiellończyka (1468–1503). Tłum. Tomasz Gromelski. Towarzystwo Naukowe SOCIETAS VISTULANA. Kraków 2011, 251 ss.. Folia Historica Cracoviensia.
Nowakowska, N. ‘What’s in a word? The etymology and historiography of dynasty – Renaissance Europe and beyond’.
Journal of Global Intellectual History, 2020
Nowakowska, N. “Rioting Blacksmiths & Jewish Women: Pillarized Reformation Memory in Early Modern Poland” In ‘Remembering the Reformation’, ed. B. Cummings, C. Law, K. Riley and A. Walsham, 2020
Baroness O’Neill of Bengarve
Honorary FellowOnora Sylvia O’Neill, Baroness O’Neill of Bengarve CH CBE FBA is a philosopher and a crossbench member of the House of Lords.
The daughter of Sir Con Douglas Walter O’Neill, she was educated partly in Germany and at St Paul’s Girls’ School, London before studying philosophy, psychology and physiology at Oxford University. She went on to complete a doctorate at Harvard University, with John Rawls as supervisor. During the 1970s she taught at Barnard College, the women’s college in Columbia University, New York. In 1977 she returned to Britain and took up a post at the University of Essex; she was Professor of Philosophy there when she became Principal of Newnham College, Cambridge in 1992.
She is an Emeritus Professor of Philosophy at the University of Cambridge, a former President of the British Academy 1988-1989 and chaired the Nuffield Foundation 1998-2010. In 2003, she was the founding President of the British Philosophical Association (BPA). Until October 2006, she was the Principal of Newnham College, Cambridge, and she currently chairs the Equality and Human Rights Commission.
Professor Ann Oakley
Honorary FellowAnn Oakley is a writer and a sociologist.
She has written both novels and many non-fiction books. Most of her life has been spent working in university research. She is best known for her work on sex and gender, housework, childbirth and feminist social science. Her more recent interests have focused on evidence-based public policy and methodologies of research and evaluation, on the sociology of the body and on biography and autobiography as forms of life-writing.
She is Professor of Sociology and Social Policy at the UCL Institute of Education, and until January 2005 was Director of the Social Science Research Unit (SSRU) at the Institute, where she also headed the Evidence for Policy and Practice Information and Coordinating Centre (EPPI-Centre). She holds an honorary appointment as a Fellow at Somerville College, Oxford. In 2011 the British Sociological Association gave her one of their first Lifetime achievement Awards for her extraordinary contribution to the history of the development of sociology in Britain. She now works on research part-time, and spends the rest of it writing, wondering what to do about her archives, developing environmentally friendly cleaning products, and spending time with her grandchildren.
Hilary Ockendon
Emeritus FellowMy research interests were initially in fluid dynamics but working in industrial mathematics has led me to problems in a wide variety of fields.
The unifying theme of my work is the use of continuum models and the application of asymptotic methods to physical problems in order to provide useful simplifications and illuminate the model and its predictions.
Among problems on which I have worked in fluid mechanics are nonlinear wave propagation in gases including real gas effects and resonant sloshing in gases and liquids. Many industrially relevant problems involve thin layer models of viscous fluids, and similar mathematics can apply in very varied situations. Examples include injection moulding, concentration polarization in ultra filtration, contact lens modelling and the drying of paint. Following my early work in relaxing gases, I have had a continuing interest in two-phase flows and I have developed several fluid-fibre and fibre-fibre interaction models for problems in the textile industry. This last example has proved a fruitful area of research for over ten years and resulted in one MSc and four PhD theses in collaboration with industry.
Mathematical modelling of elastoplasticity at high stress, P.D.Howell, H.Ockendon, J.R.Ockendon, Proc. Roy. Soc. A, vol 468, p3842-3863, 2012.
Books
Waves and Compressible Flow, H.Ockendon, J.R.Ockendon, Springer 2004.
Viscous Flow, H.Ockendon, J.R.Ockendon, Cambridge 1995.
Jo Ockwell
Student Welfare Lead
Jo Ockwell
Student Welfare Lead
I’m Jo Ockwell and I’m Somerville’s Student Welfare Lead and Disability Co-ordinator.
I lead the College’s welfare team who are here to help with life’s ups and downs. We’re all trained to support you in a non-judgemental way and will do our best to help. I’ve worked at Somerville for almost 15 years so have helped students with all sorts of problems. While I’m not an expert on every possible welfare concern you might have, I will definitely know someone who is!
Adjusting to university life at Oxford is exciting and fun, but it can be difficult too. Here at Somerville we are a supportive and caring community: we believe that seeking help is always the start of sorting out an issue, and never a sign of weakness. The whole welfare team, which includes me as well as our Student Welfare Advisors, college counsellor, and nurse, are here to support you to find the resources or methods that you need to manage any welfare concerns you have and for you to be in control of your own wellbeing.
Part of my role is to support our disabled students. If you have a disability, seen or unseen, please let me know so that we can put in place support to help you through your academic studies. I also co-ordinate examination adjustments, so if you have a disability or health condition that means you need adjustments for examinations, please let me know. There is more information about how we support disabled students here.
Some students understandably worry about confidentiality. I want to assure you now that all members of the Welfare Team at Somerville work within the same guidelines on when they should share any information that a student has told them in confidence. You can find out the detailed guidance on our website, but here it is in a nutshell; we don’t disclose anything that you have told us in confidence unless we are seriously concerned that you might harm yourself or someone else. That basic principle underlines how we work.
I am always pleased to chat to anyone who knocks on my office door (House 4, on the ground floor of House Building) who needs a confidential chat or advice/guidance on all manner of welfare or disability concerns. We can talk in my office, or take a walk and chat if that works better for you; just let me know what you prefer.
My training includes:
| Course | Awarding / Training Body |
|---|---|
| Level 3 in Counselling Studies | CPCAB |
| Mental Health First Aid | Mental Health First Aid England |
| Sexual Violence Awareness Training | Oxford Sexual Abuse and Rape Crisis Centre |
| Student Welfare Overview | DAC Beachcroft |
| Dealing with student complaints of sexual assault | Penningtons Manches |
| Relational and Restorative Processes | SynRJ |
| Generalist Safeguarding | Oxfordshire Safeguarding Children Board |
| Drug and Alcohol Awareness and the Treatment Journey | Turning Point, Oxford |
| ADHD Awareness | The ADHD Foundation |
| College Welfare Lead | Oxford University Counselling Service |
| Suicide Awareness | Zero Suicide Alliance |
| Supporting Refugee Students | We Belong |
| The Psychological Effects of Racism on Racialized Students | Oxford University Counselling Service |
A note for parents: We would sometimes like to be able to speak to parents about our students if we are concerned about them. However, we are unable to do so without the student’s explicit consent unless there is an emergency situation and the parent is listed as the student’s trusted contact on their Oxford University student record.
Chibuzor Ogamba
Student Welfare Advisor
Chibuzor Ogamba
Student Welfare Advisor
Hi! My name is Chibuzor, and I am a DPhil student in Population Health. My research focuses on using genetic evidence from blood proteins measured in thousands of individuals to inform the repurposing of existing drugs for the prevention and treatment of various cancers.
I was born and raised in Nigeria and trained as a medical doctor. My work reflects my broader interest in precise prevention and treatment strategies for complex diseases like cancer, particularly in low-resource settings.
Beyond academics and research, I enjoy watching movies, listening to – and occasionally dancing to – good music, spending time with friends, and occasionally hitting the gym. I also have a keen interest in history, theology, and philosophy, as well as social issues involving race and minority groups.
I’m excited to be part of the amazing Somerville community. Please feel free to reach out if you need any support or just want to have a friendly chat.
Student Welfare Advisors are available to support students in crisis overnight and at weekends. We provide a listening, support and signposting service. We can listen, provide guidance and support if you’re experiencing difficulties such as personal problems, poor mental health, or other welfare/wellbeing matters.
I have undertaken the following training for my role as Student Welfare Advisor:
- Sexual Violence Awareness provided by the Sexual Harassment and Violence Support Service
- First Aid Training offered by St John’s Ambulance
- Junior Deans Training offered by the University Counselling Service
- Health and Safety Training – Somerville Lodge Porters
- Fire Evacuation Training – Somerville Lodge Porters
- Welfare Policy and Procedures – Student Welfare Lead
- College Rules and Procedures – Decanal Officer
- Active Bystander Intervention training provided by the University’s Equality and Diversity Unit
Patricia Owens
Fellow & Tutor in International Relations; Professor of International Relations
Patricia Owens
Fellow & Tutor in International Relations; Professor of International Relations
Patricia went to a comprehensive school in London and, as the first in her family to go to university, did not even think to apply to Oxbridge… She particularly welcomes applications to study PPE from students at non-selective state schools.
Her research interests include twentieth-century international history and theory, disciplinary history and the history of international and political thought, and historical and contemporary practices of Anglo-American counterinsurgency and military intervention. She was Principal Investigator of the multi-award winning Leverhulme Research Project on Women and the History of International Thought.
Monographs
Erased: A History of International Thought Without Men (Princeton University Press, 2025)
Economy of Force: Counterinsurgency and the Historical Rise of the Social (Cambridge University Press, 2015) – Winner, BISA’s 2016 Susan Strange Best Book Prize; Winner, International Studies Association Theory Section Best Book Award; Runner up, Francesco Guicciardini Prize for Best Book in Historical IR; Special section, Security Dialogue
Between War and Politics: International Relations and the Thought of Hannah Arendt (Oxford University Press, 2007) – subject of special section in International Politics; Japanese translation; nominated for PSA W.J.M. Mackenzie Book Prize
Edited Volumes
Women’s International Thought: Towards A New Canon co-editor with S. Dunstan, K. Hutchings, K. Rietzler (Cambridge, forthcoming) – winner of the Susan Strange Prize for Best Book in International Studies and the International Studies Association Theory Section Best Edited Volume Award – subject of forthcoming fora or special sections in International Theory, International Politics Review, Journal of Contemporary Political Theory, H-Diplo, The Journal of the History of Ideas blog, and review essay in International Relations
Women’s International Thought: A New History, co-editor with Katharina Rietzler (Cambridge, 2021) – subject of forthcoming fora or special section in International Theory, International Politics Review, Journal of Contemporary Political Theory, and H-Diplo, and a review essay in International Relations
The Globalization of World Politics: An Introduction to International Relations, 8th edition (Oxford, 2020) co-editor with J. Baylis and S. Smith and previous editions in 2008, 2011, 2014, and 2017 – translated into Arabic, French, Korean, Polish, Greek, Turkish, Slovene, Macedonian, Kazakh, and Hungarian
Articles (select)
‘Women Thinkers and the Canon of International Thought: Recovery, Rejection, and Reconstitution’ in American Political Science Review, 2021 first view (with K. Hutchings) – OOIR’s ‘top trending’ of all political science articles in the week following publication; winner of the American Political Science Association Okin-Young Award in Feminist Political Theory for Best Article in English Language in 2021
‘Claudia Jones, International Thinker’ in Modern Intellectual History, 2021 firstview (with S. Dunstan)
‘Women and the History of International Thought’ in International Studies Quarterly, 62(3) 2018: 467-481
‘Decolonizing Civil War’ in CAL: International & Interdisciplinary Law Review, 4(2) 2017: 160-169
‘Racism in the Theory Canon: Hannah Arendt and “the one Great Crime in which America was Never Involved”‘ in Millennium, 45(33) 2017: 403-424
‘The International Origins of Hannah Arendt’s Historical Method’ in Political Power and Social Theory (32) 2017: 37-62
‘The Limits of Military Sociology’ in International Affairs, 96(3) 2017: 460-1462
‘International Historical What?’in International Theory, 8(3) 2016: 448-457
‘On the Conduct of Sociological Warfare: a reply to special section on Economy of Force’ in Security Dialogue, 47(3) 2016: 215-222
‘Introduction to the Forum: Historicizing the Social in International Thought’ in Review of International Studies, 41(4) 2015: 652-653
‘Method or Madness: Sociolatry in International Thought’ in Review of International Studies, 41(4) 2015: 655-674
‘From Bismarck to Petraeus: The Question of the Social and the Social Question in Counterinsurgency’ in ‘, 19(1) 2013: 135-157
Human Security and the Rise of the Social’ in Review of International Studies, 38(3) 2012: 547-567. Highly commended by the Article Prize Committee. Subject of a panel at 2018 ISA
‘Not Life but the World is at Stake: Hannah Arendt on Citizenship in the Age of the Social’ in Citizenship Studies, 16(2) 2012: 295-305
‘The Supreme Social Concept: The Un-worldliness of Modern Security’ in New Formations, 71: 2011: 14-29
‘Torture, Sex and Military Orientalism’ in Third World Quarterly, 31(7) 2010: 1147-1162
‘Reclaiming “Bare Life”? Against Agamben on Refugees’ in International Relations, 23(4) 2009: 567-82; reprinted in Betts and Loescher (eds.) Refugees in International Relations (Oxford)
‘Distinctions, Distinctions: “Public” and “Private” Force?’ in International Affairs, 84(5) 2008: 977-90; reprinted in Colás and Mabee (eds.) Mercenaries, Pirates, Bandits and Empires (Columbia)
‘Humanity, Sovereignty and the Camps’ in International Politics, 45(4) 2008: 522-530
‘Beyond Strauss, Lies, and the War in Iraq: Hannah Arendt’s Critique of Neoconservatism’ in Review of International Studies, 33(2) 2007: 265-83; among top ten most cited articles during 2013-15
‘Xenophilia, Gender and Sentimental Humanitarianism’ in Alternatives, 29(3) 2004: 285-304
‘Theorising Military Intervention’ in International Affairs, 80(2) 2004: 355-365
‘Accidents Don’t Just Happen: The Liberal Politics of High-Tech Humanitarian War’ in Millennium: Journal of International Studies, 32(3) 2003: 595-616
Book chapters (select)
‘Introduction: Toward a History of Women’s International Thought’ with Rietzler in Owens and Rietzler (eds.) Women’s International Thought: A New History (Cambridge, 2020)
‘Introduction: From International Politics to World Politics’, with Baylis and Smith in Baylis, Smith and Owens (eds.) The Globalization of World Politics: An Introduction to International Relations (Oxford, 8ed.)
‘How Dangerous it can be to be Innocent’ in M. Goldoni and C. McCorkindale (eds.) Hannah Arendt and the Law (Hart, 2012): 251-270
‘The Return of Realism? War and Changing Concepts of the Political’ in S. Scheipers and H. Strachan (eds.) The Changing Character of War (Oxford, 2011): 484-502
‘The Ethics of War: Critical Alternatives’ in D. Bell (ed.) Ethics and World Politics (Oxford, 2010): 309-323
‘Walking Corpses: Arendt on the Limits and the Possibilities of Cosmopolitan Politics’, in C. Moore and C. Farrands (eds.) International Relations Theory and Philosophy: Interpretive Dialogues (Routledge, 2010): 72-82
‘Hannah Arendt’, in J. Edkins and N. Vaughan-Williams (eds.) Critical Theorists and International Relations (Routledge, 2009): 31-41
‘The Ethic of Reality in Hannah Arendt’, in D. Bell (ed.) Political Thought and International Relations (Oxford, 2008), pp.105-121
‘Hannah Arendt, Violence, and the Inescapable Fact of Humanity’ in A.F. Lang and J. Williams (eds.) Hannah Arendt and International Relations (Palgrave, 2005): 41-65
Other (select)
Women’s Anticolonial International Thought, Blog for Leverhulme Project Website (with S. Dunstan)
Women Thinkers of the World Economy, Blog for Leverhulme Project Website
Sex, Gender and Canon, Blog for Leverhulme Project Website
On the Heirs to Agnes Headlam-Morley, Blog for Leverhulme Project Website
What Happened to Women’s International Thought, Blog for Leverhulme Project Website
A Political Economy of the “Exception”?, Security Dialogue/PRIO blog
Lucy Philip Mair, Early International Relations scholar, LSE History Blog
Susan Strange, Never Meant to be an Academic, LSE History Blog
Critical Dialogue between Jessica A. Stanton, author of Violence and Restraint in Civil War and Patricia Owens, author of Economy of Force, Perspectives on Politics, 15(4) 2017: 1102-1107
Economy of Force: a symposium, The Disorder of Things, opening post and reply to special section on Economy of Force (Cambridge, 2015)
Interview/Profile’, E-International Relations, January 2015
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