People

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

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

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

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

Jacqueline is a Wellcome Trust Early Career Fellow in the Coles/ Dendrou Lab at the Kennedy Institute of Rheumatology.

Jacqueline’s research focus is to understand the role of early human B cell response (extrafollicular response) which has a vital role in rapid antibody production. By integrating human challenge models, ex vivo cultures, and single-cell genomics, she aims to address a fundamental immunological question about early human B cells and their impact on long-lived antibodies. Findings may facilitate tailored nextgeneration vaccination and adjuvant strategies to enhance long-term memory responses.

Rocco is a post-doctoral researcher at the Center for the Study of African Economies in the Department of Economics and at the Oxford Martin School.

He completed his DPhil at the Oxford Department of International Development. His research focuses on social protection and labour markets. In his current work, he is using experimental and quasi-experimental methods to study the potential to leverage innovations in the design and delivery of social protection systems to increase household resilience to poverty in the context of extreme climate events such as floods and droughts. In the past, he has researched labour markets, inequality, poverty alleviation, poverty dynamics, and social stratification, using a variety of methods, including longitudinal surveys, field experiments, qualitative studies, and behavioural lab experiments.

Dr Ammar Azzouz is a Research Fellow at the School of Geography and the Environment, University of Oxford, and a Research Fellow of Somerville College.

He is the Principal Investigator of ‘Slow Violence and the City’, a research project that examines the impact of violence on the built environment at the time of war and peace. 

Dr Azzouz studied architecture in the city of Homs, Syria, where he was born and raised. Since the start of the Syrian Revolution, over half of the neighbourhoods of Homs have been destroyed. In 2011, he moved to the UK to complete his postgraduate studies and received his PhD from the University of Bath. He has not been able to return to Homs since then.

Dr Azzouz has earned a wide recognition as a researcher, academic, architect and writer. His research on inclusive and diverse cities, queering public space, cultural heritage, architecture and war, reconstruction and forced migration has been featured in different platforms such as the New York Times, The Conversation, The New Statesman, New Lines Magazine, Middle East Eye, and also in academic journals such as Antipode, CITY, Change Over Time, Urban Studies and International Journal of Urban and Regional Research.

Azzouz’s first book, Domicide: Architecture, War and the Destruction of Home in Syria (Bloomsbury, 2023), offers fresh insights into the role of the architects during time of war. It explores how architecture is contested and weaponised during years of conflicts, and how the future reconstruction of cities should mirror the wants and needs of local communities. The book has a foreword, by Lyse Doucet, the BBC’s Chief International Correspondent.

Before moving to academia, Azzouz worked in the private sector, at Arup. There, he established and led several research projects on themes related to forced migration, destruction of cities and cultural heritage. One of his projects included interviews with displaced people impacted by wars, and also academics researching wars and cities at different times in history and in different geographies (e.g. Spain, Poland, Bosnia and Syria).

Jackie is Somerville’s Regular Giving and Alumni Relations Executive. She joined Somerville in 2023 from Cardiff University, where she worked in development and alumni relations following a year as President of the Student’s Union. 

As Regular Giving and Alumni Relations Executive, Jackie organises the Somerville College telethon and other exciting fundraising campaigns within the alumni community. She is also responsible for the Cedar Circle, Somerville’s new initiative to recognise those who make a regular gift to the College.

In her Alumni Relations role, Jackie leads our young alumni events, helping recent graduates and leavers stay connected to their College community.

Henry Hung joined Somerville in October 2023 as a Fulford Junior Research Fellow. He is also a Lecturer in Biology at Magdalen and St Hilda’s.

His main research concerns the adaptation and genomics of forest trees. He started his research in tropical forests in Southeast Asia. He is now shifting his focus to temperate forests in Europe and North America. He also conducts research in Wytham and Blenheim in Oxford.

He currently co-chairs the Ecological Genetics Group and serve in the Events Committee of the British Ecological Society. He is named a National Geographic Explorer in 2022 for his research on critically endangered rosewood trees. His research on rosewoods is featured in the University News: https://www.ox.ac.uk/news/features/race-save-world-s-most-trafficked-wild-species

He graduated from The Chinese University of Hong Kong, majoring in Biology, triple-minoring in Environmental Science, German, and Music. He then read his doctorate at the University of Oxford.

Tin Hang Hung (洪天恒) is a Cantonese name. First name is ‘Tin Hang’ altogether, surname is ‘Hung’. There is no middle name. ‘Henry’ is the preferred alternative name.

Clare is the Academic Office Administrator. She assists the Academic Registrar in the running of the Academic Office. Clare also is the lead for Somerville Degree Days. 

In 2015, Sacha Romanovitch became the first woman to head a major UK accounting house at Grant Thornton.

In her current role as CEO of Fair4All Finance Sacha Romanovitch (1986, MA Chemistry) helps to maintain the lifeline of affordable credit for families and small businesses. In 2018, she was elected Honorary Fellow of Somerville and awarded an Honorary Doctorate by the University of York. In 2020, Romanovitch was made OBE in recognition of her distinguished career and public service. Since February 2022, she has sat on the Government’s Levelling Up Advisory Council.

Professor Lorna Hutson (1976, DPhil English) is Merton Professor of English.

Professor Hutson’s work focuses on the interrelations between early modern Enlish literary form and other forms of cultural practice, including economics, law, and national conception. Her monograph The Invention of Suspicion won the Roland Bainton Prize in 2008, and The Oxford Handbook of English Law and Literature, 1500-1700 won the Bainton Reference Prize in 2018. Her current project – England’s Insular Imagining – studies how early modern literature spanning multiple genres contributed to the conception of England as the whole island of Britain. In 2016, she was elected a Fellow of the British Academy.

Caroline Series (1969, Mathematics) is a distinguished mathematician working in hyperbolic geometry, Kleinian groups and Dynamical systems.

After studying at Somerville in 1969, Professor Series held posts in Berkeley and Newnham College, Cambridge before arriving at the University of Warwick in 1978. In 1987 she became Reader in Mathematics at Warwick and, in 1992, Professor. In 2017, she became the third woman in its history to serve as president of the London Mathematical Society. In 2023, she was awarded a CBE in the King’s first list of Birthday Honours.

Anna’s first career was in infrastructure and security, where she acted as a freelance project manager for multiple government bodies and FTSE 500 companies. Thirteen years ago, she decided to turn her lifelong passion for gardening into a second career, retraining at Jesus College, Oxford.

Anna has since worked in several large estate gardens, including Dorney Court and Denham Place, as well as offering freelance garden design and consultancy. At Somerville, she looks forward to supporting Head Gardener Alistair Malick in bringing the Somerville gardens into the 21st century, whilst delivering a beautiful and sustainable garden (featuring as many alpine plants and clipped shrubs as possible in order to fulfil her passion for niwaki/bonsai and mountain plants).

Alastair Mallick joined Somerville College as our new Head Gardener in 2022. With 15 years of horticultural experience behind him, across everything from organic farming to his most recent post as Head Gardener at Queen’s College (2017-22), Alastair is keen to build on Somerville’s legacy of sustainability, biodiversity and beauty.

Building on a life-long love for plants and the natural world, Alastair progressed into gardening through a passion for growing his own food. After volunteering on many organic farming projects around the world and spending many hours tending to his allotment, he realised that he loved the process of working with plants. A professional pathway soon followed: Alastair ran his own successful gardening business before, in 2017, taking the jump into the the world of the university as Head Gardener at Queen’s in 2017. Here, he found that he loved the Oxford college environment, and was therefore thrilled when our former Head Gardener Sophie Walwin suggested he consider taking on the excellent work she began during her time at Somerville.

Alastair has big plans for the Somerville gardens. Refeshing the borders, bringing in lots of beautiful and unusual plants to lift Sophie’s great existing planting, adding new structure to the rest of the garden through shrubs and trees – the list goes on. Alastair is also deeply involved in the conversations to create a new pond as a source of additional biodiversity (and potential research for our plant scientists!). Some other plans being considered are a new perennial meadow for the empty bed in front of the Maitland building and an alpine rock garden in front of Park. However, Alastair also has a continued focus on developing garden spaces that are resilient to the pressures of climate change and that work for local fauna as well as for us. This will be achieved through measures such as the pond, but also bird boxes, bee hotels and drought-resistant, locally-sourced planting.

Professor Clair Wills writes about the social, cultural and literary history of Britain and Ireland in the twentieth century.

Professor Wills works across the disciplines of literature, history, and cultural theory and is keen to explore new genres of academic writing. Her research focuses upon: migration in post-war Europe and the ways in which it gets represented by migrants and others; literature and culture in Northern Ireland; contemporary British fiction; feminism and women’s writing; and the history and experiences of coercive confinement in institutions (including psychiatric institutions) in Britain and Ireland in the twentieth century.

Clair is the King Edward VII Professor of English Literature at the University of Cambridge and a Professorial Fellow of Murray Edward College. She previously taught at Queen Mary University of London, at Princeton, and via numerous visiting fellowships. She has been a research associate at the Centre for Contemporary Irish History, Trinity College Dublin since 2007, and was elected an Honorary Member of the Royal Irish Academy in 2016.

In 2017, she was the recipient of the Irish Times International Non-Fiction Book of the Year for her book Lovers and Strangers. She also received the International PEN Hessell-Tiltman Prize for History and the American Conference for Irish Studies Michael J. Durkan Prize for her 2008 book That Neutral Island. A keen jazz dancer, Professor Wills set up an interdisciplinary workshop with colleagues in Cambridge to explore the question, ‘What do we write about when we write about dance?’

Becca plays a leading role in realising Somerville’s fundraising goals, with particular responsibility for major gifts and legacies.

Following a first degree in Philosophy and Psychology at Durham, Becca was a postgraduate researcher in the philosophy of education at Magdalene College, Cambridge. She then worked in the City as a lobbyist for the financial services industry before becoming Major Gifts Officer at Keble College.

If you are thinking about making a major gift, or leaving a legacy, Becca would love to hear from you. You can contact her by email on rebecca.coker@some.ox.ac.uk or phone her at +44 (0) 7890 412404.

Farhana Yamin grew up in London and came to Somerville in 1983 to study PPE (Philosophy, Politics and Economics). After graduation, Yamin qualified as a solicitor and worked as an environmental lawyer, becoming a climate change and development policy expert. In 2001, she helped to deliver the Marrakech Accords, the international rules needed to complete the Kyoto Protocol and she has been advising leaders and countries on climate change and development policy for 30 years.

Yamin has taught in UK universities since 1995, including as a Visiting Professor at University College London. She stepped back from the world of academia and UN negotiations in 2018 to focus on non-violent civil disobedience and social justice movements challenging capitalism. As a Political Coordinator of Extinction Rebellion for a year, Yamin played a key role in the XR April 2019 protests, gluing herself to the Shell HQ offices in London, alongside thousands of other activists. She is a champion of community-based action and co-founded Camden Think & Do, where she is experimenting with radical inclusion & concepts of spatial justice by supporting communities create pop-up action hubs in high streets and public spaces. She also sits as an expert on various Commissions including Camden Renewal Commission and IPPR’s Commission on Environmental Justice.

Farhana serves as trustee or adviser to a number of organisations working on the intersection of social, racial and ecological justice, including Greenpeace UK, WWF-UK and Julie’s Bicycle, an organisation working to support artists and the cultural sector in tackling climate and sustainability. Yamin is currently a Senior Associate at the UK think thank company Systemiq and an Associate Fellow at Chatham House. She is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts (FRSA) and was made an Honorary Fellow of Somerville College in 2022.

Did you know? Farhana first broke the law in the name of climate justice in 2019, when she glued herself to the ground outside the Shell headquarters in London. Her protest formed a central part of the 2021 film Rebellion, which relates the inside story of XR from grassroots activism to international impact. 

Professor Julia Yeomans (1973, Physics) is a British theoretical physicist active in the fields of soft condensed matter and biological physics.

After her completing her undergraduate degree at Somerville, Professor Yeomans conducted doctoral research on critical phenomena in spin models at Wolfson College. She spent two years as a postdoctoral researcher at Cornell University with Michael E. Fisher, before returning to the UK as lecturer in Physics at the University of Southampton. In 1983, she moved to the University of Oxford where she became a professor in 2002.

Yeomans is a professor at the Rudolf Peierls centre for theoretical physics. Her research investigates theoretical modelling of processes in complex fluids including liquid crystals, drops on hydrophobic surfaces, microchannels, as well as bacteria. In 2012, Professor Yeomans was awarded a European Research Council advanced research grant for her research proposal Microflow in complex environments.

Professor Yeomans was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS) in 2013, and in 2021 she received the Sam Edwards Medal and Prize from the Institute of Physics, for her contributions to soft and active matter, statistical physics and biophysics. 

She was made an Honorary Fellow of Somerville in College in April 2022. 

Lucy is Somerville’s Academic Registrar.

She runs the day to day operations of the Academic Office, including the coordination of undergraduate admissions.

Alice Barron is a violinist and collaborator based in London.

She enjoys a varied career combining orchestral, chamber and solo performances with improvisatory and multi-disciplinary projects. Specialising in contemporary and intercultural musics, recent performances include projects with Nigel Kennedy, Jean-Luc Ponty, L. Subramaniam and with Sam Lee at WOMAD festival in Australia and New Zealand. Alice’s collaborative work is genre-spanning and draws on her experiences studying South Indian violin techniques.

Meghmala 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.

I am an Associate Fellow of the UK Higher Education Academy (AFHEA). At Somerville College, I teach French Language, Translation, Orals and Essay.

I have been teaching French ‘language cafés’ and French ‘research-based language tutorials’ at the University of Birmingham since 2020. I have also been an English academic language tutor at AWAS (Academic Writing Advisory Service) for the Department of Modern Languages at the University of Birmingham since 2021. 

Research

My research interests revolve around colonial and postcolonial encounters between France and North Africa and the literary productions that emanate from these encounters. My PhD in French and Francophone Studies reads Algerian identity from the prism of the Sahara. It posits the Sahara Desert as an accurate analytical prism through which we can understand complex paradigms related to cultural identities in Algeria, and North Africa in general. I am interested in researching how colonial encounters in spaces like the Sahara shape and make visible, but also invisible different memories, histories and identities. More broadly, I am interested in 20^th and 21^st-century French and Algerian literatures, and I am currently researching the imprint of imperial legacies on postcolonial societies and how the latter resist but also perpetuate the colonial tropes in literary writing.

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.

My research has two main threads: self-representation and social biases in (multisensory) perception and action; and adolescent wellbeing and mental health. I am currently working on new research at the intersection of these areas. Alongside self-representation, I have interests in anxiety and autistic cognition. I have extensive experience in patient and public involvement and engagement (PPIE) and co-production. I am passionate about public outreach and laying the groundwork for co-developing interventions and applications in wellbeing and mental health.

My research methodologies draw on techniques from cognitive, social, and developmental psychology, social neuroscience, and psychophysics (e.g., mental chronometry, surveys, and previously, EEG, tDCS), and involve both quantitative and qualitative research. I also use multisensory tasks (i.e. using audiovisual stimuli) to investigate social biases impacting both audition and vision.

At Somerville, I teach the undergraduate prelim course in Psychology (subjects including: developmental psychology, sensory processes and perception, social psychology, psychobiology, and cognitive psychology) and on the Psychology for Medicine course.

I completed my DPhil in Experimental Psychology at Oxford in 2022, and went on to join Somerville College as lecturer in Experimental Psychology, and Postdoctoral Research Fellow in adolescent mental health (University of Reading). Prior to my DPhil, I worked as a Research Assistant in stroke research at the Cognitive Neuropsychology Centre (CNC), and as a Laboratory Demonstrator in Neuroanatomy and Perception, at the Department of Experimental Psychology. I also have a background in music and sound production, and alongside my academic research have engineered and consulted on sound for departmental academic research projects, as well as co-developed evidence-based music-, art-, and video-based ‘wellbeing tools’ to support adolescent mental health.