People

Dr Lucy Garner is a Senior Postdoctoral Scientist in Professor Paul Klenerman’s group within the Nuffield Department of Medicine (NDM).

Lucy’s research focuses on how the human immune system responds to infections and vaccinations. She specialises in T cells (critical defenders that destroy infected or damaged cells and coordinate the immune response) and uses advanced omics tools, including single-cell RNA-sequencing (scRNA-seq), to study the types, functions, and interactions of immune cells during disease.

Her recent work examined two types of COVID-19 vaccines – adenoviral vector and mRNA – uncovering the networks of cells and molecules underlying their distinct early immune responses after the first and second doses, as well as the reduced side effects seen with longer gaps between mRNA doses (Amini and Garner et al., Sci Immunol, 2025).

Lucy also works closely with the Oxford University Clinical Research Unit (OUCRU) in Vietnam to study major infectious diseases in Southeast Asia, with the long-term goal of developing new vaccines and treatments. These collaborations have resulted in important studies on dengue (Gregorova et al., Nat Commun, 2025) and tuberculosis (Tram and Garner et al., J Immunol, 2025).

Lucy completed her MA in Natural Sciences at the University of Cambridge. She then undertook a DPhil in Professor Paul Klenerman’s group at the University of Oxford through the Wellcome Infection, Immunology and Translational Medicine programme. Her doctoral research provided key insights into the function and regulation of mucosal-associated invariant T (MAIT) cells, a unique subset of T cells with crucial roles in infections, inflammation, and cancer. She was awarded the NDM Overall Prize in 2020, which recognises exceptional performance during DPhil studies, and the Keshav Award in 2023, an annual departmental prize for the best trainee.

Amytess Girgis is a doctoral candidate in Politics. Her research focuses on the evolution of the  US labour movement.

She examines how precarity and changing political conditions exacerbate challenges to labour organising, how those conditions shape workers’ tactics in under-organised sectors, and how these trends situate the labour movement in relation to broader social movement building. 

Amytess completed her MPhil in Politics (Comparative Government) at the University of Oxford in 2023. Her graduate study at Oxford has been supported by the Rhodes Scholarship.

Biographer, critic, broadcaster and novelist Victoria Glendinning was born in Sheffield, England on 23 April 1937.

She was educated at Somerville College, Oxford, where she read Modern Languages, and worked as a teacher and social worker before becoming an editorial assistant for the Times Literary Supplement in 1974. Victoria Glendinning is an Honorary Vice-President of English PEN and was awarded a CBE in 1998. She is a Vice President of the Royal Society of Literature and holds honorary doctorates from the universities of Southampton, Ulster, Dublin and York. She is also a regular contributor of articles and reviews to various newspapers and magazines.

Her acclaimed biographies include Elizabeth Bowen: Portrait of a Writer, published in 1977; Edith Sitwell: A Unicorn Among Lions (1981), which won both the James Tait Black Memorial Prize (for biography) and the Duff Cooper Prize; and Rebecca West: A Life (1987). Both Vita: The Life of V. Sackville-West (1983) andTrollope (1992) won the Whitbread Biography Award. Her latest biography is Raffles and the Golden Opportunity (2012) on the life of Sir Stamford Raffles, the founder of Singapore. 

Victoria Glendinning is the author of three novels: The Grown-Ups (1989), the story of Leo Ulm, author, pundit and academic; Electricity (1995), the story of a Victorian girl embroiled in new experiences and a new technology; and Flight (2002), a novel of passion and betrayal set in the world of international business.

In 2009, Love’s Civil War, the co-edited letters and diaries of Elizabeth Bowen and Charles Ritchie, was published.

Jenny Pickworth is a protein crystallographer who worked in Dorothy Hodgkin’s lab, where her work on the hexacarboxylic acid derivative of vitamin B12 revealed the structure of the corrin ring. 

At the Institute for Cancer Research in Philadelphia where she was first a member of Lindo Patterson’s lab and later a principal investigator, she continued her interest in B12 structures.  Her research focus has included small-molecule structures related to cancer; the structural aspects of the Krebs cycle and citrates; metal-ion coordination in proteins; the interaction of ligands with metal ions; and the enzymes aconitase and xylose isomerase.  She is the recipient of many awards, notably the Fankuchen Award of the ACA and the Garvan Medal of the American Chemical Society.  Her many professional contributions include serving as President of the ACA in 1979 and as editor of Acta Crystallographica D (macromolecules).

One of Dr. Glusker’s major interests is crystallography education; the 3rd edition of the popular textbook Crystal Structure Analysis: A Primer by Glusker & Trueblood appeared in 2010.  She is the co-author or co-editor of a number of books on crystallography and the history of crystallography.

Dr Pelagia Goulimari is the Co-Director of the MSt in Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies, Co-Director of Intersectional Humanities at The Oxford Research Centre in the Humanities (TORCH), and a Senior Fellow in Feminist Studies.

Her research interests include fiction and non-fictional prose in English (1790-present); women’s writing; literary theory and criticism; the modern and the postmodern. She teaches on Literature in English from 1740 to present day; Introduction to Literary Studies; women’s writing; literary theory and criticism; and feminist writing and theory.

She is also the founder and General Editor of Angelaki: Journal of the Theoretical Humanities, published by Routledge. Established in 1993, Angelaki is an international journal in literary and cultural theory and Continental philosophy published by Routledge, Taylor & Francis. The journal publishes four themed and two open, ‘General’, issue per volume. Angelaki is one of the most accessed of Routledge’s 200+ arts and humanities journals (c. 100,000 full-text downloads and c. 2,500 libraries in 2021). Included in the Arts and Humanities Citation Index, it is ranked A* in the literature category in the European Reference Index for Humanities of the European Science Foundation. In 1996, it was awarded ‘Best New Journal’ by the Council of Editors of Learned Journals. It has published over 1000 articles, including work by: Alain Badiou, Jean Baudrillard, Andrew Benjamin, Homi K. Bhabha, Leslie Anne Boldt-Irons, Alain Caillé, Barbara Cassin, Howard Caygill, Monique David-Menard, Gilles Deleuze, Jacques Derrida, Costas Douzinas, Alexander García Düttmann, Michèle Le Doeuff, Mike Gane, Lawrence Grossberg, Félix Guattari, Donna Haraway, Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri, Ihab Hassan, Leslie Hill, Peggy Kamuf, John Kinsella, Friedrich Kittler, Arthur and Marilouise Kroker, Douglas Kellner, Jacques Lacan, Ernesto Laclau, Philippe Lacoue-Labarthe, Jean-Luc Nancy, John O’Neill, Jacques Rancière, Nicholas Rand, Bill Readings, Leonard Rosmarin, Nicholas Royle, Stella Sandford, Michel Serres, Paul Virilio, Robyn Wiegman, Robert Young, Slavoj Žižek.

Manuele Gragnolati is Full Professor of Italian Literature at the University of Paris-Sorbonne and Associate Director of the ICI Berlin, as well as Senior Research Fellow at Somerville College, Oxford.

He studied Classical Philology, Medieval Studies, and Italian Literature at the Universities of Pavia (BA and MA), Paris IV-Sorbonne (MA) and Columbia in NYC (PhD).

Before joining the University of Paris-Sorbonne, he taught at Dartmouth College from 1999 to 2003 and from 2003 to 2015 at the University of Oxford, where he was Full Professor of Italian Literature. A significant part of his research, including his first monograph “Experiencing the Afterlife”, focuses on Dante and medieval literature and culture, especially on the significance of corporeality in thirteenth- and fourteenth-century eschatology.

He is also interested in the concept of linguistic subjectivity from Dante’s “Vita Nova” to the present, in modern appropriations of medieval texts, and in feminist and queer theory. He has written a substantial commentary on Dante’s Rime and published essays on medieval and modern authors. His second monograph “Amor che move” offers a ‘diffractive’ exploration of body, language, desire in Dante and authors who have engaged with Dante’s oeuvre in the late twentieth century from a “feminine”/feminist and queer position.

Manuele Gragnolati enjoys studying and teaching literature for its critical potential to challenge normative ways of thinking and is particularly interested in texts that propose different figurations of reality, whether in the past or in the present. He believes in an interdisciplinary approach to culture and in collaborating with colleagues with different intellectual histories and backgrounds. At the ICI Berlin he has run several interdisciplinary projects on Dante, Elsa Morante, and Pier Paolo Pasolini, which have often resulted in collective volumes.

I am an NSERC Postdoctoral Research Fellow with the MCEM group in the Department of Biology.

My main research interest is the use of mathematical modelling to study the dynamics of ecosystems and disease systems to predict mechanistic relationships among system processes and then use that knowledge to inform management policy and design. In particular, I am interested in understanding how movement between discrete patches might influence and inform management of large-scale systems such as coral reefs and national farm networks. In all of my research I work with local stakeholders to develop and parameterize mathematical models to answer pertinent questions about local systems that directly inform their management policy and design.

My website can be found at http://www.arielgreiner.com. 

Hello! I’m Bethan, the 2024/25 House Chair for Somerville MCR.

I’m an Experimental Psychology DPhil student, working in Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience. My research aims to explore differences in neural recruitment for executive function and mathematics by children from diverse socio-cultural contexts, and how protective factors support development.

As House Chair, I will be overseeing our physical MCR spaces here at Somerville. If you have any thoughts on what you would like to see in our MCR, please get in touch!

Alonso Gurmendi Dunkelberg is a Departmental Lecturer in International Relations at the University of Oxford, in association with Somerville College, as well as Visiting Professor at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.

Alonso holds a Ph.D. from UCL Laws, where he researched the history of the laws of war in the 19^th and early 20^th century, foregrounding the work of actors in Latin America, South West Africa and East Asia, among others. His book, Conflicto Armado en el Perú: La Época del Terrorismo bajo el Derecho Internacional, published by Universidad del Pacífico Press in 2019, addresses the role of international humanitarian law in Peru’s post-conflict reconciliation process. He is also a contributing editor for the international law blog Opinio Juris. His research focuses on the history of international legal politics, with a particular interest on the regulation of war and political violence, as well as on postcolonial approaches to international politics.

From 2020-23, Sarah Gurr’s research interests in crop disease, with particular emphasis on fungal infestations and in their global movement and control, have led to a series of high impact publications and invitations to speak all over the world. Amongst these recent publications are:-

• Stukenbrock, E and Gurr, SJ (2023) Address the growing urgency of fungal disease in crops. Nature 617 31-34
• Johns, LE, Bebber, B, Gurr, SJ and Brown, NA (2022) Health threat and cost of Fusarium mycotoxins in European wheat. Nature Food 3 1014–1019
• Cannon, S, Kay, W, Kilaru, S, Schuster, M, Gurr SJ and Steinberg, G (2022) Multi-site fungicides suppress banana Panama disease, caused by Fusarium oxysporum f. sp. cubense Tropical Race 4. PLoS Pathogens https://doi.org/10.1371/ journal. ppat.1010860 (SG and GS as CAs)
• Kilaru, S, Fantozzi, E, Cannon, S, Schuster, M, Chaloner, T, Aragones, CA, Gurr, SJ and Steinberg,G (2022) Zymoseptoria tritici white-collar complex integrates light, temperature and plant cues to initiate dimorphism and pathogenesis.  Nature Communications 13, Article number: 5625
• Fisher, M et al (2022) Tackling the emerging threat of antifungal resistance to human health. Nature Microbiology Reviews https://doi.org/10.1038/s41579-022-00720-1
• Chaloner, T, Gurr, SJ Bebber, DP (2021) The global burden of plant disease tracks yield under climate change Nature Climate Change https://www.nature.com/art/s41558-021-01104-8
• Fones, H, Bebber, D, Chaloner, T, Kay, William T, Steinberg, G, Gurr, SJ (2020) Threats to global food security from emerging fungal and oomycete crop pathogens. Nature Food doi: 10.1038/s43016-020-0075.
• Chaloner, T, Gurr, SJ, Bebber, D (2020) Geometry and evolution of the ecological niche in plant-associated microbes. Nature Communications doi: 10.1038/s41467-020-16778-5.
• Steinberg, G, Schuster, M, Gurr, SJ, Schrader, M, Wood, M, Kilaru, S (2020) A lipophilic cation protects crops against fungal pathogens by multiple modes of action Nature Communications https://doi.org/ 10.1038/s4146-020-14949-y.
• Patents –  Antifungal compositions WO2020201698A1 and GB2202216.4

There have been 5 press releases associated with these papers and some of this work featured in articles in The Guardian; The New York Times (Children’s board game “monkey puzzle” Christmas Day 2022); The Toronto Star; The Daily Mail; The Independent; as well as on BBC World News, Live Science News Hour and various other media channels.

Over the past 2 years Sarah has been appointed to The International Advisory Board at SLU University, Uppsala, as Advisor to The Scottish Government on Plant Health (RESAS) and as a member of Plant Heath Scotland (James Hutton Institute). She has also been elected to Board of Trustees of The Rank Foundation, the East Malling Research Trust and The Wolfson Science and Medicine committee.

She holds a Visiting Professorship at Utrecht University, is a Fellow of the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research (CIFAR), Fellow of American Academy of Microbiology, and was awarded an Honorary Doctorate by SLU Uppsala. Her work with UK and Scottish Government has guided to a policy paper and a Parliamentary Bill (Plant Health and Biosecurity, and Crops and Gene Editing, 2022 and 2023).

Lisa Gygax (1987, PPE) has been Liz Cooke’s ‘apprentice’ since 2014. In her role as joint Secretary to the Alumni Association she shares Liz’s keen interest in the myriad of pursuits that Somervillians get up to after leaving Oxford. Her role extends to stewarding our various alumni networks.

I’m Arzhia, the Chapel Director and Fellow at Somerville College. I completed my DPhil at the Department of Education in Oxford, with a focus on global citizenship education. I bring my knowledge, research and lived experience in and beyond education to curating our Chapel activities and to explore questions of life and meaning alongside our student community.

I work in collaboration with the Welfare Team as well as our Director of Chapel Music, and take a pro-active approach to well-being, supporting our student and staff community in developing cultures and practices of care, inclusion and belonging.

Throughout term time, I organise our Choral Contemplation programmes – a weekly Sunday encounter with music, poetry, faith-based writings in different languages and sometimes a reflection from a speaker. Additionally, in collaboration with our wellbeing practitioners, we run weekly Yoga and Meditation sessions in the Chapel and on Port Meadow, open to staff and students.

More broadly beyond the university, I facilitate workshops related to trauma informed approaches to education, paying particular attention to questions of belonging and diversity, and this year (2025-2026) will be undertaking training in Systemic Family Therapy at Brookes University.

I’m also plugged into Oxford’s vibrant inter-faith network, and available to support students and staff to connect with different faith communities. In these times of socio-political and global uncertainty, I’m here to chat with you about any of these matters, as well religious or spiritual questions of heart. You can find me at: chapel.office@some.ox.ac.uk

We welcome our community to shape our Choral Contemplations and Chapel offerings, so do feel free to get in touch if you ever wish to contribute a poem, prayer or particular or reflection to these programmes.

Oliver graduated with a first-class degree in Medicine from the University of Tartu, Estonia.

During his medical studies, Oliver was involved in numerous research projects, studying the effects of neurotrophic growth factors at the University of Helsinki and the binding properties of a stimulant substance methcathinone on dopamine receptors at the University of Tartu.

In 2015 he took a year off of his medical studies to come to the University of Oxford and examine the role of D1/D2-like and 5-HT2C receptors on goal-directed actions, funded by the Archimedes Fund from Estonia.

Oliver is currently a DPhil candidate at the University of Oxford as a member of the Sharott Group and the Walton Group (Experimental Psychology). His research focuses on the role of the projection from prefrontal cortex to the dorsomedial striatum in co-ordinating motivated action, with a particular focus of elucidating the circuit disruptions leading to poverty of movement in Parkinson’s disease. He aims to use these experiments to develop closed-loop deep brain stimulation approaches for the treatment of motivational deficits.