Support Staff

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.

Hi, I’m Jess and I am a DPhil student in the Department of Primary Care Health Sciences.  I am studying the impacts of hot temperatures on mental health outcomes in England. I decided to focus my dissertation on this topic because mental health is personally very important to me and I want to better understand how the environments around us, and the changing climate, are impacting mental health. 

I am from the United States where I received my bachelor’s degree in biology and my master’s in environmental health. Outside of academics I spend a decent amount time doing some form of physical activity as I have a goal of running the original 6 major world marathons — I have already completed 3 and will be running the fourth this fall. I also enjoy photography, reading, traveling, and baking for my friends. 

I am excited to be a part of the welfare team and the Somerville community. Please reach out if you would like a friendly chat, if you would like a listening ear, or if you need support. 

I have undertaken the following training for my role as Student Welfare Advisor:

• Supporting Reported Students Training organised by the University of Oxford Peer Support Programme
• First Aid Training offered by St John’s Ambulance
• Junior Deans Training offered by the University Counselling Service
• Peer Support 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
• Introduction to Safeguarding – Oxfordshire Safeguarding Children Partnership

Hello! My name is Jerry, and I am a DPhil student in Engineering Science at the University of Oxford. I specialise in informatics and data science research, with a focus on climate change and road networks.

I am from Vancouver, Canada, where I completed my undergraduate and master’s degrees in electrical engineering. In my free time, I enjoy going to the gym, cycling around Oxford, and exploring local coffee shops and green spaces.

I’m excited to be part of Somerville’s fantastic community. Please feel free to reach out if you need any support, have a welfare concern, or want to have a chat — I’m here to help!

I have undertaken the following training for my role as Student Welfare Advisor:

• 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
• Introduction to Safeguarding – Oxfordshire Safeguarding Children Partnership

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.

I am a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Oxford, working across the Faculty of Linguistics, Philology and Phonetics and the Nuffield Department of Primary Care Health Sciences. My research sits at the intersection of linguistics, social science and applied healthcare, focusing on language aspects of clinical interactions.

With a background in sociolinguistics, my earlier work examined language variation and change in multicultural settings. Over more than a decade of teaching English and clinical communication to medical students in Ukraine, I became increasingly interested in how linguistic practices shape clinical encounters and influence the uptake of medical advice.

My research draws on Conversation Analysis and Discourse Analysis to investigate how clinicians use language to navigate sensitivities of advice-giving, maintain rapport, and support behaviour change—particularly in the context of weight management. In addition to theoretical contributions, I am involved in applied projects that translate linguistic insights into practical communication strategies for healthcare providers.

Beyond academia, I have worked as an interpreter for election observation missions with the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights, supporting real-time communication in high-stakes, politically sensitive contexts. This experience has deepened my understanding of language under pressure and the ethical dimensions of communication.

I work across a range of externally funded studies. I previously held a prestigious British Academy fellowship, and I am a co-investigator on a NIHR policy research programme grant.

I am committed to interdisciplinary collaboration, international academic exchange, and public engagement, with a particular focus on improving the policies and practices of healthcare communication through linguistically informed research.

Research Interests

• Clinical Communication
• Conversation Analysis
• Discourse Analysis
• Interactional Linguistics
• Sociolinguistics

Abi Punt is a foundation doctor working at Oxford University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust.

She graduated from Somerville with a BA in Medical Sciences in 2022, and a Bachelor of Medicine and Bachelor of Surgery (BMBCh) in 2025. Her specialty interests include obstetrics and gynaecology, and paediatrics. She is passionate about medical education, and is committed to creating a supportive learning environment where students can thrive during their time at Somerville.

I am a DPhil student in Medieval German, researching healthcare in medieval German convents. I like to go on long rambling walks, have a (supposedly) questionable obsession with peanut butter, and enjoy meeting friends and new people for shared food and nature excursions!

Narhitya is currently the Programme Administrator with the OICSD. She supports the Centre’s work on scholarships, events, and strategic partnerships, and serves as the administrator of the Schmidt AI in Science Faculty Fellowship Programme.

Narhitya holds a Master’s degree in Modern South Asian Studies from the University of Oxford and a Bachelor’s degree in English Literature from Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi. She also received a special mention in the British Association for South Asian Studies (BASAS) Master’s Dissertation Prize 2024 for her master’s thesis at Oxford.

Narhitya’s work is animated by a deep interest in feminist political philosophy and literature, particularly in how knowledge structures are created, legitimised, and contested. She has previously worked at the Observer Research Foundation (ORF) in India where she contributed to research and policy discourse on gender, development, and international relations. She also served as a Research Intern with the United Nations, contributing to a large-scale “Sports for Peace” programme in Central Africa. Additionally, she also interned at Teach for India, where she designed culturally responsive curricula and facilitated English and social-emotional learning sessions.

She is also the co-founder of Adira, a grassroots non-profit initiative based out of Allahabad, India, to support marginalised women through education, capacity-building, and livelihoods training. Her dedication to building inclusive and equitable academic and professional spaces informs her work at OICSD, especially in advancing women’s leadership and socially engaged scholarship.

Dr Anne Makena (2012, DPhil Chemical Biology) is Co-Director of the Africa Oxford Initiative (AfOx), a vibrant platform for all things Africa at Oxford. 

The goal of Dr Makena and her AfOx colleagues is to make Africa a strategic priority for the University of Oxford by facilitating equitable, sustainable and impactful collaborations between Oxford and African institutions.

Working with partners across 30 African countries, AfOx facilitates academic and research partnerships by supporting activities including a travel grant scheme, visiting fellowships for African academics, high quality research engagement meetings and financial, academic and mentorship support for African students and research staff in Oxford. AfOx has an ambitious, but justified, aim to increase the number of African graduates at Oxford from 3 to 10%.

Dr Makena is responsible for developing and implementing AfOx’s overall strategy, as well as leading on fundraising and stakeholder engagement, and supporting the delivery of core AfOx programmes. Under Dr Makena’s guidance, AfOx is making strides to support the creation of a culture-shifting cohort of emerging African leaders whose experiences and passion can be practically addresses to some of the most pressing challenges in Africa, recognising moreover that Africa is the most rapidly changing continent whose future demographic and economic growth will have a major influence globally.

Dr Makena holds a DPhil in Chemical Biology from the University of Oxford and an Executive MBA from the Said Business School. She was made an Honorary Fellow of Somerville College in June 2025.

Professor Emma Smith (1988, English) is an internationally renowned Shakespeare scholar and current Professor of Shakespeare Studies at the University of Oxford.

Professor Smith’s work explores the influence of Shakespeare on stage, print, and in wider culture. She has written on Shakespeare’s First Folio (1623) – the first collected edition of his plays – and is interested in how Shakespeare came to be so important.

An associate scholar of the Royal Shakespeare Company, Professor Smith is also a regular speaker in schools, literary festivals, theatres, libraries, and book groups, as well as in universities. She has extensive experience of both print and broadcast media, including on BBC Radio 3 and 4 and BBC News, as well as authoring articles for The New York Times, The Telegraph, The Observer and The Guardian.

Professor Smith’s recent publications showcase her ability to combine forensic close-textual reading with sweeping surveys of the reception given to Shakespeare in performance, print, and criticism. Her 2019 book This Is Shakespeare was a Sunday Times bestseller and her 2022 book Portable Magic: A History of Books and their Readers was shortlisted for the Wolfson Prize.

Professor Smith has worked with theatre companies including the Royal Shakespeare Company, National Theatre and Donmar Warehouse. In 2023, she was the Sam Wanamaker Fellow at Shakespeare’s Globe, and she has served as a consultant for TV and film, including Josie Rourke’s Mary Queen of Scots, and the BBC series ‘Shakespeare: Rise of a Genius’ (2023).

Professor Smith’s next full-length work, The First Elizabethans, is a study on Elizabethan artistic culture from architecture to music to gardens to fashion, and will be published by Penguin in 2026.

Professor Emma Smith lives in Oxford with her partner Elizabeth. She was made an Honorary Fellow of Somerville College in June 2025.

Professor Kamila Hawthorne MBE (née Ebrahim, 1978, Medicine) is Chair of the Royal College of General Practitioners. She was elected in 2022, becoming the fifth woman to hold the position.

Professor Hawthorne has been a GP for 37 years, with 30 of them spent working in South Wales. She qualified from Somerville College, Oxford, in 1984, and completed her GP training in Nottingham in 1988. Kamila was Head of the Graduate Entry Medicine Programme at Swansea University and is on the Trustee Boards of the Kings Fund, and Cardiff Women’s Aid. She is also a Bevan Commissioner and a Fellow of the Learned Society of Wales.

Kamila has a deep interest in medical education, and believes passionately in the importance of training excellent, caring and inclusive GPs for a global society. She is passionate about the role of GPs in patient care and as advocates for patients.

Her research and clinical working interests have been in health inequalities and access to health services, (her MD was based on working with BAME patient groups with Type 2 diabetes in Nottingham, Manchester and Cardiff). With wide experience of general practice and running community projects in diabetes and heart disease, she has been named ‘GP of the Year’ twice and was awarded an MBE in 2017 for services to General Practice.

The RCGP is the UK’s largest medical college, with over 50,000 members. It represents and supports GPs on key issues including licensing, education, training, research and clinical standards. The RCGP has both a President and a Chair, but the former is a mainly ceremonial role. As Chair, Professor Hawthorne sets the college’s policy direction, and leads the RCGP decision making body.

Professor Hawthorne was made an Honorary Fellow of Somerville in June 2025. 

Pat Davies (née Owtram) is a WWII codebreaker and recipient of the Legion d’Honneur who smashed glass ceilings as a producer in the world of Sixties television. She describes herself today as the only 100-year-old woman in Chiswick who knows how to use a sten gun. 

Like many women of her generation, Pat was determined to contribute to the war effort during WWII. Quite unlike most other women, however, Pat Davies spent her war years conducting vital secret work at covert listening stations on the South Coast, for which she would later receive the Légion d’Honneur, France’s highest order of merit. 

Pat joined the WRNS in 1942, aged just 18, motivated by her father’s capture and internment by the Japanese army. As a German-speaker, she was selected for work manning wireless intercept stations around the coast. Her intercepts of German military communications were translated, with encoded messages sent to Bletchley Park. After the war’s conclusion, Pat was offered a role as a translator in the Nuremburg Trials, but chose to return home to care for her recently liberated father. Unbeknownst to Pat, her younger sister Jean Argles (née Owtram) had also worked as a codebreaker for SOE, decoding messages from agents in the field. The sisters only learned about their shared experiences after the war, leading them to write the popular memoir ‘Code-Breaking Sisters’.

After the war, Pat became a noted television producer, helping to devise several longstanding shows including The Sky At Night, University Challenge and Coronation Street. More recently, Pat won a seven-decade-long battle to restore the authorship rights to her plagiarised BLitt thesis. Somerville played a significant role in this case for restorative justice, which you can read about here.

Pat Owtram arriving at the Dorothy Hodgkin Memorial Lecture 2024 with Principal Jan Royall before receiving applause as news of her Honorary Fellowship was announced.

Now 100 years old, Patricia describes herself as the only centenarian in Chiswick who knows how to use a Sten gun. In 2023, she was named The Oldie magazine’s ‘Oldie Secret Agent of the Year’ by Gyles Brandreth. 

Pat Owtram together with her younger sister Jean Argles (née Owtram, 1925-2023) during and after the war, and in Chiswick wearing her Victory medal and Bletchley badge

Pat Davies was made an Honorary Fellow of Somerville in March 2024, and informed of the decision while attending the annual Dorothy Hodgkin Lecture. Speaking of the news, Pat commented, ‘I certainly never expected to become a Fellow of an Oxford College. However, I feel very privileged to have been considered worthy of this recognition. My family were not terribly supportive of university education for women, so I was only able to attend university because I received a grant in recognition of my wartime service in the WRNS. I must say I found it a wonderful opportunity and stepping stone to an interesting career!’

Our Principal Jan Royall added, ‘It is a privilege to have met Pat and welcomed her as an Honorary Fellow of Somerville College. Her extraordinary life embraces so many historic chapters, through all of which she has evidently moved with the same combination of intellect, integrity and humour that show her to be a quintessential Somervillian.’

Sir Simon Russell Beale is an English actor for television, stage and film, described by The Independent in 2009 as “the greatest stage actor of his generation”.

Sir Simon began his acting career at The Royal Court after gaining a first in English from the University of Cambridge. He then spent 8 years with the Royal Shakespeare Company, making a name for himself with both comedic and tragic roles, before joining the National Theatre, where he remained on and off for 25 years.

During the course of an illustrious career on both stage and screen, Sir Simon has received ten Laurence Olivier Award nominations, including three wins for his performances in Volpone (1996), Candide (2000), and Uncle Vanya (2003). On Broadway, he been nominated for two Tony Awards, one of which he won for his performance as Henry Lehman in The Lehman Trilogy (2018). His work in film and TV has been recognised with two BAFTAs, one for the BBC’s Hollow Crown series (2012) and another for A Dance to the Music of Time (1997). In 2019 he was awarded a Knighthood in the Queen’s Birthday Honours for his services to the Arts.

Sir Simon engages with the theatre not only as a performer, but as an editor, author and public intellectual. He is a series editor of the Arden Performance editions of Shakespeare’s plays and his first full-length publication A Piece of Work, published in September 2024, will offer unparalleled insights into a lifetime of Shakespearean study and dramatic craft.

Sir Simon has been a close associate of Somerville College since 2015, when he spoke alongside our Fellow Emerita and Shakespeare expert Professor Katherine Duncan-Jones (1941-2022) at a literary tea. He has since joined us for numerous events, and was made an Honorary Fellow of the College in June 2024 in recognition of this long and fruitful association with the College. 

Sir Simon Russell Beale in ‘The Lehman Trilogy’

Responding to receiving the Honorary Fellowship, Sir Simon said, “I am delighted with this great honour that Somerville College has awarded me. Over the years, and during many visits to the College, particularly through my meetings with Katherine Duncan-Jones and Emma Smith, my affection for the College has grown and I anticipate confidently that it will grow still further. It is marvellous to play a small part in the history of an institution that is so rightly proud of its inclusivity and its sense of adventure.”

An honorary fellowship is the college’s highest recognition of distinction for alumni and associates, conferred annually by our Governing Body. Speaking of the College’s decision to grant Sir Simon this honour, Principal Jan Royall said, “It is delightful to know that, through this association, Somerville College can reaffirm our long-standing commitment to the humanities and anticipate many more such unforgettable encounters with Sir Simon. He is a thoroughly good man, a phenomenal actor and a livewire connection to the world of Shakespeare and his contemporaries.”

Sir Simon with (l-r) Professor Fiona Stafford, Hon. Fellow Professor Emma Smith (1988, English), and Principal Jan Royall