Bin Brook Draft 4 AW.qxp_Layout 1 01/08/2018 13:48 Page 1 BIN EASTER 2018 BROOK ROBINSON COLLEGE UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE Diversifying Robinson Bringing Focus on Medicine From bats to Travels with our students India Remembering Robinson the brightest and best to Cambridge herpes with Robinson's medics and Iraq with Zhuan and Molly Dr Mary Stewart's living legacy Bin Brook Draft 4 AW.qxp_Layout 1 01/08/2018 13:48 Page 2 02 Contents WELCOME 03 News in brief 04 Diversifying Robinson Bin Brook is Robinson’s flagship publication, keeping our alumni and friends 05 Access to Robinson Eleanor Humphrey in touch with the College and with each other. In view of its importance 06 My Robinson Dr Ben Guy we felt it was owed a facelift, and we hope you like the new look. 07 e Cancer Problem Dr Gary Doherty 08 Must all that lives die? Dr Anke Timmerman Easter 2018 is the first in a series of themed issues, focusing this time on the ground- breaking work of our Fellows in Medicine. ere can be few of us whose lives have 09 Fighting fluProfessor Wendy Barclay been untouched by illnesses such as cancer, viral disease or dementia, and it’s exciting to see that the research that may change the direction of our approaches 10 Bats in the limelight Dr Oliver Restif to these modern-day plagues may come out of Robinson. 11 Learning about memory Dr Brian McCabe Oxbridge admissions have been in the media spotlight recently and we are pleased to offer an 12 Brain Training Dr Duncan Astle insight into our outreach work, answering some of our readers’ questions on this most important 13 e Medic’s Tale Oliver Fox subject that is so close to Robinson’s heart and heritage. 14 Herpes by Dr Colin Crump is issue includes a new focus on the impact of our donors, including features on those who have remembered the College in their will and on our telephone fundraising campaign, which 15 Alumni Events is about to begin as Bin Brook goes to press. ank you to all of you who have answered our 16 Remembering Robinson students’ call in the past, and to those who will do so this time. We are enormously grateful. 18 Telephone Campaign 2018 Some elements of Bin Brook remain unchanged, including the section our readers probably turn to first. ‘Alumni News’ provides a wonderful insight into the lives of Robinsonians the world 20 Alumni News over – please keep your news coming, and let us know what you think of Bin Brook as it 22 News continues to evolve. • Fellows’ news • Staff news • Welcome to new College Members Sarah Westwood • Obituaries Development Director and Fellow [email protected] 24 Robinson College Open Art Exhibition Dr Steve Trudgill 25 Travel Diaries • Some reflections on my time in Iraq Zhuan Faraj FRONT COVER: 26 Travel Diaries Tracts in a child's brain. • Across India in a rickshaw Molly Cook Image courtesy of Dr Duncan Astle 28 Save the date! Editor: Norbert Truszczynski. Editorial Committee: Ms Sarah Westwood, Dr Rosalind Love, Dr Steve Trudgill, Dr Judy Weiss, and Dr Christine Stopp The Editor and the Members of the Editorial Committee would like to offer their gratitude to all the contributors for the materials submitted for publication. Photographs provided by contributors with additional images by Nic Marchant and Angus Parker BIN BROOK ROBINSON COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE Design: Cameron Design 01284 725292 Print: The Lavenham Press Bin Brook Draft 4 AW.qxp_Layout 1 01/08/2018 13:48 Page 3 TWO INSPIRING WOMEN LOOK BACK ROBINSON LEADS THE FIELD IN SPORT 03 ON AN EGALITARIAN HERITAGE AND IN RESEARCH AND TEACHING NEWS in brief A WOMAN’S SPORTING HUMANS OF PLACE IS AT SUCCESS ROBINSON ROBINSON “For the first time in the history of Angus Parker (Geography, 2016) has begun Robinson College, our rugby team have “Humans of Robinson”, a project born of Angus’s In November Robinson celebrated the desire to bring the College a little closer together, come in first place in Division 1”, reports create a greater sense of community and reveal the passing of e Representation of the RCRUFC team captain Rowan Saada stories and people that otherwise might remain People Act of 1918, which granted the (Natural Sciences, 2016). hidden. He hopes his work will contribute to a more vote to women who were householders familial atmosphere in the College because he over the age of 30. “It is a great achievement for us. We beat St. Johns believes that sometimes the real ‘people’ of Robinson for the second time this year to secure our position - whether they be students, staff, porters, cooks, Robinson was the first college in Cambridge to at the top of the division, after playing numerous cleaners or alumni - and their stories are not fully be founded for both men and women, on equal other intercollege games. Despite the fact that we represented or appreciated. Angus publishes his terms. As we celebrate the centenary of women did not always have fifteen men on the pitch, we short interviews and accompanying photos on getting the vote, two of our Founding Fellows still pulled together as a team to place ourselves at Facebook: www.facebook.com/beyondtheredbricks reflect on that legacy: the top. We are looking forward to what next year will bring us and hoping for success!” Professor Morna Hooker: “e College can be proud that almost 60 years after the 1918 Act - and almost 30 after women were first allowed to CONGRATULATIONS graduate, in 1948 - it was the first to write Professor Peter Hutchinson ‘equality’ into its constitution from the very , Fellow of Robinson College and Director of Studies in beginning.” Clinical Medicine, has been elected to a Fellowship of the Academy of Medical Sciences. Dr Mary Stewart: “My mother grew up in a world where women were still not allowed to Dr Gary Doherty, vote, so to celebrate the acquiring of that right Fellow and Director of Studies in Medicine, has been matters a lot to me, and I am particularly proud appointed Consultant Medical Oncologist, specialising in to be part of the first undergraduate college in Lung Oncology and Neuro-oncology. This is only the Cambridge to be founded on the assumption THE VICTORIOUS TEAM, FROM LEFT TO RIGHT: second appointment in the UK for a Medical Oncologist that gender equality is the norm. Times do TOP: Milo Smith, Nick Monioudis, Will Birch, specialising in central nervous system tumours. Angus Aughterson, Joe Collins, Max Kotz, Hay-Yeung Tang, change, thankfully!” Dr Rosalind C Love Alfred Jacquemot, Rhys Thompson, Dan O’Riordan , BOTTOM: Max Orviss, Ed Butler-Caddlle, Fellow of Robinson College and Reader in Insular Andrius Grabauskas, James Galliver, Rowan Saada (Captain), Latin at the Department of Anglo-Saxon, Norse, and Henry Constable, Piers Crowther, Nick Calvert Celtic, is one of only twelve academics at the University of Cambridge who have been awarded the 2018 Pilkington Prize for outstanding teaching. Congratulations also to Dr Rachel Oliver, Fellow in Materials Science, who has been awarded a Personal Chair in Materials Science and Metallurgy; and to Dr David Fairen-Jiménez, Fellow in Chemical Engineering, Dr Ying Jin, Fellow and Director of Studies in Architecture and Dr Julie Smith, Baroness Smith of Dr Mary Stewart (L) & Professor Morna Hooker (R) Newnham, Fellow in Politics and International Studies, who have all been awarded Readerships. robinson.cam.ac.uk Bin Brook Draft 4 AW.qxp_Layout 1 01/08/2018 13:48 Page 4 04 Diversifying Robinson Diversity at Oxbridge has been much in the news over the past few months, and it’s an issue close to Robinson's heart. Our founding ethos is egalitarian and we strive to bring young people with the greatest potential to Cambridge regardless of their circumstances. using the Winter Pool, this year taking some 31% from it. is is one reason why it is important to view our admissions figures on a University level rather than just from a local College perspective. Contextualised admissions One fundamental aspect of Cambridge’s approach to selecting students is to try to gain as much contextual information about everyone who applies as possible, so that each interviewer is fully aware of every applicant’s school and Challenges We run a series of events background. Such factors need to be borne in mind when designed to tackle both of these In fulfilling this ambition we face two challenges: to increase comparing applicants in each subject. Each year we receive challenges by introducing school both the number of applications from students from under- just this kind of information based on details from the Higher students and their teachers to represented backgrounds and to the College more generally, Education Statistics Agency (HESA) and from other national Robinson, and to Cambridge because we do not receive as many as the more 'traditional' bodies. We also take careful note of how each applicant’s Cambridge colleges do. We run a series of events designed to school is performing on a national level. tackle both of these challenges by introducing school students and their teachers to Robinson, and to Cambridge more Financial support broadly. Each Cambridge college is assigned a 'link area' in the In addition to attracting the brightest students from every country and ours is the south-west and the London Borough background, we support them financially once they are here, of Wandsworth. Within this zone we engage with students both through means–tested bursary schemes and hardship from many different year groups, even before their GCSE funding for those who encounter an unexpected financial years, at schools that do not have a history of sending students demand.