THE MAGAZINE OF CORPUS CHRISTI COLLEGE CAMBRIDGE ISSUE 31 | 2019 pelican

Professor Christopher Howe President of the College Dr Jenny Zhang Fellow in Chemistry The Revd Canon Jeremy Davies College Chaplain

• 1 XX pelican Editor Elizabeth Winter

Managing Editor Elizabeth Abusleme

Editorial Assistants Jane Martin, Lucy Sparke, Somer Greene and Yulia Shpak Design and photography Professor Christopher Howe Dr Jenny Zhang Dr Thomas Nelson Elizabeth Abusleme PAGE 4 PAGE 10 PAGE 16

The Revd Canon Jeremy Davies PAGE 22 Dr Charles Read Dr Paul Kattuman Dr Claudia Bonfio PAGE 28 PAGE 32 PAGE 38

Dr John Biggins Nina Jeffs Dr Patrick Pietzonka Dr Kai Ruggeri PAGE 44 PAGE 50 PAGE 56 PAGE 62

2 • The Pelican 2019 • 3 Professor Christopher Howe Fellow in Biochemistry and President of the College

Some aspects of a person’s career up somewhere closer to the centre For billions of years, only bacteria seem predictable; others do not. of town. As it turned out, I had two could photosynthesize, but around People who knew me as a child offers early on in the process, one a billion years ago (and still well probably thought it inevitable that I from Corpus and one from another before the organisms whose fossils would become a scientist. With the college nearby and had to choose you see in museums), a remarkable agreement of our extraordinarily between them. I confidently chose thing happened. A photosynthetic tolerant parents, my brother (now a Corpus. If it was largely by chance bacterium was swallowed up by a distinguished geologist) and I turned that I came here as a Research larger, more complex, cell that was the spare bedroom at home into our Fellow in 1983, it was a very happy unable to photosynthesize. There chemistry lab. The house we lived in chance, and I remained at Corpus would have been nothing unusual was called ‘Southacres’, so when we as I became Lecturer, Reader and about that – cells eat other cells decided we ought to set up our own then Professor, in the Department all the time, digesting them and scientific journal, we duly named it of Biochemistry. using the constituents. In this case, ‘The Transactions of the Southacres something different and rather Chemical Laboratory’. My first ever What, then, have I been doing all special happened. Instead of being research paper appeared there, this time? Most of my research broken down, the photosynthetic and was a study of the effects of work throughout my career has bacterium survived inside the acids and alkalis on the pigments been related to photosynthesis – a predator, which became a benign extracted from lupin flowers in the very ancient process that evolved host. The bacterium provided its host back garden. The submission had in bacteria about three billion years with some of the nutrient products a surprisingly easy time with the ago, only a billion or so years after of photosynthesis, and the host gave reviewer (my brother), as did my the origin of the earth. It allows it a safe haven. The descendants brother’s paper in the same issue organisms to convert light energy of those photosynthetic bacteria of the same journal (reviewed by from the sun into tiny electric are the chloroplasts – specialized me). Perhaps the relaxed approach currents within their cells and then photosynthetic compartments – of to peer-review was why the journal to chemical energy in the form plant cells today. It’s a remarkable had a rather restricted lifetime (one of chemicals needed for life and illustration of the old proverb issue) and readership (our parents). growth. In doing so, it breaks down that if you give someone a fish My subsequent path to Cambridge, water and gives oxygen as a waste you feed them for a day, but if reading Natural Sciences at product – something that was very you teach them how to fish (or Christ’s, might therefore have been toxic when it first appeared in the photosynthesize) you feed them for predictable (in spite of a careers atmosphere! a lifetime (and their descendants for test at school that said I was good over a billion years). I’m interested at everything except science), but in the process that formed the my move to Corpus as a Research chloroplast. Was it actually a one- Fellow as I finished my PhD was off event, that happened at a single probably less so. Like many people place and time, or was it the result applying for Research Fellowships, of a series of transient associations? I decided that because the process “ Has it happened again? And how was something of a lottery the best IF IT WAS BY CHANCE THAT I did cells evolve to cope with the chance of winning a prize was to CAME HERE AS A RESEARCH chloroplast once it had been have as many tickets as possible, FELLOW IN 1983, IT WAS A acquired? Photosynthesis is actually and so I duly applied to all the VERY HAPPY CHANCE, AND I a dangerous process, generating colleges with Research Fellowships REMAINED AT CORPUS AS I highly toxic things we call ‘Reactive on offer. I remember cycling out to BECAME LECTURER, READER Oxygen Species’ (as well as oxygen a distant college uphill and in the AND THEN PROFESSOR, itself, which life has now tamed) rain to deliver my application (this IN THE DEPARTMENT OF – and getting hold of that first was well before the days of the web BIOCHEMISTRY. chloroplast was almost literally and online application systems) and playing with fire. The process of secretly hoping that – excellent a bacterium getting taken up by college though it was – I might end another cell is closer to home than

4 • The Pelican 2019 ” • 5 PROFESSOR CHRISTOPHER HOWE

you might think. Inside (almost) phosphorescence of the oceans. except that in our case we are using predictable. But Cambridge colleges comes exclusively from the female me, often use information in DNA all our cells are ‘mitochondria’, At some stage in evolution, the living organisms to turn sunlight are almost uniquely placed to foster parent. I gave the project to a final sequences to reconstruct the compartments that break down ancestors of Plasmodium moved into electricity, and we call the unpredictable interactions, too – year biochemistry undergraduate, evolutionary history of groups of food molecules to liberate energy from being free-living photosynthetic phenomenon ‘biophotovoltaics’. We and especially through High Table and John Haeger sent the necessary organisms. As organisms reproduce, in a form your body can use. Those organisms to parasites, but they would like to be able to use these and the way it brings together leaf samples. The student their DNA is copied, but the enzymes mitochondria were also formed by retained some of the biochemical systems in places where there is no people of very different disciplines. discovered that the chloroplast that do the copying sometimes a bacterium getting swallowed up pathways unique to photosynthetic power supply network, but where At least two of my research projects DNA of Chardonnay matched that make mistakes, resulting in slight by another cell to form a long-term organisms, and we are trying to small amounts of power can make a have had their origins in chance of Gouais, passed down from the changes in the sequence of units relationship. develop ways of interfering with big difference, as in some low and discussions at High Table. One original cross, but not Pinot Noir. that make up DNA – changes that those pathways to provide new ways middle income countries. involved a visitor from Stanford, That meant the female parent of we call mutations. (It’s a paradox As well as studying photosynthesis, of attacking malaria. Other ways we John Haeger. He was working with Chardonnay and some (but not all, that, although we often think of and how today’s photosynthetic can try to exploit photosynthesis One of the good things about the Parker Library, and is also an we found) of the other varieties mutations as ‘bad’ - turning cells organisms have evolved, I am are more directly linked to the Cambridge colleges is the way expert on the Pinot Noir grape. was the down-market Gouais and cancerous, for example – they also interested in the practical process itself. I explained earlier they facilitate collaboration among John explained that many well- not the more sophisticated Pinot provide the essential variations applications. Some of those practical that photosynthesis depends on academics. For example, much of known grape varieties, including Noir. The undergraduate got a nice that allow evolution to take place.) applications have been unexpected. tiny electric currents, powered by the work I described above is done Chardonnay, had been made by research paper out of the project Mutations accumulate in species For example, it turns out that sunlight, inside the cells of plants in collaboration with other Corpus crossing Pinot Noir and Gouais, an (as well as an article about it in the during evolution, but different the parasite that causes malaria, and algae. It turns out that small Fellows, such as Alison Smith in the inferior variety whose cultivation Daily Telegraph!). mutations occur in separate a single-celled organism called amounts of current can pass out Department of Plant Sciences and had been banned at various times in species. As a result, the more Plasmodium, has a photosynthetic of the cells, and we can collect the Jenny Zhang in the Department of history, but that no-one knew which A more long-term interdisciplinary distantly related species are, the ancestry. Some of its closest living current with electrodes and use it Chemistry. Just as my becoming a was the male parent (providing project also started at High Table, more differences there are between relatives today are the dinoflagellate to power small electrical devices. scientist was perhaps predictable, pollen) and which the female. I in conversations with Fred Ratcliffe their DNA sequences. Biologists algae – widespread photosynthetic This is like using solar photovoltaic those interactions, with colleagues explained that the question should (then University Librarian) and have powerful computer programs microorganisms supporting coral cells (the kind that are springing up and friends in clearly related subject be easy to answer by looking at Linne Mooney (a Visiting Fellow). that use the differences between reefs, and responsible for the as solar farms all over the country), areas, might also be reasonably DNA found in the chloroplast, which Evolutionary biologists, including DNA sequences of sets of species

6 • The Pelican 2019 • 7 to work out their evolutionary work with, having a really strong relationships – which species shared sense of shared purpose. Among recent common ancestors to the other roles, I spent five years as exclusion of others – and construct Warden of Leckhampton (1999- something like a family tree. I learnt 2004). Living for that time as part from Fred and Linne that textual of a thriving, international and scholars do very similar work, with interdisciplinary community in different versions of the texts they such a beautiful setting was a real study. They use the changes made pleasure. Leckhampton and its by scribes while copying those texts community make, to my mind, one (analogous to mutations occurring of the College’s great treasures. in DNA sequences as they are Outside of academic work, I enjoy copied by enzymes) to construct 20th and 21st century British art, tree-like representations showing so I loved being able to greet Henry which extant versions of the text Moore’s ‘Fred’ each day as he sat were copied from the same earlier contemplating the Leckhampton one. At that time, the textual gardens. In October 2019, I took over scholars did much of their work from Andrew Harvey as President without the aid of computers, but of the College, which I’m looking the process of inferring the copying forward to very much – although history of sets of texts and inferring Andrew and his predecessors will the evolutionary history of species be a hard act to follow. It’s not easy is so similar that we reasoned that to describe the President’s role our biological programs ought to be exactly. Descriptions I’ve been given able to work with literary data. Linne combine (with varying degrees of put me in contact with a like-minded accuracy, I think) elements of Head textual scholar, Peter Robinson, who Prefect, Shop Steward, and Leader had the ideal database of versions of the House of Commons. Military of the Prologue to the Wife of friends suggest it’s like being the Bath’s Tale in the Canterbury Tales. President of the Officers’ Mess. The biological programmes worked Certainly, it involves oversight of amazingly well, allowing us to infer important events like College Feasts copying histories in a fraction of the and other dinners, working closely time taken by traditional methods, with College staff. It involves helping and hopefully offering a useful tool to welcome people to the College, to the textual scholars. We published such as newly admitted Fellows, or the results in the scientific journal visitors at High Table. I look forward Nature, with widespread media also to supporting the Development interest. The project is still going Office in their work of ensuring strong, over twenty years later, and that Old Members feel part of the we have now started to turn our College community. At events for attentions to collections of music Old Members, I am always struck manuscripts. by the wide range of roles people move into, as well as the sense of My time at Corpus hasn’t been loyalty they show to the College. limited to eating and talking at My own experience has shown High Table, though. In 1987, I was how valuable High Table can be as appointed as Director of Studies for a way of spontaneously fostering Preclinical Medicine when the then new ideas as well as enjoying social Director of Studies, Rod Thompson interaction. I’m keen to nurture (who sadly died last year, and who those benefits, and I look forward was a great support to me as I started to welcoming Old Members there, on my academic career) moved to with their own perspectives and be Professor in Southampton. My experience. It’s a pleasure to see own appointment as Director of you, and find out what you have Studies was intended to be a short- been doing, so please keep coming term one, until the College found back to see us! someone better qualified, but I am still enjoying the role over thirty years later. The medical students are a great group of people to

8 • The Pelican 2019 • 9 Dr Jenny Zhang Fellow in Chemistry

I CAME TO CAMBRIDGE FROM AUSTRALIA OVER 5 YEARS AGO AS A MARIE SKŁODOWSKA-CURIE POSTDOCTORAL FELLOW; I NOT ONLY MOVED COUNTRIES, BUT ALSO CHANGED RESEARCH FIELDS. I AM NOW RUNNING MY OWN LAB AT THE DEPARTMENT OF CHEMISTRY AND BECAME A CORPUS CHRISTI FELLOW IN 2019.

When I turned one, I had my first fostered by my mother. My mother We immigrated from the populous career assessment test. There is was not a Chinese ‘tiger mother’ city of Guangzhou to the quiet an old Chinese tradition called who pressured me to study hard and suburban city of Gosford, two hours ‘zhuazhou’ where on a child’s first strive for a certain success; instead, north of Sydney, Australia, when I was birthday, they are to be presented she had inspired achievement and just under eight. Moving from China with several objects from which to hard work in me through example. to Australia at this age meant that I grab. The object that the one-year old I was a constant witness to her was armed with an ability to perform chooses forecasts the child’s future multi-tasking talents as a successful long division, but had no knowledge career path. On my first birthday, the paediatrician and homemaker, mostly of the English language. The sharp items presented to me included a whilst being a single parent as my transition and being away from family yuan note for a career in business and father was away overseas. My earliest and friends were extremely tough. I finance, a small accordion for a career memories are of my mother feeding went from being in amongst the top in the arts, a doll for a career as a my love for learning and science of my classes in China to being placed housewife, a stethoscope for a career through bed-time stories. On most in the bottom classes in Australia, and in medicine, a shiny jade bracelet and nights, she would unravel to me, one I had to work very hard and caught a couple of colourful toys for a life of scientific fact at a time, the magic up slowly. It took a long time for me luxury and leisure, and so on. behind why stars blink at night, how to understand what the teachers the human body works, how a radio were expecting from me and what In some families, relatives would transmits sound, how eggs become my classmates were chatting about watch on and place bets on which chickens, and so on. Some of these at lunchtimes. Even after then, object the child would grab. In mine, had unexpected effects on me: eggs straddling between the demands however, all hopes were placed on would go missing from the kitchen of two different cultures required the stethoscope. Both my parents and turn up nestled snugly under more maturity than I could muster were doctors, my entire paternal blankets in beds; the radio and sewing on several occasions. However, there family had esteemed careers in machine would be found dismantled, were also many moments of wonder medicine; the stethoscope was apparently by someone who wanted and discovery. I loved the colourful pushed encouragingly towards me. to have a better look inside… nature of coastal Australia, where To everyone’s dismay, I grabbed there seem to be more rainbow instead one of the dullest items on lorikeets, blue-tongued lizards and display - a plain white pen. A career red-back spiders than people. I loved in writing…perhaps in scholarship…? the generous clear blue skies and What else could a pen allude to? The golden beaches. I missed many things room became unsettled. I was born from my original home, but also loved five years after the one-child policy “ being able to cherry pick the best was enforced in China, so my future STRADDLING THE TWO from the two cultures (for example possibly determined my family’s WORLDS GAVE ME A when it came to food and holidays). legacy. The stethoscope was offered UNIQUE PERSPECTIVE Straddling the two worlds gave me a one more time, but I held on to the THAT EMPOWERED ME unique perspective that empowered pen. TO CHALLENGE CULTURAL me to challenge cultural conventions CONVENTIONS AND NOT and not be afraid to deviate from the Of course, I do not remember any norm later in life. of this birthday grab business. And BE AFRAID TO DEVIATE knowing what I know now, perhaps FROM THE NORM LATER During my final high school years if there was a choice of a test tube IN LIFE. in Australia, when I had to pick my rack or safety googles, I might have university subjects, I was less decisive grabbed one of those instead. Hints than my one-year-old self. I enjoyed of my inclination towards science only so many subjects, yet none was an surfaced later and was very much obvious calling. Finding solutions

10 • The Pelican 2019 ” • 11 DR JENNY ZHANG to complex mathematical problems began making brilliantly coloured salts gave me an enormous buzz, whilst and solutions in laboratory practicals. examining English texts opened my It was easy to imagine that one was in mind to new worlds and ideas. I loved a potions class in a Harry Potter novel. how art subjects challenged me to tell At this point, it was abundantly clear stories in creative and abstract ways, to me that chemistry was more than and how physics revealed invisible just a pragmatic subject. Chemicals relationships that connected multi- make up the mind-blowingly rich and scalar spaces. High school chemistry, dynamic fabric of the universe and however, I found uncompelling. The understanding chemistry is like being descriptions of chemical processes able to peak behind the curtains of gave me the sense that it was an the magic show that is our fascinating important and pragmatic subject, world. I truly believe that chemistry is but impact statements could only go a springboard from which to make a so far. Furthermore, my family still difference in the world in an informed hoped for me to pursue a career in way. medicine. In the end, I decided to find out what I was capable of first before Fast forward a few years, I was deciding what to be. For this reason, doing a PhD in chemistry in Sydney I picked a general degree in science with Professor Trevor Hambley. My at the University of Sydney, without research topic addressed the common knowing what would come out of it. problem of poor penetration by anti- cancer agents into solid tumours, I chose science because I wanted to which contributes to reduced efficacy better understand what makes up our and the development of multi-cellular physical world, and where we stand drug resistance. In this research, I in it all. Importantly, I wanted to be synthesised a library of anti-cancer armed with the right knowledge to platinum agents that differed help solve important problems facing rationally in their chemical properties our world. Seeing the limited life path and probed their bio-distribution and options of my cousins (and my own interactions within tumour models alternative reality) in China from afar, using a variety of biophysical methods. I greatly appreciated the privilege I loved the research experience for chemists; it was eye-opening to see I went into my science degree wanting and freedom that was gifted to me many reasons. I loved the creative how one problem could be tackled in to see what I was capable of; I came by my twist of fate in immigrating problem-solving elements needed such different ways. out with a PhD and a thirst to do more to Australia. I wanted more than in finding synthetic pathways to science. At the end of my PhD, I realised anything to make the most of this gift make new molecules, and piecing that I wanted to pursue a post-doc, by using it to reach my potential, to together clues derived from various but as much as I had enjoyed research give back where possible, to live a full characterization techniques to reveal, in the field of medicinal chemistry, life that leaves positive ripples in this for example, the identity of a newly another challenge was calling to me. world. synthesised compound or an unknown Climate change was starting to sit process occurring within a complex “ heavily on my mind, and I wanted to I took a spread of science and maths system. The beauty of the scientific I CHOSE SCIENCE find out what chemists were doing subjects in my first year of university method means that even if a mistake BECAUSE I WANTED TO towards addressing this looming with chemistry included. By the was made during a discovery, it is BETTER UNDERSTAND problem. It turned out that one of the biggest challenges facing chemists start of the second year, chemistry likely to be systematically corrected WHAT MAKES UP OUR emerged clearly as my favourite later. I loved travelling around the today is within the field of artificial subject. My enthusiasm first ignited world to exchange ideas with sharp- PHYSICAL WORLD, AND photosynthesis: that is, chemists are in lectures showing organic chemistry minded people at conferences. I was WHERE WE STAND IN trying to develop synthetic systems reaction mechanisms… molecules fascinated to see how science is done IT ALL. IMPORTANTLY, I that could better harvest and store suddenly came to life for me. I in labs across the globe and went WANTED TO BE ARMED solar energy in the form of chemicals loved visualising the movements of on an exchange to the Middle East. I WITH THE RIGHT than nature can via biological photosynthesis. This is a possible step electrons and possible interactions flew to several synchrotrons (which KNOWLEDGE TO HELP between different molecules based are large cyclic particle accelerators) towards replacing fossil fuels with on the properties of their functional developing techniques with beamline SOLVE IMPORTANT renewable fuels. Fortuitously, I found groups. I remembered my spine scientists to push a little further each PROBLEMS FACING OUR a principal investigator, Erwin Reisner, tingling when we started lectures on time the ways in which we could WORLD. in Cambridge who was working on this inorganic chemistry - the chemistry probe into my tumour models. All the topic and was also crazy enough to of the metallic elements. The shapes while, I was fortunate enough to be support me in this change in research and reactivity of the compounds working alongside cellular biologists, direction. He himself, had a similar multiplied in complexity, and we spectroscopists, physicists and other research field transition post-PhD. 12 • The Pelican 2019 ” • 13 DR JENNY ZHANG

Although many were supportive of my new electron transfer pathways at the change in research direction, a few well- enzyme-electrode interface. meaning individuals tried to dissuade me from changing fields : “You’re doing By the end of my post-doc five years later, so well in medicinal chemistry, do you we have well and truly opened up the really want to change?”. It is true that field of ‘semi-artificial photosynthesis’. changing fields post-PhD may mean This emergent field aims to integrate the loss of research momentum and components of artificial and biological established networks, with a general photosynthesis to access novel bio- drop-off in publication rate; a new start hybrid systems for solar chemical or is always hard and could jeopardise electricity production. It is a highly a career in academia where ‘publish interdisciplinary area of research and or perish’ is a mantra. It was a big the ability to bridge between different risk and I knew it. However, having worlds is crucial to its success; again, been empowered by the personal here I was able to draw inspirations experience of transitioning between from my personal background. worlds earlier in life, I saw such changes as enormous opportunities for growth I started my own research group in and learning. I was, perhaps naively, 2018 at the Department of Chemistry looking forward to the challenge and as a BBSRC David Phillips Fellow, the possibility of breathing fresh ideas where I am taking semi-artificial into old problems. photosynthesis one step further. My research now focusses on wiring live I started working in Cambridge as a photosynthetic microorganisms (which Marie Skłodowska-Curie Fellow in are much more robust and complex 2013, studying the photo-catalytic than photosynthetic proteins) to properties of the water oxidation electrodes. My team aims to develop enzyme photosystem II (PSII) using tools for studying fundamental electrochemistry. PSII is responsible for photochemistry of microorganisms, kickstarting photosynthesis in plants, and to use this to help guide us to algae and cyanobacteria, and serves as better exploit them in agricultural and an inspiration in artificial photosynthesis solar energy-conversion technologies. in which water oxidation is a rate- My group members and collaborators limiting step. As expected, the learning are an exciting concoction of engineers, curve was very steep; the reading chemists, biologists, theoreticians list for this project was both broad in and spectroscopists, including Corpus context (spanning the fields of catalysis, Christi Fellow Christopher Howe. materials science, interface chemistry and biological photosynthesis) and Having seen Cambridge from the it became highly technical when it inside for many years now, it is easy came to the mechanics of how the to still wonder sometimes… what PSII enzyme works. Furthermore, am I doing here? My narrative is so electrochemistry is a technique that different to many within the Faculty seems deceptively straightforward to and the colleges, it is easy to come execute, but the results can be very down with the dreaded ‘Imposter challenging to interpret. Indeed, it Syndrome’. However, I have come to was tough, but I believe that it was my realize that diversity (provided that chemistry background that helped me it is not oppressed) brings with it to get to grips with the fundamentals creativity and balance, and is vital to of the field much quicker. With some the health of an organisation. With my patience and hard work (from both time in Cambridge, I hope to not only me and my team mates in the new drive great science, but also to set an research group), we began to have example for those who do not have a many exciting moments of discovery typical Oxbridge profile to embrace and progress, from the development their difference and use it to fuel their of new electrodes for enzymes that own success. If I could inspire future resulted in three-orders of magnitude parents to place test tube racks and increase in electrochemical output, safety googles in their one-year old’s to the wiring of PSII to other enzymes cots as part of the birthday grab, that to artificially re-wire biological would be a bonus! photosynthesis, to the uncovering of Photo credit: Gaby Bocchetti. 14 • The Pelican 2019 • 15 Dr Thomas Nelson Research Fellow in Classics

My interest in the classical world was which clicked with me even more than My current major research project sparked at a young age. I can trace it Latin. I took it for A Level alongside focuses on early Greek literary history, back to the Greek myth comics which History, Maths and English Literature, investigating how our earliest known I loved reading as a child, as well as where I especially enjoyed tracing the Greek poets signposted their debts the encyclopaedias of Norse, Egyptian influence of classical literature on later to their predecessors. Ancient poets and Graeco-Roman mythology which authors such as John Milton. Given repeatedly retold the same myths I pored over for hours. The legends of my twin interests in the ancient world with the same sets of characters, ancient gods and heroes fascinated and literary criticism, Classics was the whose stories would have already me far more than modern history or natural subject to pursue at University. been familiar to their audiences. In fiction. There was something about modern media, we might compare these fantastic narratives that kept me the likes of Sherlock Holmes or James hooked: the conflicts between forces of Bond. We don’t need to be told about order and chaos, the hybrid creatures these characters because we’re already that were neither fully human nor familiar with their backstories. The fully beast, and the topsy-turvy same was true for the ancient Greeks fortunes of both individuals and whole and their myths. In my research, I communities, all overladen with a deep argue that the earliest known Greek sense of these stories’ great antiquity. “ poets self-consciously acknowledged THE LEGENDS OF In hindsight, I think I was drawn by the familiarity of their subject matter these ancient tales’ ability – despite ANCIENT GODS AND and signalled their references to prior their temporal distance – to reflect HEROES FASCINATED tradition – placing markers in their timeless facets of the human condition. ME FAR MORE THAN works for alert audiences to recognise MODERN HISTORY OR (much like the knowing ‘Easter eggs’ It was the opportunity to learn Latin FICTION. THERE WAS of modern cinema). This kind of at school, however, that first made SOMETHING ABOUT signposting is usually considered the me aware of Classics as an academic preserve of later literary cultures, discipline. I was enthralled by the allure THESE FANTASTIC closely linked with the development of this dead language with its elaborate NARRATIVES THAT KEPT of libraries, literacy and writing. But rules, systems and (seemingly) ME HOOKED. I argue that these same devices were insistent logic. I also fondly remember already deeply engrained in our earliest my teacher’s attempts to spice up oral archaic Greek poetry. the language learning with his ‘nine jokes of Latin’. Among my favourites A particularly intriguing instance of were the pub patron who ‘declined’ such signposting involves cases where a martini (martini, martini, martinos, characters’ memories of events from martinorum…) and the pair of writing ” their fictional past coincide with the frogs who kept saying ‘scribit, scribit’ I promptly went off to the ‘Other poet’s (and audience’s) recollection of (‘it writes, it writes’). What felt most Place’ for both my undergraduate and earlier literary texts and traditions. In special about Latin, however, was its master’s degrees, spending five happy Homer’s Iliad, for example, the Greek ability to unlock the past. By learning years at University College. I quickly hero Achilles threateningly asks his this language, I could start to read discovered that my strongest interests Trojan enemy Aeneas if he remembers what real people had written about lay in the field of Greek literature, the previous occasion when he chased their lives and beliefs thousands of especially the poetry of the archaic (8th him down from Mt Ida and nearly years ago. And as I went on to read – 6th centuries BCE) and Hellenistic killed him. We know that this episode Latin poetry, I really appreciated the (late 4th – late 1st centuries BCE) belonged to the canon of Trojan artistry of this inflected language – in periods, and it is in these two areas myth against which Homer worked comparison to English, the flexibility that the majority of my research has and with which his audiences were of Latin word order allows for far more focused to date. For my PhD, I relocated familiar. By explicitly ‘recalling’ this creative expression in the positioning to Cambridge (Trinity College), and I’m event, Achilles parallels and triggers and juxtaposition of individual delighted to be able to continue living the audience’s own recall of former words. Later in my school career, I and working in this thriving city during poetic treatments of it. Notably, this also started learning Classical Greek, my Fellowship here at Corpus. is precisely the same kind of cross-

16 • The Pelican 2019 • 17 DR THOMAS NELSON

referencing that we find in far later literary culture, that of the Hellenistic construction of a vast Library and To take just one example, I’m currently the scholarly priorities of Alexandria. literature, as when the literary Sherlock age, and it is in this sphere that many Musaeum (‘Institute of the Muses’, a very interested in the Attalid kings of Such underexplored snippets allow us to Holmes remembers events which of my future research plans lie. The distant ancestor of the modern-day Pergamon in Asia Minor, latecomers to gain a glimpse of how Pergamene poets Conan Doyle had narrated previously: Hellenistic world (late 4th – late 1st ‘Museum’). Numerous texts produced the international Hellenistic stage who positioned both themselves and their in The Adventure of the Sussex Vampire centuries BCE) was a period of seismic in this Ptolemaic context survive today, rose up from very humble origins: their rulers within a wider pan-Hellenistic (1927), the protagonist consults a cultural change. After the unexpected allowing scholars to explore how founder Philetaerus was apparently a literary and political system. record of previous cases, in which he death of Alexander the Great in 323 Alexandrian poets fashioned a shared half-Greek eunuch, the son of a flute- reads about the ‘Voyage of the Gloria BCE, his vast empire crumbled into past and collective identity for their playing courtesan. Despite these lowly “ Another approach is to track the Scott’ and has ‘some recollection’ a mosaic of successor kingdoms, readers: legitimising their new reality origins, however, the kingdom managed THROUGHOUT MY workings of one specific type of literature that Watson ‘made a record of it’. As radically reshaping the contours of through recourse to distant myth, to secure a place among the top tier of TIME IN CAMBRIDGE across its numerous appearances in Homer, this back-reference (to The the Greek-speaking world. With the mapping out their new panoramic Hellenistic monarchies by presenting I’VE ALSO MAINTAINED throughout the Hellenistic world. The Adventure of the Gloria Scott, 1893) is foundation of new colonies and the world away from mainland Greece, itself as a harmonious and cultured AN ACTIVE RESEARCH genre of epic is a prime example. We cued through the language of memory. expansion of earlier settlements, and incorporating non-Greek Egyptian defender of Greek civilisation, while INTEREST IN A possess a wide array of Hellenistic epic These two texts, separated by over Greek culture stretched far and wide traditions into their works. In my also teaming up with the rising power DIFFERENT PERIOD fragments which concern many other two and half thousand years, exhibit into North Africa, Syria and even India, research, however, I seek to expand of Rome – an opportunistic move which places beyond Alexandria, ranging from the same literary strategy: characters’ blending Greeks and locals in an uneasy our gaze beyond Alexandria and re- would eventually prove its undoing (the OF GREEK LITERARY Messenia and Delos in ‘old Greece’ to memories map onto those of the mix of assimilation and confrontation. incorporate the forgotten tales of kingdom became a Roman province CULTURE, THAT OF THE Syria and Jerusalem beyond. Since the audience. By exploring many examples The surviving poetry of this period other literary centres. The literature in 133 BCE). Today, Pergamon is best HELLENISTIC AGE, AND IT time of Homer, epic had been a key such as this, my project encourages offers a fascinating window onto how from these sites tends to be less well known for its monumental architecture, IS IN THIS SPHERE THAT vehicle for articulating and contesting us to rethink how we understand our the Greeks of this era constructed, preserved, but by tapping into a rich especially the massive ‘Great Altar’ which MANY OF MY FUTURE cultural identity, and this is no less true of surviving archaic Greek poems, both contested and legitimised their own dossier of fragmentary and inscribed resides in the Pergamon Museum of RESEARCH PLANS LIE. these poems. Many fragments promote individually as elaborate compositions identity and heritage. poetry, I aim to unearth the plurality of Berlin and whose exterior is decked with local legends and traditions, such as the in their own right, and collectively as poetic styles and traditions throughout baroque scenes of the cosmic conflict Thessalian King Aleuas’ love affair with part of a larger literary tradition that In recent years, scholars have focused the Hellenistic world, with all their between giants and gods. In my research, a snake (!) or a princess’ betrayal of her bridges many centuries and cultures. particularly on Ptolemaic Alexandria synchronic and diachronic diversity. however, I concentrate on the scraps hometown Methymna for the promise in Egypt as a privileged site to explore of poetry that survive from Pergamon of Achilles’ love (one of the many Throughout my time in Cambridge, these issues. Alexandria was a major One way to approach this material is – fragments of royal praise poetry, amatory episodes appended to the I’ve also maintained an active research hub of literary and scholarly patronage, to investigate all the surviving texts inscribed epinicia (poems celebrating Greek hero’s post-Homeric biography). interest in a different period of Greek bolstered by the Ptolemaic kings’ and fragments from a specific locale. athletic success) and epigrams attacking ” Most exceptional of all, however, are

18 • The Pelican 2019 • 19 DR THOMAS NELSON

the ancient world. In addition to giving regular school talks, I collaborate with the Young People's Puppet Theatre, a charity which encourages creativity and teamwork in primary schools (www.yppt. org.uk). I’ve recently written a puppet version of ‘Theseus and the Minotaur’ for their projects with Year 6 classes in the UK, which has so far been performed in Cambridgeshire, Hertfordshire and London. Over the course of an academic year, the children (aged 10-11) make their own marionette puppets, paint backdrops, build props, learn how to puppeteer, and finish off with a spectacular performance on a high-tech stage in front of their friends, parents and local community. I particularly enjoy talking with each class about ancient myth and culture before attending their final performance at the end of the year.

Beyond the academic world, I am also passionate about dance and music. During my time at Oxford, I spent many evenings playing the French Horn in university orchestras (alongside a stint as President of the university music society, OUMS), but I now spend much of my free time training and competing as a Ballroom and Latin dancer. Over the past five years, I have represented England and Cambridge internationally in Austria, Germany, Hungary, Poland and China, and I captained the University team to an undefeated year at home and abroad in 2016-17. I compete in both couples dancing (performing with one partner against other couples) and in Latin formation dancing (with XS Latin Cambridge). The latter is a bit like the fragments of two epics which re-tell grounds at Leckhampton are fantastic, synchronised swimming: eight couples Jewish biblical traditions in Greek literary and teaching Corpus students is an dance a routine of around six minutes form, recasting prominent biblical extremely rewarding experience. I teach with elements from each of the five Latin figures like Joseph and Jacob in the guise a wide variety of subjects, ranging across dances (Cha Cha Cha, Samba, Rumba, of Homeric heroes. In the future, I’d Greek and Latin language and literature, Paso Doble, Jive), making different like to investigate how these Hellenistic but I am always impressed by students’ “ DURING MY TIME AT shapes and patterns on the floor epics manipulated myth and history to enthusiasm and deep engagement with OXFORD, I SPENT MANY alongside various tricks and lifts. During construct local and national ideologies, whatever we are discussing. I always my time with the XS Latin team, we have how they appropriated the literary and enjoy the unexpected links that emerge EVENINGS PLAYING been British Champions, UK Champions cultural authority of Homer, and how between my teaching and research; THE FRENCH HORN IN and WDC European Champions and we they balanced two very different literary the two major aspects of academic life UNIVERSITY ORCHESTRAS, have also reached the semi-final of the traditions and cultures (both Jewish and complement each other so well. To that BUT I NOW SPEND WDSF World Championships. It is an Greek). end, I’m looking forward to being Corpus’ MUCH OF MY FREE TIME intense and physically demanding sport, Director of Studies for Part II this year, TRAINING AND COMPETING but I firmly believe that an active mind I am very grateful to be able to conduct helping to guide final year Classicists requires an active body, and dancing my research in as welcoming and through to the end of their course. AS A BALLROOM AND LATIN is an excellent way to unwind after a collegial a community as Corpus. I have DANCER. long day of deep intellectual thought. I only been here a year, but I already feel I am also an enthusiastic advocate of feel very fortunate to be able to pursue very much part of the Corpus family. outreach and widening participation, my passion for both Classics and dance Conversations over lunch and dinner are giving more people the opportunity to Thomas with his partner Caitlin after winning the British National Championship 2018. during my fellowship. always entertaining and stimulating, the explore the myths, history and culture of Photo credit: Reggie Thomson. 20 • The Pelican 2019 ” • 21 I had just sung the aria The trumpet Leavis herself who occasionally hailed later became a distinguished basso shall sound from Handel’s Messiah FR in from their garden in Bulstrode profundo lay clerk at Canterbury in King’s College Chapel and was Gardens to give us his wisdom on the Cathedral, but in 1966 put on drag and wondering how it had been received English novel. I’m afraid the brilliance an immense wig to sing contralto to The Revd Canon when a gowned figure with a clerical of my teachers was not reflected in my mellifluous baritone. The following collar emerged out of the shadows the quality of my examination results year I directed a production ofTwelfth and invited me to attend an interview - for which I can only blame my own Night, and in my final undergraduate at Corpus (my third choice) at 8 pm ill discipline in allowing myself to be year I played MacHeath in Gay’s Jeremy Davies (m1965) that evening. Having discovered where distracted by musical commitments, Beggars Opera, expertly arranged by Corpus was I attended in good time to (horn playing as well as singing in Richard Shephard and directed by College Chaplain be interviewed (surprisingly since I CUMS and being a founder member Anthony Harding, FBA (now Emeritus was proposing to read English) by the of Richard Marlowe’s University Professor of Archaeology of Exeter Senior Tutor (a Japanese specialist) Chamber Choir), Corpus rugby, and University). In those heady days the and the Tutor for Admissions (an the Fletcher Players - none of which in Fletcher Players then decamped to education expert). Later that evening my heart of hearts I regret. Cornwall to perform the May Week I learned I was one of the fortunate production at the Minack Theatre. candidates to have been awarded It’s a tradition that I hope the current an unconditional place and a choral Fletcher Players executive might scholarship at Corpus. A fortnight consider reviving. later I was hit in the throat captaining my school rugby fifteen and lost I had known from a very early age that my singing voice for six months. I was going to have some involvement Fortunately by the time I arrived at with the church and my five years as College the following October after a “ a cathedral chorister at Llandaff (just nine-month stint as a VSO in Jordan my THE FLETCHER PLAYERS, outside Cardiff) both confirmed and voice had recovered and I was able to ALONG WITH THE stimulated my interest in religion. I take my place in the Corpus choir. The often describe myself as a religious choir was in those pre-co-education CHOIR AND COLLEGE freak as I was endlessly fascinated by days an extraordinary affair. We sang SPORT, PROVIDED church ceremony and ritual (despite a predictable church music repertoire JUST THE KIND OF having been brought up in a Welsh- with no sopranos. Baritones like me speaking Baptist family) I was never sang the treble line an octave lower. LEAVEN THAT A SMALL bored in church and revelled in the What amazes me now is that we put up COLLEGE WITH A HARD- catholic emphasis of the Woodard with that arrangement. But the chapel WON REPUTATION School I attended in Sussex. So it choir was in many ways the backbone was no surprise to family or friends of College music with a succession FOR ACADEMIC when, after graduating, I moved to a of very distinguished organ and ACHIEVEMENT NEEDS seminary to begin ordination training. choral scholars, and other musicians IN ORDER TO MAINTAIN John Bowker was Dean of Chapel (from Daryl Runswick and Nicholas at Corpus - in my view the most McGegan to Mark Elder, Edward A SANE BALANCE. distinguished theological polymath Higginbottom and Richard Shephard of his generation - and he persuaded to name but a few of the glitterati me that I should stay in Cambridge whose contribution to international where the theological teaching was music-making has become legendary). unrivalled, and so I began three years at Westcott House studying for Part 2 I came up to read English at a time of the Theology Tripos. when Corpus (maybe fearful of becoming embroiled in the F R Leavis ” It was exactly 50 years ago that I controversies of the 1960s) had no The Fletcher Players along with the attended one of those famous Sunday English literature specialist among the choir and College sport provided evening, Great St Mary’s sermons Fellowship. That seeming deficiency just the kind of leaven that a small that sometimes changed not only was more than compensated for by College with a hard-won reputation perceptions but the course of one’s having Dr Michael Tanner as our DoS. for academic achievement needs in life. The great charismatic bishop Michael saw to it that we were farmed order to maintain a sane balance. Trevor Huddleston, with a nod to out to supervisors in other colleges, The May Week play put on by the his book which alerted the world to (such as Jean Gooder, Catherine Fletcher Players in the Old Court was the evils of apartheid, preached a Duncan-Jones and Germaine Greer) a high point of the College calendar. sermon entitled England - Naught or were supervised by ‘peripatetic’ In my first year I played Cupid in for your desire. The bishop, having lecturers from other universities like Vanbrugh’s The Relapse with music by left South Africa after his courageous the playwright Simon Gray, and indeed, Daryl Runswick which included a duet stand against the South African police for one very special year, by Queeny that I sang with Duncan Perkins, who state, had again returned to Africa as

22 • The Pelican 2019 • 23 THE REVD CANON JEREMY DAVIES

Fletcher Players performing Macbeth in Old Court (1968). Jeremy in the red coat and next to him in green coat, Dr Richard Bainbridge (former Senior Tutor).

Bishop of Masasi in Tanzania. In 1968 year in the east end of London as a through the streets of Stepney called It was performed as darkness fell and have come about as the result of an Towards the end of that sabbatical he came back to Britain as Bishop of youth worker rather than remain at The Way of the Cross. It was the first of so each of the eleven or so scenes invitation rather than an application term at Corpus I was invited by the Stepney, and his sermon in Cambridge Westcott for a further year (they’ll many similar productions I directed in performed in the natural theatres on my part. And it was an invitation then Dean of Salisbury to meet him and reflected on the contrasts between only encourage you drink sherry and different parts of the country (three of provided by that urban landscape by the then Bishop of Llandaff which the Bishop to entertain the possibility the Africa he had left and the east play croquet was the good bishop’s them in London) over the next almost had to be lit by a group of electricians occasioned my return to Cardiff, that I might become Canon Precentor end of London where he now lived acerbic observation). I duly took his forty years. Ordinary church members - who were part of the army of non- where I had been brought up, to be of the cathedral there. That interview (the first Bishop of Stepney to live advice and a year later, after my from across the denominational acting technicians, carpenters and Senior Chaplain at Cardiff University resulted in my accepting the Bishop’s among his people in east London). It blooding as a youth worker (at a club divides put on costumes and told the seamstresses and van drivers who and the Polytechnic of Wales (now invitation and the following October I was full of political insight and was a where the infamous Kray twins had story of Christ’s journey to Calvary were an indispensable part of the the University of Glamorgan). My became Canon Precentor of Salisbury powerful challenge to the status quo once been members) Bishop Trevor and his resurrection. There were no production. Whether it was fine or seven years back in South Wales also with responsibility for the liturgy and but it was also full of spiritual depth ordained me as a deacon and then lines for the hundred-strong cast rained the story was told and on each involved a sabbatical term at Corpus music of that great cathedral, with and I recognised that this bishop who as a priest to work as a curate in the to learn as the story was told by occasion some five thousand people as a Fellow Commoner. I had intended its tradition of liturgical excellence spoke truth to power was also a monk, parish of St Dunstan Stepney. It was amplified narrators and at each of the came to watch and participate. in that term to begin the research and pre-eminence stretching back whose struggle for social justice was a formative four years in an east end stations as we wended our mile long for a book. However, I was distracted to the pre-Reformation Sarum Use. not at odds with, but indeed sprang parish where I learned how to be a way through the streets and high rise After the parish came four years across by an audition advertisement by the It soon became clear that there was from, his life of contemplation. priest and discovered that theology blocks of Stepney, our charismatic the road from Stepney at Queen Mary Clare Players who were planning a a huge task of liturgical refreshment and spirituality have a relevance and Bishop Trevor commented briefly College as college chaplain, where I production of Peter Schaffer’s Equus - and renewal that needed to be It was this sermon that caused me an importance in the lives of people and powerfully on the scenes we was able to renew my friendship with one of my favourite twentieth century undertaken by the new Precentor. My to write to Bishop Trevor who then beyond the cloistered tranquility of were witnessing. The hymn singing two of the people who had taught me plays. I auditioned and got the part first task was to update the cathedral’s invited me to meet him at his home the academy. accompanied by the local Salvation as an undergraduate and who taught of the psychiatrist Martin Dysart - Sunday worship, recognizing that on the busy Commercial Road. He Army Band, and the music provided at QMC - Roger Gard and Simon Gray. certainly the longest part I had had cathedrals, though they are part of a persuaded me that having completed In 1973, with a fellow curate I wrote by the large choir and other Curiously all the jobs I have done to commit to memory since I played tradition that needs to be respected two Cambridge degrees I would the script for and directed a great musicians, added to the celebratory since I was ordained (including my Hamlet as a sixth former. The book and worked with, also need to be be better occupied working for a passion drama to be performed character of the story we were telling. present stint as chaplain at Corpus) project was put on hold for a year or so. models of the imaginative crafting and

24 • The Pelican 2019 • 25 THE REVD CANON JEREMY DAVIES

presentation of liturgy and worship, that can become resourceful for the wider church. It was a great privilege to be able to devise the services for Holy Week and Easter, and the great processions for Advent, Christmas and Epiphany, and introduce a Marian Procession to celebrate the cathedral’s Matron Saint. In addition that great shrine accommodated services to reflect on the plight of the homeless, to celebrate the annual Salisbury Festival, the Creation Festival of 1991 and the Poetry Festival, and many ecumenical services for Churches Together in Salisbury, including Taize and Iona services. The Way of the Cross was performed four times during my twenty-six years as Precentor and in all these liturgical undertakings I found myself grateful not only for my Cambridge formation in literature and theology, but for the musical and dramatic experiences of my undergraduate years.

It is therefore with a great sense of indebtedness and gratitude to my alma mater that I have returned to Corpus for a short while to be chaplain while the College seeks to appoint a new, permanent chaplain. The chapel choir still remains at the centre of the College’s worshipping life, though it’s such a relief now to hear the soprano line sung by sopranos. The services day by day follow the liturgies of the Church of England, but I am delighted that every term there is a Roman Catholic mass in chapel, and that members of the Christian Union use the chapel for private prayer and occasional services. But the chapel is open every day to be visited and used from morning to evening prayer and is available for all members of the College as a place of prayer and quiet reflection whether we have a religious allegiance or not. And I see myself, though a Christian priest, as a companion and friend to all in the College - not least because I realize how much I learn about my faith and how to put into practice from many - young and old - who do not share my beliefs.

26 • The Pelican 2019 • 27 Dr Charles Read Hong Kong Link Fellow in History

Perhaps I was fated from the very first The world today is still shaped by undergraduate degree, I eventually week of my university career to become the events of that week. Economic returned to Cambridge to study a an economic historian. The month historians have long recognised— PhD on the biggest economic and before I first came up to Cambridge even if no one else has—that financial humanitarian disaster in the modern to study history as an undergraduate crises, involving the collapse of history of the British Isles; the Irish saw the collapse of Lehman Brothers, a country’s banking system, are famine of the 1840s. This crisis was an American bank with over $600bn different to ordinary downturns. After caused by a series of potato-harvest in assets. This is still to this day the a recession without a banking crisis, failures, which, in a country where world’s largest bankruptcy in history. growth quickly returns and output three million relied on the tuber And it sent markets into a tailspin. My goes back to the same upwards path for their income and employment, first week in Cambridge saw the crisis it was on before the slump. But that resulted in a quarter of Irish people spread to Europe in a dramatic way. is not so for a banking crisis. Banks, dying or emigrating within a decade. On Monday of freshers week—when in a simple economic model, are the The crisis also had a long-term I was given my first ever university beating heart of an economy, pumping demographic and political impact still essay title and reading list—Iceland’s savings into investment, which spurs visible today. Today it remains the only banks collapsed, and its currency, the growth. A banking crisis is like a heart European country area with fewer krona, fell 30% against the euro in one attack: banks stop pumping cash into people than in 1845. And the idea that day. Britain’s FTSE 100 index of leading businesses that invest and create new the British government mismanaged British shares had its largest absolute jobs, damaging output. Economies go the handling of relief efforts fuelled fall since it was established in 1984. into deeper recessions, take longer support for Irish nationalism and The rest of the week, while I got stuck to start recovering and grow much demands for Irish independence, into making new friends and writing more slowly when they do. That goes which were eventually granted with an essay about the causes of the First some way to explaining why Britain’s the creation of the Irish Free State in World War, saw more bank collapses recovery from recession has been 1922. and government bail-outs, with new the slowest in recent history. And economic and financial records set it could explain the rise of nativist What got me interested in Ireland? every day. I remember reading with populism across the world in the form This is a question of great amusement horror in that Saturday’s newspapers of Brexit and the election of Donald even among economic historians of that stock markets in Asia, Europe and Trump as America’s president in 2016. Ireland, among whom very few non- America lost 10% of their value the One relatively recent paper by three native born can be found. I have no previous day. economists found that, taking data Irish ancestry that I know of. But it was for 20 economies across a 140-year in fact researching family history as a period, a normal recession without hobby that led me indirectly to Ireland. a banking crisis had no impact on a My great-great-grandfather and great- country’s political spectrum. One with great-grandmother were gardener a banking crisis and tepid growth— and housekeeper at Wrest Park in the slowness of which fuels discontent Bedfordshire, a French-style chateau “ against the elites in power—reduces designed and built by 2nd Earl de Grey THE GLOBAL FINANCIAL support for moderate parties, and on in the 1830s, now in the care of English CRISIS ALSO HAD average, causes support for right-wing Heritage. The two servants turned AN IMPACT ON MY populist parties in elections to rise by out to have lived happy and relatively PERSONAL TRAJECTORY. 30%. uneventful lives. De Grey, on the I BECAME INTRIGUED BY other hand, was far more interesting. WHAT CAUSES EVENTS OF The global financial crisis also had In a varied career, he founded the an impact on my personal trajectory. Royal Institute of British Architects, SUCH MAGNITUDE, AND I became intrigued by what causes managed the construction of the new WHAT THEIR ECONOMIC events of such magnitude, and Houses of Parliament and the front of AND POLITICAL what their economic and political Buckingham Palace, was a pioneer of CONSEQUENCES ARE. consequences are. And what could gun-control laws in Britain and Ireland, be learnt from previous economic invented truncheons and championed disasters to prevent ones reoccurring their use instead of firearms by the in the future? Determined to new London Metropolitan Police, tackle such questions, after my and lastly but not least, was the Lord 28 • The Pelican 2019 ” • 29 in government interference in the currency market—not laissez-faire or libertarian ideas, that caused so many people to die.

This research, which became a doctoral thesis entitled, “British Economic Policy and Ireland, c1841- 53”, has subsequently won several awards from the Economic History Society, including the Thirsk-Feinstein Prize PhD Dissertation Prize for the best doctoral thesis in economic and social history completed in 2016, the TS Ashton Prize for the best article published in the Economic History Review in 2015 or 2016 and the New Researchers Prize of 2014 (no scholar has ever won all three prizes before). More recently, it has also won a prize from the International Economic History Association for the best doctoral thesis on nineteenth-century economic history completed at any university in the world in 2015, 2016 or 2017, and will be published soon as an academic monograph.

My next project, for another book, looks more broadly at the causes Lieutenant, or chief administrator, in Lady Grantham—are also possibly one issues that policymakers had to deal of a series of severe financial crises Ireland between 1841-44. Oddly little inspiration behind the characters of the with in the Treasury. But economists that occurred in Britain between had been written about him and his same names in Downton Abbey, the who did have the required training 1825 and 1866, and why they story was completely unknown—and popular ITV costume drama and film. tended not to visit the archives to disappeared for more than a century that which there was completely discover what actually happened. My after 1866, only to reappear with a libellous due to a transcription But rummaging in those archives— approach was to delve deeply into the vengeance in recent decades. This mistake in the 1880s that erroneously focussed on the years just before the archives to understand the intentions is a surprisingly important topic for portrayed him to be an anti-Catholic Irish famine—I noticed a massive gap of policymakers during the famine policymakers today: Britain is the bigot. Worse still, Wrest Park was between what historians had written from their official and private papers. only major economy in the world under threat of falling into ruin after about Ireland during this period and However, I also used the economic to avoid having a systemic banking the research institute that was using it what was in the archives, much of theory and methods I had picked up crisis for so long. Understand why suddenly closed down in 2006. So I set which was being ignored by scholars. in a previous career as an economist this was so, and the hope is that about visiting the archives—where I And it came to my attention that the and researcher in the banking sector you can avoid their reappearance in discovered that he had written several same applied to the period of the Irish to analyse the impact on the ground the future. But nineteenth-century memoirs including one running to famine too. Historians of British politics in Ireland during the crisis. financial crises are still very poorly some 107,000 words detailing the writing about the famine tended understood, and this is where reasons behind every decision that to emphasize the good intentions That joined-up approach resulted in a I hope my methods of detailed he had made as Lord Lieutenant of British policymakers formulating radically new answer to this question. attention to the archives and the between 1841-44 that no historian famine-relief policy. Irish scholars, to The influence of libertarian laissez- careful deployment of econometric had bothered to find or read before— varying degrees, tended to emphasize faire ideologues did not cause the analysis will help to untangle and from which I produced a short the suffering of the Irish people government to mistakenly abandon matters. Economic historians are biography entitled Earl de Grey and a during the crisis. What went wrong if relief efforts in the middle of the no futurologists. History does not prize-winning undergraduate thesis good intentions in London were not famine. What caused the damage always repeat itself in the same way. now published in the journal History. reflected on the ground in Ireland? on the ground was a set of austerity But they can hold the use of the The result is that English Heritage The problem here was the disciplinary measures in Ireland, introduced after past by policymakers to account in is now spending many millions of division in universities between two severe financial crises in London a rigorous way. To quote the words pounds on restoring the house and economics and history departments. in 1847, designed to keep the United of Cormac Ó Gráda, the leading gardens to their former glory as one Historians who did use archives were Kingdom on the gold standard. In Irish scholar of the Irish Famine, of their most important properties in operating without any economics short, it was a misplaced faith in “shattering dangerous myths about the country. De Grey and his wife— training and did not understand the gold standard—at its core an the past is the historian’s social also known until 1833 as Lord and the full complexity of the financial interventionist creed that believes responsibility”.

30 • The Pelican 2019 • 31 Dr Paul Kattuman Fellow in Economics and Management Studies

I WAS FORTUNATE IN MY SCHOOL. SAINIK SCHOOL, TRIVANDRUM, IN THE STATE OF KERALA IN INDIA, HAS BEEN AN INSPIRATIONAL SPRINGBOARD FOR ITS STUDENTS. AFTER SCHOOL, A TERM AS AN ARMY CADET AT THE NATIONAL DEFENCE ACADEMY TURNED OUT TO BE AN INTERREGNUM, BEFORE I MARCHED RIGHT BACK TO ACADEME -- TO CALICUT UNIVERSITY, TO STUDY ECONOMICS, SPECIALISING IN ECONOMETRICS FOR MY MASTERS. I JOINED THE INDIAN ECONOMIC SERVICE STRAIGHT AFTER, AND STARTED AS AN ECONOMIST AT THE FINANCE MINISTRY IN NEW DELHI. MY CIVIL SERVICE EXPERIENCE HELPED DEEPEN A GROWING RESOLVE TO SEEK OUT MORE RIGOROUS RESEARCH TRAINING IN ECONOMICS, AND LED TO CAMBRIDGE -- TO THE DEPARTMENT OF ECONOMICS AND TRINITY COLLEGE. STRAIGHT AFTER MY PHD I JOINED THE UNIVERSITY OF DURHAM ECONOMICS FACULTY, AND THEN RETURNED TO CAMBRIDGE, TO A FELLOWSHIP AT CORPUS, AND THE DEPARTMENT OF APPLIED ECONOMICS. I NOW TEACH AT THE CAMBRIDGE JUDGE BUSINESS SCHOOL.

Over 200 years before the or manuscript books [are] missing, The Parker bequest was in fact publication of Adam Smith’s ... [Corpus Christi] shall make up an elegant solution to what Wealth of Nations, Matthew the said number of books on pain economists now call an agency Parker, Lord Archbishop of of a fine imposed on them at the problem, one which took due note Canterbury and former Master of judgment of the two supervisors of the potential for moral hazard. the College, penned an absolute for the time being, so that the full The solution was achieved through gem in applied Economics, on number of books is extant at the the design of a mechanism of self- what we would now call incentives next yearly inspection. enforcing audits by the agents under asymmetric information. It themselves in a perpetual game was in 1574 that Matthew Parker [In the event of breach, Corpus] played out between the three entrusted the care of his priceless shall forfeit at that time not only colleges. The design solved the library of manuscripts and early whatever silver plate there is so-called end-period problem in printed books to the College. The recorded as given and handed game theory, and ensured that medieval ages were not the best over by the same Matthew to the the equilibrium outcomes of of times for libraries, and it must aforesaid Master and Fellows, the game played by the agents have been the sad state of the … but they shall also hand over, themselves would preserve the many library collections he had totally and entirely, to the Master collection. It was surely Matthew seen that led him to stipulate clear and Fellows of Gonville & Caius Parker’s profound appreciation of rules to protect his gift from loss College the custody of each and the University milieu, marked as or damage. To mitigate incentive every one of the said books within it was by altruism, self-interest, problems in the maintenance the next month. And that if the agency, asymmetric information, of the collection, his bequest Master and Fellows of the said moral hazard, free-rider problems, took the form of a “quadripartite Gonville & Caius College are also and possibilities for collusion indenture", involving Matthew found guilty of similar negligence, among agents, that led him to this Parker himself and Corpus Christi it is decreed that the silver plate sophisticated but low-cost solution. College, and two other colleges recorded as given and passed over to which he had attachments, to that college, together with the The Parker bequest is an Gonville & Caius and Trinity Hall. custody of the aforesaid books, … outstanding example of game shall be handed over to the Master theory at work well over 400 He bequeathed his valuable and Fellows of Trinity Hall to be years ago. Rather than going on collection, requiring that it be kept kept in the manner stated above. about how he solved the problem within the library of the College, … But if they too are not zealous of assignment of constrained and stipulating that: in performing and fulfilling that property rights with incentives same custodial office, then indeed for monitoring, and graduated Each year on the sixth day of it shall return in a circle to Corpus contingent punishments for agents August, ... the Masters of Gonville Christi College, back to the state in shirking in the care of the collection & Caius College and Trinity Hall which it was first established.” (as and so on, I’ll just say that Brexit [are to conduct an independent] translated from the original Latin negotiators would be well served review and examination. [I]f in the by the late Professor Raymond by asking themselves: what would yearly inspection any of the printed Page of Corpus Christi College). Matthew Parker do?

32 • The Pelican 2019 • 33 DR PAUL KATTUMAN

But my acquaintance with this brilliant economic mechanism lay far in the future, when as a 17 year old, I entered one of the splendid lecture rooms of the National Defence Academy, nestled in the hills south- west of the city of Pune in India. A neatly bowed curve that traded off guns against butter appeared on the board half way through that first lecture in economics. The mere possibility of such a trade-off had never caught my attention before, perhaps because it was quite at variance with the complete lack of substitutability in my life as a cadet. This was pre-liberalization India. There were precious few career options as the economy chugged along at a growth rate barely above 1% on a per capita basis, Indian industry shackled by a fantastically restrictive licensing system. My seniors from school appeared to lead charmed lives as young officers in the army and navy. Anyway, by the end of that first lecture in Economics a smattering of elegant diagrams and equations adorned the board. The analytical promise of the subject was not only clear to see, but seemed both liberating and within reach. It did not take me many weeks to hear the call and step off the uniformed career train and go back to university to study economics properly.

Many years earlier Keynes had captured the allure of the subject in his inimitable way, saying that an economist must " … understand symbols and speak in words. He must contemplate the particular in terms of the general and touch abstract and concrete in the same few excel, when I enrolled. To cut PhD I learnt the value of thinking my time as a research student It remains a challenge to convince flight of thought. He must study a long story short, my career as an and writing as clearly as I could, and was in issues connected with sceptics of the allure of grand the present in the light of the past economist began with time served as just as much, the value of resilience. economic heterogeneity, agreeing theoretical solutions offered by for the purposes of the future. a cog in the economic administrative It did not take long for an aspiring somewhat with Galton, who wrote Economics. An undiscerning banker No part of man’s nature or his machinery in the finance ministry in economic theorist to give way to disapprovingly of those: “ [who] “ I attempted to convert in my student India, where my main responsibility an applied econometrician with a limited their inquiries to averages, IT REMAINS A days stopped my sermon quickly institutions must lie entirely outside CHALLENGE TO his regard. He must be purposeful was to draft statements about the bridging interest in theory. David and do not seem to revel in more saying that Economics sounded and disinterested in a simultaneous economy with just the right degree Hendry has captured the flavour comprehensive views. Their souls CONVINCE SCEPTICS like a singularly impractical subject. mood; as aloof and incorruptible as of opacity for the finance minister of the (generally) good natured seem as dull to the charm of variety OF THE ALLURE OF THE The problem persists. An eminent an artist, yet sometimes as near to to deliver in parliament. Tedium set jousting between the two branches as that of a native of one of the GRAND THEORETICAL mathematician colleague who is earth as a politician.” in all too soon. My path back to the with his four golden rules of English counties, whose retrospect SOLUTIONS OFFERED BY immune to the charms of Economics world of academic economics ran econometrics: Think brilliantly; Be of Switzerland was that, if the loves to chat about the disarray in ECONOMICS. I was probably lucky that I had not to the Sidgwick site in Cambridge, infinitely creative; Be outstandingly mountains could be thrown into its the global economy and insinuates, read Keynes’ pronouncement that where over my MPhil I filled some lucky; Otherwise, stick to being lakes, two nuisances would be got only partly in jest, that I, as a card- economics was a subject in which substantial gaps in my knowledge a theorist! An abiding empirical rid of at once.” carrying economist, was personally of economic theory, and over my research interest I developed during responsible for the global economic 34 • The Pelican 2019 ” • 35 DR PAUL KATTUMAN crises. How could I not foresee the crisis in good time? How is it that economists cannot come to agreement on clear and intuitive remedies? When the admission season comes around, he never misses the cue to ask if there were any credible takers at all for the dismal science. In the event, there is always an embarrassment of riches among economics candidates.

What kinds of students commit themselves in times such as these to the study of economics? Pre- 2008, through the boom years of finance, economics was the subject of choice for bright students looking to transform themselves into investment bankers. Clever and hard working, they mastered theory, techniques, empirics and even the intellectual spirit of the subject, but could not wait to get to the City and its bonuses.

Times have changed. Many of the aspirants are more thoughtful. For a larger number, their genuine interest lies in learning about how the jigsawed edifice of the economy works. There is more enthusiasm for understanding institutions, psychology, and even economic history, along with econometrics and mathematical models, and more skepticism about theory. There is a clearer sense of vocation, knowing that a malfunctioning economy can destroy millions of everyday lives.

The great depression spawned economists of the highest calibre. The late Paul Samuelson, a leading theorist and policy advisor of his time, and one of the first Nobels in Economics was “born” into the subject in 1932 (he was 17) due to the first great recession. John Maynard Keynes too was driven to economics impelled by a recession: his first research paper was on “the effect of the recent global economic downturn on India”.

Economics is not dismal, though dismal times are unsurpassed for teaching economics.

36 • The Pelican 2019 • 37 Dr Claudia Bonfio Research Fellow in Biological Sciences

I never knew I wanted to be a explain a certain macroscopic field started in 2014, and since then chemist. But looking back, all the behaviour of everyday life objects. I truly believe I am focusing on the signs were there. The coin landed on the ‘maths side’. most exciting question a scientist Luckily, I am stubborn enough to could ever ask: Where do we come My story began on a weekday in follow my own intuition. from? spring, 30 years ago. I was born in Siena, a medieval city in Tuscany, I completed my undergraduate mostly known in Italy and abroad studies in my home town with a for Palio, a horse race that takes thesis on protein crystallography, place twice a year in the city centre, analysing the functional organisation and for the wine produced in the of amino acids (the building blocks surroundings. A few years later, I of our proteins) in structured “ WHILE THE COIN WAS received the best gift I could ever proteins related to DNA synthesis. IN THE AIR, I SUDDENLY ask for, a partner in crime and in In those years I realized that I was life; a beautiful younger sister. We most interested in the relationship REALISED HOW used to spend every summer in my between chemistry and biology, MUCH I WANTED TO grandparents' villa, creating "magic between simple chemical systems BECOME A CHEMIST, potions" by extracting essential and complex biological machineries. TO UNDERSTAND oils from plants and flowers and To further expand my experience in HOW THE IDENTITY collecting coloured powders from the biochemical field and challenge AND ARRANGEMENT smashed rocks and pebbles. I myself in a new environment, I remember my grandpa was not very decided to move to Padua (close OF MICROSCOPIC happy with us destroying his garden, to Venice) for my Master's studies. MOLECULES COULD and I feel a bit guilty now. Still, those There, a year-long internship gave EXPLAIN A CERTAIN memories seem to hint that my me the opportunity to get my MACROSCOPIC passion for science likely started in hands dirty with some organic and BEHAVIOUR OF EVERYDAY those sunny days. inorganic synthesis, focusing on LIFE OBJECTS. peptide-based metal complexes that

Despite my love for science, I was could potentially be used in anti- not sure which kind of science I cancer therapy. The idea behind had a preference for. Since I was those studies was to prepare new enrolled in a humanistic secondary drugs that could be specifically school (my dad likes to say that it recognized by cancer cells to get is the only school that opens your internalized first and then target The origin of life is one of the greatest mind and broaden your horizons...), the DNA, leading to cell death. I unsolved scientific problems.” Origins I had no opportunity to gain still remember when I synthesized research requires interdisciplinary some experience with different my first peptide (a chain of amino support on topics including the lab activities related to physics, acids), and how proud I was when astrophysical context of planetary chemistry and biology. Anyway, the purification went well. During formation, the development of after five years of ancient Greek and that time in a biochemistry lab I prebiotic chemistry, the assembly Latin (language and literature), I was realized how much I enjoy working of the first cells, and the advent of even more convinced that science with small molecules and using them Darwinian evolution. In particular, was my choice. to understand cellular processes. the term “prebiotic chemistry” refers to a set of interconnected I ended up choosing chemistry rather One of the PhD projects (with Sheref chemical reactions occurring on than maths for my undergraduate Mansy, in Trento - close to the Alps) I the early Earth before the advent of courses after tossing a coin. While applied for was aimed at discovering life. Therefore, prebiotic chemistry the coin was in the air, I suddenly the chemistry that led to life about informs our understanding of how realized how much I wanted to four billion years ago. Attractive yet simple molecules present on our become a chemist, to understand challenging, exactly at the interface planet may have given rise to and how the identity and arrangement where chemistry and biology meet. evolved into the complex systems of microscopic molecules could My journey into the origin of life and processes that we know today.

38 • The Pelican 2019 • 39 DR FELICITY HILL

Extant organisms reflect the Among all metalloproteins, iron- It took me about four years to model protocells can be mediated that ferric ions coordinated by short Beside science, I learnt two things environments from which they sulfur clusters are indispensable show how a nascent primordial by UV light coming from the young peptides can mediate the electron on my journey through my PhD. evolved. Therefore, it is logical to components of modern metabolism cellular system could have exploited sun, suggesting that biological iron- transfer between biologically- First, research is collaborative, suppose that life began as a spatially- and constitute one of the most peptide-coordinated iron-sulfur sulfur cluster assembly could have relevant substrates within model communicative and collegial. I had defined, self-replicating and metal- ancient, ubiquitous and structurally clusters to drive metabolic networks, occurred at a very early phase in the protocells and generate a proton the opportunity to spend part of dependent chemical system. Indeed, diverse classes of biological delineating an evolutionary evolution of life. Moreover, the UV gradient, thus mimicking modern my PhD here in Cambridge working the earliest forms of metabolism prosthetic groups. For this reason, I pathway from short prebiotic light-driven synthesis of iron-sulfur biological machineries. Such results with John Sutherland and in Boston likely relied upon primordial spent my PhD trying to find out when peptides to complex extant proteins clusters appears strikingly similar to suggest that iron-sulfur systems working with Dimitar Sasselov and enclosed metal-based systems that and how these inorganic clusters coordinating iron-sulfur clusters. the protein-mediated biosynthetic could serve as useful models and Nobel Laureate Jack Szostak. I had preferentially drove reactions that started to play such a fundamental Firstly, we described how the iron- processes for the assembly of iron- prebiotic analogues of the pre- the opportunity to learn not only led to the emergence of a restricted role in life. sulfur cluster synthesis within sulfur proteins. Finally, we showed biological steps leading to extant life. about chemistry and biology, but set of chemical networks.

40 • The Pelican 2019 • 41 DR CLAUDIA BONFIO also about geology and astronomy. To pursue this line of research I And I am sure I would not be here moved to Cambridge, to the MRC if I had not shared my research and Laboratory of Molecular Biology. promoted new collaborations. The As a Marie Skłodowska Curie second important lesson is that not European Fellow, I am investigating all the battles are worth fighting. A how a prebiotic self-organized project can fail; it happens. It is up cellular system could have emerged to us to understand when we should and evolved, thereby defining a keep fighting for a good result or plausible pathway from simple when we need to move on. prebiotic amphiphiles to defined compartmentalized entities. While taking an important step towards understanding the The chemical diversity of the lipid emergence of metalloproteins, I structures present in extant living found myself profoundly intrigued systems may be consistent with by several unanswered questions a level of sophistication brought regarding the emergence and the about by evolution at a later stage. stability of primordial cells. Lipid However, the structural similarity bilayer membranes are an integral of prebiotic lipids and modern component of living cells, providing membrane components suggest a permeability barrier that is that the latter originated from essential for nutrient transport and primitive amphiphiles, and later energy production. Therefore, it is became specialized according to the reasonable to assume that a similar needs of each specific organism. boundary structure would have been required for the origin of cellular So far, the effect of life. However, even though bilayer compartmentalization on prebiotic membranes are a cellular necessity, reactions has been studied only seemingly little progress has been with simple molecules such as fatty made towards understanding how acids, which partially mimic the such fundamental boundaries behaviour but not the chemical emerged and evolved on our planet. structure of modern lipids. At the same time, biological components of extant membranes such as phospholipids have been exploited to better resemble the functionality of modern cells, even though their chemical synthesis is far too complex to be considered prebiotically “ plausible. MY EXPERIENCE IN CAMBRIDGE IS Recently, we have shown that the PROFOUNDLY CHANGING activation of mixtures of prebiotic ME, AS A PERSON AND AS lipid precursors and fatty molecules lead to the formation of a library A SCIENTIST. HERE I AM of phosphatidic acids, which can EXPOSED TO CULTURE be considered as intermediates IN ITS DEEPEST SENSE, between simple amphiphiles and modern phospholipids. Such will strongly contribute to our My experience in Cambridge is I have met outstanding colleagues "... l’amare il proprio lavoro A MANIFESTATION OF phosphatidic acids can self- understanding of the origin of life profoundly changing me, as a person who are always ready to encourage (che purtroppo è privilegio di HUMAN INTELLECTUAL assemble into membranes that are itself, since compartmentalization is and as a scientist. Here I am exposed and guide me. I have met talented pochi) costituisce la migliore ACHIEVEMENTS SHARED stable to a wide range of conditions needed for the definition of cells as to culture in its deepest sense, a students and I feel so rewarded by approssimazione concreta alla felicità and capable of retaining mono self-contained entities. Moreover, manifestation of human intellectual the few hours we spent together sulla terra..." WITH THE WHOLE and oligonucleotides. Moreover, a deeper knowledge of the core achievements shared with the whole reviewing chemical biology. Looking La chiave a stella, Primo Levi. COMMUNITY. iterative cycling of activation and chemistry of early life is likely to be community. In this first year as a back, I feel so grateful for the hydrolysis steps allowed for the of benefit to our understanding of Research Fellow at Corpus I have had opportunity of living the "Cambridge "Loving one’s work, unfortunately selection of longer-chain, thus more fundamental issues in microbiology the opportunity to exchange ideas, experience" at Corpus, which the privilege of a few, represents the stable, phosphatidic acids. and molecular biology, as well as share experiences and discuss a wide profoundly contributes to shaping best, most concrete approximation of to support applied engineering and variety of topics ranging from physics my future in a familiar and supportive happiness on Earth..." Finding a plausible route for the synthetic biology. to philosophy with researchers who environment with passionate and The Wrench, Primo Levi. ” emergence of modern membranes share my enthusiasm and passion. encouraging researchers. 42 • The Pelican 2019 • 43 Dr John Biggins (m2003) Fellow in Engineering

I will never forget when Corpus supervisor and ultimately supervised Rather to my surprise I also found first pinged on my radar: I was at my PhD. Years later, he is still my most considerable academic success, and school, in Sheffield, sitting in a rather significant academic mentor, and it is with it came College perks including depleted further maths class. The a real privilege to return to Corpus as feasts, silver cups, and palatial sets. I school was of the type Tony Blair his colleague. was lucky enough to spend two years had just christened “bog standard,” living on N staircase in Old Court: first but it was university recruitment I vividly remember my first day on the ground floor in N2 then on season, and about half the students at Corpus. All the freshers were the first floor in N3, with three large were attending an Oxford outreach corralled in the McCrum lecture sash windows overlooking the court. event in the city centre. Suddenly theatre, and the Senior Tutor, one I suspect that, even if I spend my a flustered deputy head appeared: Christopher Kelly, intoned “there is entire career at Corpus as a fellow, I “John, we’ve an unexpected visitor no one in this room who cannot get will never again enjoy such significant and urgently need a student to talk a first,” then, after a suitably dramatic College real estate. to him.” The visitor was Corpus’s pause, “well, perhaps in some cases Barrie Fleet and half an hour later I a high 2.1.” I remember thinking, ah One thing I didn’t find was good food. was sold. Corpus was small, central, yes, that’s me. Graham Pink explained Jamie Oliver was just starting on his crenelated, interested, and the ideal that, in a building like Old Court, one canteen revolution, and Corpus was college for me. is only ever moments away from still routinely serving wallpaper-paste incineration. Then, after some pub stew and unspecified meat pie. Salad However, the ideal subject to read golf and a ghost tour, we were off on had not yet been invented. Necessity took longer to come into focus. I the intellectual ride of a lifetime. being the mother of invention, several clearly had a mathematical brain, of my firmest friendships were forged but I enjoyed the concrete more I was always a thoughtful and studious in the miniscule gyp rooms of Old than the abstract. I remember telling child. At school the one thing that Court. Barrie that physics, engineering, was absolutely unacceptable was (applied) maths and economics were enthusiasm, so this was a recipe for And, of course, there were College all strong contenders. In the end, I rejection and loneliness. At Corpus, societies. I never excelled at anything, decided by elimination. Economics everything changed. Suddenly I had even at the level of Corpus seconds, involved essays, maths required STEP a peer group who wanted to learn, but I had fun trying. The highlight of and engineering was altogether too and teachers who really knew how my Corpus sporting career was a stint unfamiliar, so physics carried the to stretch. I learnt more, and faster, as stroke of the Corpus second boat. day. Except, at Cambridge, physics than I ever had before. I also found I remember being triple over-bumped means natural science. This worried a circle of like-minded friends, which by Hughes Hall in what, I suspect, was me because, if I learnt one thing remains a close-knit community to the worst performance of any boat at school, it was that I was done this day. Corpus has put on the river. After that, with chemistry, but the appeal of I decided to focus on my studies. Corpus and Cambridge nevertheless sustained my application. The breadth of first year NatSci delighted and stimulated me. Later in the year I visited Corpus, first That summer I reflected that my for an open day and then for interview. subject choices (physics, evolution, The buildings felt imposing and “ geology and maths) had formed a I WAS PARTICULARLY profoundly unfamiliar, and the people, ENAMORED WITH better version of “a brief history of though friendly, were decidedly odd. the universe” by Billy Bragg. I was My first interviewer wore an A4 sign THE MATHEMATICS particularly enamored with the around his neck proclaiming “George OF EVOLUTION, AND mathematics of evolution, and more Bush, International Terrorist,” and MORE GENERALLY WITH generally with the application of his interview starred a gliding “stop THE APPLICATION OF mathematics to biology, an idea that the war” postcard. My second MATHEMATICS TO BIOLOGY. completely passed me by at school, interviewer, the theoretical physicist but ultimately I decided to stick with Mark Warner, went on to be my theoretical physics, and started to director of studies, undergraduate think about a career in research. 44 • The Pelican 2019 ” • 45 DR JOHN BIGGINS

My director of studies, Mark That summer in California was wire had remembered what shape it unlike a rubber band, if you heat a nights deciding whether this was of the MCR, and was a vigorous Warner, clearly recognized my amazing. It was my first time in was supposed to be. I have always strip of liquid crystal elastomer up sensible, or whether I really needed participant at LeckSoc, including potential, and did three things America, and I was determined to particularly enjoyed thinking about by a few degrees it will contract to move further afield and move giving a talk about my research which were, in hindsight, decisive. see it all: Hollywood, the Grand the mechanics of things I can see dramatically, perhaps halving in on, but in the end I went for it, entitled “teaching rubber how to First, he poured effort into tuition, Canyon, Death Valley, Yosemite, and feel, rather than, say, galaxies length, reminiscent of a contracting partly because I believed in the dance.” A close friend accused personally teaching mechanics, Universal Studios and much else or chromosomes. Moreover, the muscle. Later, on cooling, it will science, partly because I wanted to me of giving the talk at a primary- electromagnetism, estimation, besides. More importantly, Mark squirming of the wire reminded elongate and recover its original spend more time in California, but school level, but I like to think that fluids, and statistical physics. sent me to work with a professor me of my previous enthusiasm for shape. Mark was the world expert mostly because Mark was clearly an simply reflected the clarity of the Secondly, he found me a formidable of mechanical engineering who mathematical biology. All in all, this on these brand-new materials, and excellent supervisor, and I knew that explanations, and the same slides supervision partner from Sidney worked on shape memory metals. was right up my street. my job was to investigate whether I wasn’t likely to strike such gold still regularly feature at conferences Sussex who pushed me every On the first day Kaushik gave me a existing theories from shape twice. around the world. step of the way, and remains a wire of shape memory metal bent Unfortunately the shape memory memory alloys would carry over close friend and academic sparing into a cursive squiggle, and invited alloy was already well understood, to this new area. The project was During my PhD I was lucky enough However, at the end of my PhD, partner. Thirdly, he suggested I do me to bend the wire into any new so I started work on a different a big success, and rapidly formed to live in Leckhampton house, I felt I needed to move on from a summer’s research project at shape. Then I dipped the wire into shape-changing material called a into a PhD proposal, supervised overlooking the gardens, and was shape-changing liquid crystal CalTech in Los Angeles, to get both a a cup of hot water, and watched it liquid crystal elastomer. These are by Mark, but with me splitting pleasantly surprised to discover elastomers. On an academic level, taste of research and some exposure magically come alive and twist back soft stretchy materials, very much my time between Leckhampton that the Corpus cooking had vastly it seemed that we now understood to American academia. into its original cursive squiggle; the akin to rubber-bands. However, and CalTech. I had a few sleepless improved. I also served as treasurer the basic science. Correspondingly,

46 • The Pelican 2019 • 47 DR JOHN BIGGINS

developing organisms buckle into was sufficiently simple that the their final shape? Our team worked chain fountain is now a staple of on several examples: the length of University outreach. the gut buckles into loops within the abdomen, the interior of the As time has passed, my focus gut buckles to form villi, and, most has increasingly moved from the importantly, the surface of the brain description of shape changing buckles and folds to form its iconic materials to their deployment pattern of gyri and sulci. to do something useful. Imagine a prosthetic arm with artificial For an academic, the gap muscles rather than motors, or between PhD and faculty post is a braille Kindle with dynamically a fraught hinterland of temporary shifting topography. In the abstract, postdoctoral assignments. After a a mechanical machine is a device few years at Harvard, I returned to that changes shape to do something Cambridge, first as a research fellow useful, such as a car engine or the at Trinity Hall, then as a temporary shutter of a camera. Traditionally lecturer at the Cavendish. Even engineers have been limited to stiff by academic standards research passive materials such as steel, so fellowships are comically underpaid, machines involve many separate but they provide full room and rigid components that slide past each board, and a unique opportunity other. In contrast, animals achieve to think for yourself and think locomotion, digestion, circulation, big. Most importantly, Trinity Hall and many other mechanical accommodated me in a flat next functions via an active soft system to another research fellow, Emilie of muscular contractions. The key Ringe, who is now my fiancée. questions are, how do we deploy From the outset our relationship shape changing materials to generated a tough “two-body engineer animal-like machines, and problem.” Not only did I need a when is it advantageous to do so? permanent lectureship, Emilie and I both needed one in the same town. In pursuit of these questions, I Such problems are common in have taken up a lectureship in academia, and very hard to resolve the Engineering Department, and satisfactorily, but I am delighted to returned to Corpus as an engineer. report that Emilie and I are now In perhaps a bigger change, I have both permanent features in the also won a UK government 'Future University. Leaders Fellowship' which will allow me to move beyond theory and set During my time at Trinity Hall, I up my own laboratory making liquid continued to work on buckling crystal elastomers, and deploying and wrinkling, both in biology them as artificial muscles in and in engineering. I also had an machines. The future is exciting and unexpected foray into the limelight academically enticing. by explaining a viral YouTube video of a chain fountain, a surprising and I am struck in writing this profile hypnotic phenomenon in which a how my whole trajectory is tied up the leading experimental groups development growth sculpts morphogenesis problem was given morphogenesis. Every engineer chain of beads in a pot spontaneously with Corpus. I have no idea where I were winding down, and there complex organisms from round by Alan Turing, of WWII enigma knows that if a column is subject jumps above the pot before flowing would be if Barrie hadn’t turned up, was no obvious interest from eggs, and during life muscular fame: chemistry comes first, with to sufficient compression, it will down to the ground. The effect unexpectedly, at my school all those engineers or companies in taking contraction brings them into “Turing instabilities” laying down buckle and bow outwards. In rigid was discovered and popularized years ago, but I certainly wouldn’t be over. Furthermore, although I had motion. Building on my expertise a chemical map in the developing materials such as steel and stone, by a BBC science presenter, but he directing studies at Corpus, building enjoyed the life-like nature of in shape changing materials, and embryo, which distinguishes head buckling is a catastrophe leading lacked an explanation. Mark and I soft machines or concluding this shape changing materials, I was funded by the proceeds of the from tail and guides complex growth. to fracture and failure. However, figured it out, and our explanation profile. increasingly convinced that the 1851 great exhibition, I moved Many rounds of this process later, a soft materials, such as rubbers, lead to an appearance on BBC1’s most interesting open questions to Harvard to tackle problems of fully-fledged human emerges from a gels and most biological tissues the One-Show, a demonstration by were in biology itself. the first type: how does biology spherical egg. can buckle without failing, instead Stephen Fry during QI’s Christmas create complex shapes from simple adopting interesting and complex special, and a three-story chain- There are two elementary types shapes in developing organisms? At Harvard, I worked on a very shapes, the literal definition of fountain sculpture in Guatemala. of shape change in biology: during The first serious answer to this different hypothesis for biological morphogenesis. Perhaps tissues in More importantly, the explanation

48 • The Pelican 2019 • 49 Nina Jeffs (m2016) Former JCR president & Girdlers' scholar

It’s 11am, I’ve just finished my morning While scholars originally attended lectures in Canberra’s baking heat either Oxford or Cambridge, over when I check my emails to find that time, Corpus became the home of the I’ve got an interview for a Cambridge Girdlers’ Scholars. Much like Corpus, scholarship. Just two months ago I’d the Girdlers’ Scholars have a lifetime upped sticks from New Zealand to membership – alumni stay engaged start an undergraduate degree at the through a newsletter organized by the Australian National University, which Girdlers’ scholars and by attending the had been my first preference university. annual Livery Dinner if they are based My school careers counsellor had in the UK. recommended that I apply for the Girdlers’ Scholarship to Cambridge – Cambridge appealed to me in the and I knew it was a long shot. Having way that it does for most people – its applied and not heard back for three history, traditions and the prospect months, I assumed I hadn’t even got of a huge academic challenge – an interview. Following that email, I although admittedly, my impression of hurriedly returned to New Zealand Cambridge was largely formed by The for a two-day set of interviews and History Boys. Cambridge also struck ended up being fortunate enough to me as an opportunity to understand be chosen for the scholarship. That interstate relations in a totally September, I moved to the UK to start different context from the Asia-Pacific a new degree at Cambridge. region in which I grew up and to be at a university with an international The Girdlers’ Scholarship fully outlook with bright people from all funds one New Zealander a year to over the world. I had been learning complete an undergraduate degree at Mandarin since I was eleven and was Corpus Christi College, Cambridge. It’s particularly interested in studying intended for students with academic International Relations at university, and leadership potential, with the being broadly interested in journalism idea that they will eventually bring and international affairs. the benefits of their education back to New Zealand. Like many previous Impostor syndrome came for me as it scholars, I studied Human, Social and does for many starting at Cambridge. Political Sciences, but there has been The welcome speeches on my first day great diversity in terms of subjects: at Corpus reassured us that we had including physics, law and music in all been hand-picked by the College, recent years. and we’d been picked for a reason. In fact, I was acutely aware that I hadn’t You may be wondering at this point -- seen the College before or even what on earth is a Girdler? The Girdlers’ been interviewed by any college at Company is one of the oldest guilds Cambridge (the Girdlers’ Scholarship in the City of London, responsible entrance process is separate from for tradesmen making decorative UCAS). I even tried to shed my Kiwi belt buckles for royalty (girdles). This accent in Michaelmas. Luckily, these incredibly niche trade is no longer, but feelings were familiar to the older the Girdlers’ continue their charitable Girdlers’ scholars, and I found myself work today. A chance encounter part of a very supportive community between members of The Girdlers’ – including a lovely older couple in Company and the New Zealand Society Cambridge, Jenny and John Chaplin, at a church service in 1933 led to an who acted as surrogate grandparents afternoon tea, a strong friendship and took us in for termly home- between the two organizations, and cooked meals. The other scholars eventually a scholarship programme. and I regularly visited the Girdlers’ in

50 • The Pelican 2019 • 51 NINA JEFFS

A few Corpuscles and me meeting Jon Snow at the ITV Studios in London. Designing focus groups for a Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WaSH) project in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania.

London for Kiwi events such as ANZAC continued my involvement in Model parental leave and women’s careers and international charities, including experience by writing an investigative online journalism techniques. I found Day and to chat about welfare. The United Nations. in STEM. Whilst discussing women’s the homeless shelter Jimmy’s column for Varsity and some articles their work genuinely inspirational, Girdlers’ never put me under any issues was at times a little tense, it was Cambridge. for the University international particularly learning about how academic pressure – in our yearly Attending weekend Model United hugely rewarding to see the girls and development magazine, but was able satellite technology and social media updates to the Board, they just wanted Nations sessions during high school boys discussing such issues on an equal This is far from the only kind of support to take this to the next level when has enabled ‘citizen journalists’ the to know that we were supported and was what had sparked my interest in platform and voting democratically, I received from Corpus during my three I met Jonathan Rugman, Foreign world over to hold human rights having fun at Cambridge (and to hear studying International Relations at especially given that they may not get years – I received excellent mental Affairs Correspondent for Channel 4 abusers to account. our embarrassing stories!). university in the first place. Model UN the opportunity to do so outside of a health support and guidance on my News, who was the College’s Fellow is a diplomatic simulation: participants diplomatic simulation. degree. Human, Social and Political Commoner (an honorary position at My initial hopes for a university with an Having never expected to end up at act as delegates, representing the Sciences is a broad degree, so I had College where a person prominent international outlook were certainly Corpus, or at Cambridge, everything interests of a country on a certain I also brought my first-year enthusiasm the chance to dabble in Archaeology in their field offers insight, career satisfied. Although I wasn’t aware was a novelty and I decided to try issue area – for example, North Korea to ‘Jailbreak’, an annual charity and Social Anthropology on the way to advice and sometimes professional before I arrived, I soon found out that and squeeze the most I possibly could in the Human Rights Council. There competition run by Raising and Giving finding my third-year specializations experience to students). Jonathan Corpus stands out as a college for its out of the place. I was amazed by the are great advantages to Model UN (RAG), where you are sponsored to in Modern Political Thought, China in kindly gave me and some other generous travel grants to students. number of talks, debates, plays and rather than traditional debating: it get as far away from Cambridge as the International Order and Gender Corpus students a tour of the ITV Over the last three years, the support comedy shows taking place at any given emphasizes constructive negotiation possible in 36 hours without spending Studies. I was blessed with brilliant Studios in London, offering us insight of College donors enabled me to time, evidenced by the constantly rather than zero-sum antagonism any of your own money. My friend academic supervisors, including Dr into every stage of the production undertake some incredible adventures changing smorgasbord of posters and forces you to think from often Jack and I managed to make our way Aaron Rapport, who sadly passed away process, and later offered me in my summer holidays. I was able in the central city. In my first year, I completely different cultural or to Ankara, Turkey, but not without earlier this year. He had the unique some constructive feedback on my to continue my Mandarin language lent my hand to rowing. While I was religious perspectives from your norm. a bit of help from College: we rung ability to make studying topics such as writing. Following this, I was offered learning through a month-long course excited to make it into the W1, I made I wanted to help other young people Stuart and Sibella from Ankara airport nuclear weapons both hilarious and another fantastic opportunity by the at the prestigious Fudan University in my impact – certainly contributing to benefit from Model UN and had the to desperately ask for help with incredibly engaging, and I feel very Development Office and another Shanghai and to conduct an interview the team’s achieving ‘Spoons’ (the opportunity to do so by helping to fundraising. In the knowledge that we fortunate to have been supervised by former Fellow Commoner, the TV project on the effects of air pollution worst possible result) in May Bumps. organize the UK’s first university-run were very close to winning, Sibella’s him for several papers during my time journalist Tim Sebastian: this time on the lives of Shanghai residents. In I decided for the team’s sake not conference for high school students. competitive streak emerged, and she at Corpus. to organize a talk and workshop by a second year, the travel grant enabled to return in second year! Luckily, I I was also lucky enough to travel to managed to fundraise £200 in under group of investigative journalists from me to volunteer for two months on a found my niche in other activities – I Dubai for one of the Middle East’s an hour at the Nicholas Bacon Law The Corpus Development Office also the BBC’s new ‘Africa Eye’ programme Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WaSH) represented international students on first conferences of this kind, in which Dinner. While we ended up placing offered some fantastic opportunities and the online news organization project in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania the JCR, wrote part of a policy paper I chaired the UN Women committee, second equal, we were very happy to for me to develop my interest in Bellingcat to teach students how with the Cambridge Development on homelessness in Cambridge and facilitating students to discuss equal have raised over £800 for 10 national journalism. I had gained some to use cutting edge open-source Initiative. As a Community

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Engagement volunteer, I worked with my Tanzanian colleagues to ensure the community’s ownership over the project, organize health and hygiene workshops and explore other possible areas of need. Moreover, a Corpus travel grant is currently supporting me as I undertake an internship with the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights in Geneva, as part of which I will be helping to organize the 42nd Session of the UN Human Rights Council. These experiences have been personally enriching, and at times challenging, and overall have given me much greater insight into what I might like to do in the future.

While Corpus supported me in travelling the world, living at Corpus felt like a second home to me. Given the College’s size, I loved how easy it was to get to know students from different year levels, simply by bumping into each other Vice President Olivia O’Connor and I while organising Freshers Week (in the iconic fluorescent pink Corpus JCR jumpers!). at the Pelican Bar, at brunch, or at a slack (the three key Corpus social occasions). My fellow students have been not only academically brilliant It was only after I had been in the role back 500 years before New Zealand internship at the UN Office of the but quirky too, and I’ve learned so for a few months, however, that I really became a country! High Commissioner for Human Rights much from my peers’ niche talents started to understand the importance in Geneva for two months, and an and interests – with my year level of the JCR’s role in amplifying students’ My time at Cambridge has involved internship at the Executive Director’s boasting a Footlight, a rapper, a bunch voices to be heard by the University some surprising links back to Office of UN Women in New York of Blues and thespians and even more widely: for example, through New Zealand. One of my personal for three. I am also excited for the a magician. Of course, May Week successful University-wide campaigns highlights has been meeting previous opportunity to undertake some work provided experiences that I wouldn’t for refugee scholarships and changing New Zealand Prime Minister, Helen experience with the New Zealand High have been able to have anywhere the University Disciplinary Procedure Clark, after she gave a talk at the Commission in London next year. I else – my family and friends at home for sexual misconduct to a ‘balance of Cambridge Union. Having talked hope that these different experiences were incredulous when I showed probabilities’ model. about her as my personal role model will give me insight into how different them a May Ball programme! Living during the Girdlers’ Scholarship kinds of organizations address in College has been a unique and fun By the end of my time in the JCR, I was interview, I felt incredibly fortunate overlapping international issues, and environment, and it was a treat to particularly proud of the agreement we for the opportunity to quiz her about which might be the most effective. have my best friends living just down came to with the May Ball committee her incredible career in New Zealand the corridor. to ensure long-term environmental politics, leading the UN Development While I’m still working out my next protections, and the way that our Programme and recent work on drug steps, the opportunities I’ve been In second year, I had been floating committee acted to protect student law reform. These sorts of encounters offered during the last three years around being involved in a range of welfare during a tumultuous year become easy only at a place like have equipped me for the future. small University-wide projects and of staff strikes in the University and Cambridge, and I was incredibly My experience at Corpus has been really wanted to focus my energy on significant College renovations. privileged to have a Kiwi dream of completely life-changing: enabling me something worthwhile. I had enjoyed Most of all, I enjoyed working with mine come true in the UK. to meet an amazing range of people my time as International Officer on such a motivated, creative and fun as well as expanding my horizons and the Corpus JCR committee, helping committee, especially my partner- While I eventually hope to study sense of possibility. I am incredibly international students to settle in in-crime/JCR Vice President, Olivia for a master’s degree, this year I am grateful to the Girdlers’ Company for and providing welfare support, and O’Connor. On a personal level, I taking time out of formal education their generosity in running the Girdlers’ had also personally experienced how found it a huge learning curve for my to undertake some work experience scholarship and for supporting me the JCR could really benefit students’ leadership and organizational skills and to travel. Through the wonderful throughout my time here. time at College. I decided to run for that I’m sure will be useful for the opportunities provided by the JCR President on the platform of future. It was also completely surreal Cambridge Careers Service Global improving the College’s environmental to live in the Christopher Marlowe Health Internship Scheme, I have record and JCR accountability, and was room in Old Court – the room dates been fortunate enough to secure an Meeting Helen Clark at the European premiere of her film ‘My Year With Helen’. fortunate enough to win the election.

54 • The Pelican 2019 • 55 Dr Patrick Pietzonka Research Fellow in Applied Mathematics & Theoretical Physics

I AM A JUNIOR RESEARCH FELLOW AT CORPUS AND A POSTDOC IN THE SOFT MATTER GROUP AT THE DEPARTMENT OF APPLIED MATHEMATICS AND THEORETICAL PHYSICS. MY RESEARCH IS MOTIVATED BY THE QUESTION: HOW CAN SMALL LIVING SYSTEMS THRIVE IN A CONSTANTLY FLUCTUATING ENVIRONMENT? WORKING ON THIS TOPIC CAN SOMETIMES YIELD ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS ON A SURPRISINGLY GENERAL SCOPE, FOR EXAMPLE ‘WHAT IS THE MINIMAL COST TO RUN A PRECISE CLOCK?’

When I began my undergraduate I was captivated by the beauty completing my Master’s degree. studies in physics at the University of the concepts of statistical Even though I quite liked living of Stuttgart, I did so – like most physics and decided to join the there, I was curious to explore of my fellow students – because group of Udo Seifert, who had other places. But when the time I was fascinated by the mysteries given that course, for a Bachelor came, Udo Seifert invited me to do surrounding modern theories like and a Master project. There I got a PhD project with him and to join quantum mechanics or relativity. introduced to a fairly young field research on a fascinating question My first lectures in these subjects of research that goes by the name that had recently arisen and had had indeed been very exciting, ‘stochastic thermodynamics’. Its the potential to give a new direction but when in my third year I found objective is to formulate the laws of to stochastic thermodynamics. ‘Statistical Physics’ on my timetable, thermodynamics not only for large Partly also due to the prospect that I feared that this lecture would be machines, as they are presented in I would get to visit experimental rather dull. From what I had heard the classical textbooks, but also for collaborators in Barcelona for a and read before, statistical physics very small ones. Such tiny machines couple of months, I happily agreed seemed to be mainly about the – often consisting of only one or a to do the PhD project. laws of thermodynamics. And these few biomolecules – are ubiquitous in laws still bear the smell of the 19th living organisms. There they perform century, when people tried to build such diverse tasks as synthesising good steam engines but didn’t know fuel, transporting cargo, contracting what an atom was. I couldn’t have muscles, or transcribing DNA. been more wrong. Sure, we did learn Recent experimental advances have about the laws of thermodynamics, enabled biophysicists to directly but not in a phenomenological observe and manipulate such “ way but rather as an emerging machines, thereby creating the WHEN I BEGAN MY consequence of the microscopic need for a theoretical framework UNDERGRADUATE laws of physics I had learned before. that can make sense of experimental STUDIES IN PHYSICS And this is exactly what statistical data. For a theoretical physicist, this AT THE UNIVERSITY physics is about. It does not seek comes with two main challenges. OF STUTTGART, I to uncover new fundamental laws First, one has to cope with ‘thermal DID SO – LIKE MOST of physics, but rather tries to fluctuations’, random kicks that understand the consequences of come from surrounding water OF MY FELLOW the known laws when there are a molecules, which are constantly in STUDENTS – BECAUSE large number of particles at play. For motion. While these kicks are hardly I WAS FASCINATED instance, statistical physics identifies felt by a large machine, they may BY THE MYSTERIES the temperature as an emergent have a noticeable impact on a tiny SURROUNDING property of a physical system. While one. The second challenge is the MODERN THEORIES quantum mechanics can describe fact that biomolecular machines the shape, mass and energy of are constantly supplied with energy, LIKE QUANTUM a water molecule, it doesn’t say invalidating the usual assumption MECHANICS OR anything about its temperature. that the system of interest would RELATIVITY. Yet, a full jar of water always has a be in an equilibrium with its well defined temperature, which environment. is a statistical property of the large number of molecules moving I had never intended to stay in my chaotically within. hometown Stuttgart for long after

56 • The Pelican 2019 ” • 57 The question driving our research energy cost for driving it is always motion a molecular motor makes of fish or birds. But in recent years, in the last year of my PhD I saw a for active matter. For instance, it kind of connected the two big greater than two times kT. The latter walking along a track inside a cell. experimentalists have also realized job posting by Michael Cates looking would be futile to expect that a challenges mentioned above. It is a small unit of energy determined While the energy intake of such artificial active matter systems, for for a postdoc with skills in stochastic ‘ratchet and pawl’-type mechanism addressed molecular machines solely by the temperature of the a motor is notoriously hard to example using particles that are thermodynamics, I knew this would could turn random kicks from functioning as clocks, which surroundings – at room temperature measure, a simple measurement of propelled by some chemical reaction be an extraordinary chance for me. molecules in a passive surrounding for example allow organisms to it is 1026 times less than the calories the fluctuations in its speed (ie its they catalyse at their surface. From I was happy that my application into unidirectional motion, as the anticipate the time of sunrise. We in a bar of chocolate. The beauty imprecision) yields at least a lower afar, active matter often looks like was successful, and I moved to laws of thermodynamics forbid any knew that systems in equilibrium of the thermodynamic uncertainty bound on this quantity. Even though passive matter, for example, a flock Cambridge in March 2018 to start such perpetual motion machine. with their environment do not relation is that it universally applies now I am no longer actively working of birds may look like a droplet of my new job at the Department In contrast, a ratchet immersed experience the flow of time. A tiny to any type of clock, from the small on the thermodynamic uncertainty water, which makes it tempting of Applied Mathematics and in active matter, for example a clock that has run out of ‘battery’ ones in bacteria to a certain golden relation it is still dear to me. I remain to apply the same laws of physics. Theoretical Physics (DAMTP). bacterial bath, does rotate in a may sometimes tick due to thermal one that attracts crowds of tourists in contact with my collaborators and But active matter can interact with persistent direction, which can be fluctuations, but fundamental on Trumpington Street. A small I am happy to see in the literature its environment in a fashion very I am now working on a project in used to extract useful work. We symmetries in the laws of physics imprecision of, say, 1% in a day is how these ideas keep spurring different from passive matter, for which we are trying to find out have investigated theoretically stipulate that such a tick is equally possible only if at least 20,000 kT are further research by groups all over example when the flock of birds more about the nature of active general principles for the efficiency likely happen in a forward as in a supplied. Dr John Taylor certainly did the world. avoids an obstacle or a predator. matter by asking how one could of such ‘active engines’ and have backward direction. It is therefore not need to worry that winding up build an engine that extracts useful found some fairly surprising results. clear that energy needs to be the Corpus Clock would overburden During the work for my PhD, I got Most research on active matter work from it. This question is similar For example, we have identified supplied to drive the clock, so the energy bill of our College. But on interested in an emerging new field has been and still is largely in spirit to the 19th century’s an array of obstacles that look like that it can outrun these random the microscopic scale of bacteria, it in physics called ‘active matter’. phenomenological, describing the quest to build heat engines that little kites with wings as an optimal fluctuations. But how much energy costs some effort to provide this Usually, physicists consider matter effects it exhibits in experiments and extract work from passive matter, design for a ratchet mechanism, is actually needed for that? The amount of energy. as an assembly of particles that may computer simulations. However, a for example hot steam. Since the moreover, we could show that for answer to this question lies in a be subject to external forces and versatile theoretical framework answers to such questions had a large number of active particles result that has become known as Much of my work during my PhD may interact with each other, but to understand these effects is still yielded the laws of thermodynamics cooperative effects yield higher the ‘thermodynamic uncertainty has been devoted to proving, which respond to these forces in a lacking. I first learned about this for passive matter, we hope that the efficiency. relation’ (even though it has nothing generalizing, and refining the passive fashion. In contrast, active fascinating challenge in a plenary same path will reveal some general to do with the famous Heisenberg thermodynamic uncertainty relation, matter is formed of particles that talk at a conference of the German physical laws of active matter. After moving to Cambridge, I was uncertainty relation in quantum and together with our collaborators are deemed ‘active’ because each Physical Society. I remember that Recent experimental realizations of glad to experience a very lively mechanics). This relation is an in Barcelona we have demonstrated of them is endowed with some self- the lecture hall was buzzing with engines running with active matter atmosphere in the group I joined at astonishingly simple one, so I dare its validity experimentally. Beyond propulsion mechanism. Examples excitement, partly because the were still heavily inspired by the DAMTP. But still I soon found out that to burden the esteemed reader of its application to genuine clocks, for such systems can mainly be speaker, Michael Cates, had recently classic design of passive engines. most University life is happening the Pelican with some mathematics: the relation also provides a tool found in biology, and range from been appointed to the prestigious However, radically different designs in the colleges, to which basically The squared imprecision (or to analyse similar biomolecular assemblies of bacteria, through Lucasian Chair of Mathematics at that would be useless for passive everyone except for postdocs ‘uncertainty’) of a clock times the processes, such as the stepping cells in organic tissue, to swarms the University of Cambridge. When matter may work all the better belong. In particular, Corpus with

58 • The Pelican 2019 • 59 DR PATRICK PIETZONKA

its splendid architecture and its little obsession with clocks had a special allure for me. Hence, I was very happy that out of the many applications for Junior Research Fellowships I had sent out the one at Corpus was successful. When Michael Cates congratulated me on my election to the Fellowship, he commented that at Corpus I would get the ‘real Cambridge experience’. Now, after my first year at Corpus, I understand what he meant. Being one of the old colleges, Corpus cherishes its many traditions, while at the same time the thoughts that are being exchanged are very modern. I felt warmly welcomed at the College by both the old and the new Master, the other Fellows, and the porters, and I soon became familiar with everyone in this small and tight-knit community. A particularly memorable experience of this community I had earlier this year when three other Fellows invited me to escape the Cambridgeshire flatness for a few days and join them on a trip to North Yorkshire. With the excellent guidance of Andrew Harvey as a Yorkshire native, we mastered the ‘Three Peaks Challenge’, a 40 kilometre day hike around the Ribblesdale valley.

Another benefit of my Fellowship at Corpus is that it brings me closer to the community of mathematics students there. I have always enjoyed teaching theoretical physics, and with the smart students I had in supervisions it has so far been a pleasure to not only go through the solutions they have handed in, but also to delve into exciting discussions about the interpretation of physical theories. I am very much looking forward to intensifying the relationship with the students when I take up my new role as a Director of Studies in applied mathematics in the new academic year.

60 • The Pelican 2019 • 61 Dr Kai Ruggeri Fellow in Psychological and Behavioural Science

It had been essentially treated and had almost no practical value Being raised in the 80s and 90s by a as a fact since 1979, when two to society. Naturally, the immediate single mother in southern Missouri, I psychologists confirmed the idea: reaction to such a comment would grew up with a lot of independence. people are loss averse. We dislike be irritation followed by a bemused Many people from low-income losing things more than we like need to respond. However, surprised homes can probably relate to the gaining them, or so the story went. by the entire interaction, I found trial-by-fire development that comes So it came as quite a shock when, myself fixated on her final point: with being on your own a lot during in summer 2018, an explosive what practical value was there for your youth. You choose whether or piece appeared out of nowhere my work to society? Unbeknownst not you study, or play sports, or take undermining the entire idea. For to me at that moment, but only on odd jobs to get money. In such behavioural researchers like me, months before that conversation, an situations, even with a wonderful loss aversion – the idea that people economist in Chicago and a Harvard parent like my mother who was clear dislike taking risks where there is a law professor had just published on the value of education, being chance of losing what we have – is a book that gave the best possible committed to your studies is a long- canon. answer. But we’ll come back to that. term investment that is easy to put off when thinking only about today. But how did an early career It is certainly popular for stories Unfortunately, in those days, I too researcher from Rolla, Missouri, in to celebrate individuals who often chose the latter. the foothills of the Ozarks, end up rose to prominence in spite of leading a 19-country study with 31 underwhelming performance in While never a bad student, my collaborators to see if loss aversion their early education. For situations early education was marked by really was a myth? That is a much where those individuals had faced too many missed opportunities. I better story – because it weaves great adversity, these stories can was twice placed into the gifted together a Corpus story, a scientific and should serve as inspiration to programme, only to be removed for story, a teaching story, a family story, those who deal with struggles in misbehaving both times – though a personal passion, and now, a New their youth. However, we need to third time lucky, as they thankfully York story. be careful to distinguish between tried a new approach with me that overcoming…and celebrating what is stuck. Through secondary school, In 2009, as I was completing my simply underachieving. I would produce exceptional exam doctoral dissertation at Queen’s results that would be completely University in Belfast, I had taken on mitigated by not submitting standard a research position at the UNESCO coursework. To illustrate, imagine Centre in Northern Ireland. Statistics scoring in the top 5% on national is a great skill to learn and develop, university entrance exams, but in that it creates opportunities to having overall scores barely above work on subjects well outside your “ average. Things have come a long standard academic area. While THEN A SINGLE CLASS way since, but I would not like my reviewing material for one such CHANGED MY WHOLE story to be one of criticising my early project over a coffee in the staff educators – I simply did not meet canteen, the bartender asked me WORLD. IN 2005, HAVING expectations, and it made things about my general research, to which SWITCHED DEGREES FOR much harder than they needed to be I gave my usual reply: Why do people THE THIRD TIME IN THREE in the early years of my education. hate statistics? I explained how it is common that students, particularly YEARS, I WAS REQUIRED Then a single class changed my whole in social sciences, really dislike TO TAKE STATISTICS world. In 2005, having switched learning stats, and how that has FOR MY BACHELOR IN degrees for the third time in three long-term consequences in the real years, I was required to take statistics world. PSYCHOLOGY. I FELL IN for my bachelor in psychology. I fell LOVE WITH IT. in love with it. Though it was my Before finishing even that brief spiel, 16th year of formal education, it was she had already informed me that it the first time I had felt genuinely was no interest to her whatsoever, passionate about a subject.

62 • The Pelican 2019 ” • 63 DR KAI RUGGERI

In the final year of my undergraduate as well as knowing how much her degree, my stats professor asked me family had invested in supporting to assist him in teaching the course. her so she could participate in the During that period, I realized I was not research project. ready to finish studying and began looking at postgraduate degrees This left a major impression on me. overseas. I was invited to interview Of course, I had struggled for years at Queen’s University in Belfast, and to find solid ground in my studies, frankly, the interview hadn’t been and once I was given the opportunity going well, not least because they to do a PhD, a whole new world had were asking me about my interests opened up. In front of me now was a in their doctoral programme, which I young person who was putting in all hadn’t actually applied to. Aiming to the effort and commitment, but the conclude the interview, they offered opportunity had closed on her in me the chance to ask questions, spite of her best efforts. Something to which I only enquired if they had to be done. allowed doctoral students to teach classes. They seemed puzzled by the Shortly after this event, I successfully question, until I clarified that I had defended my doctoral research and assisted teaching statistics already, returned to the US. In the months and would really enjoy the chance that followed, I spent time as a to do so again. statistics consultant in Chicago, while also continuing to lead my team

CCK Team Photo Lent 2012. The immediate silence was broken of young people, eventually as a only by the sound of their collective postdoctoral researcher in Portugal. jaws hitting the table. Not only had As the postdoctoral position finished this changed the entire discussion, in 2010, I completed a postgraduate it had caught them so off-guard certificate at Oxford and then that they were already scrambling relocated to Serbia, where I worked to propose a research plan on with a few organizations dealing the subject. Weeks later, I was with a number of policy challenges off to Ulster to explore statistics in the Balkans. But the conversation anxiety and negative attitudes with that student never left me. toward statistics in the behavioural sciences. In early 2011, I was invited to Cambridge to support Professor Several years later, I would get Felicia Huppert on a study she to pay it forward. In the days was overseeing at the Well-being after the bartender told me I was Institute, which she had established working on irrelevant research, I in the Department of Psychiatry. was invited to lead a small team Professor Huppert quickly became of early career researchers. The a mentor and friend (or as I refer beauty of statistics for me has to her, my Academic Godmother). been that it always allows me to She also became the biggest bring together personal matters of supporter of my newly found importance with research. In this passion: establishing a formal Above: Policy Research Group Annual Dinner. Below: JRP in Corpus 2016. case, I was expanding my research research programme for highly on behavioural policy in education motivated students just looking for at the UNESCO Centre by engaging an opportunity to develop skills in a with a student organisation that had way that benefits society. brought this small team together. While preparing to run our study, In the early days of this initiative, I happened to have a conversation I heard “no” a lot. But more with a student from one of the importantly, we heard “yes” just other teams, who had shared her enough times to make it happen. disappointment that their research And the most critical of these came had not made progress and was in late 2012, when Corpus Christi unlikely to carry out their work. She said yes to hosting the Junior was frustrated at this outcome for Researcher Programme or JRP (we professional development reasons, finally had a name) for the first time.

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sure-thing today or the possibility of Given how much we had invested in a better thing tomorrow? the topic so far, we had to consider our position, when it occurred to How do we know this? Well, the book us: why not just test it ourselves? that was published in 2008 showed So we did just that. Leading a team exactly this. When Richard Thaler of nearly 30 committed young (University of Chicago) and Cass researchers plus a few colleagues, Sunstein (Harvard) published Nudge, we put the original study to the test. they showed very clearly that we Thanks to the support of Corpus, can see how people behave based Columbia, and the JRP, we were able on their understanding of risk. These to observe decision-making in over patterns emerge in individuals and 4,000 people spanning 19 countries especially across populations, making and 13 languages. We ran the them perfect topics for a behavioural exact same methods used in 1979, researcher who loves statistical updating only the currency values thinking. and expanding the methods.

The article suggesting there was no What did we find? Well, I do not evidence to support loss aversion sent want to spoil all the results, but safe shockwaves through the profession. to say it worked in 2019 almost in This is no small claim, and is especially the same way it worked in 2008. concerning given that social sciences Relieved? Yes. Surprised? Not really. are going through what has been called After all, they received a Nobel Prize a “replication crisis”: a large number of for it, so I guess the subject really highly-cited studies were tested again, must be of interest to somebody. If and researchers failed to generate the nothing else, though, it will still be same impacts as originally published. another special part of my Corpus Unsurprisingly, social media was abuzz story. from the debates. Were we wrong this whole time? Were these just bitter people who wanted more recognition? Whose argument is right? Photo credit: Mailman School of Public Health , Columbia University.

What is rather amazing is that this Sciences (PBS) in early 2014. Teaching her entire summer volunteering to meeting came together for the most is something I consider a huge coordinate the JRP after finishing her This article is dedicated to unlikely of reasons. When I first came privilege, and the experience working own psychology degree.) to Cambridge, I was invited to join with the wonderful PBS students the memory of Dr Aaron Darwin College, which did not have a during my five years as DoS was One of the most critical theories for Rapport, and his wife, Dr Joyce rugby team. Because of that, I ended irreplaceable. It was then especially behavioural science applied to policy Heckman. Those who read the up playing for the combined Clare- meaningful to me when nominated loss aversion (yes, now we’re back College newsletter or website Corpus-King’s team, known as CCK. and elected to the Fellowship in 2017. to the opening story). In 2018, I was will be aware of their passing (Anyone familiar with the social scene offered a professorship at Columbia in the summer of 2019. On in Cambridge will undoubtedly have Throughout this time, the JRP grew University in New York. Since my top of being a genuinely good heard the invigorating chant “YOU and solidified in our work. Beginning research position at Cambridge human being, Aaron was a ARE CCK!” emanating from a lively in 2016, our annual summer continues with a five-year grant, it wonderful colleague and peer, group of young men). While watching volunteer internship project has means I spend a lot of time in both and played a major part in autumn internationals in 2012 in involved translating evidence from places. In August of that year, the my experience in Corpus, like the JCR with the Corpus contingent, behavioural sciences into real world JRP research team was working on so many others. Since I was I mentioned the JRP story to a applications, such as policy. Ever a second edition of the textbook. teammate, who was certain that the wonder why you get a colourful You may have picked up on it, but unable to ask him to proofread College would want to support such letter showing you how your energy statistics is an addictive skill, because this article in advance, I have an endeavour. He was right. They usage compares to your neighbours’? once you realize what you can do with attempted to write it in a did. And we’ve now hosted seven Behavioural science. Ever wonder why it, all existence becomes a subject of style that might reflect how research projects, six conferences, there are lines painted on the floors tangible interest. Or, as we say in the he would have told the story: and over 250 people in Corpus since. in your local hospital? Behavioural Ozarks, 'Once you have a hammer, with great energy, random science. Ever wonder why … okay, you everything starts looking like a nail'. asides, and a healthy dose of Given that experience, it was an get the point – our work summarised Loss aversion is itself a combination of self-deprecation. indescribable honour when Corpus those insights, first into a report, then our ability to reason cognitively, and asked me to be the Director of Studies a textbook. (I promised a family story: our understanding of probabilistic for Psychological and Behavioural in 2016, my cousin Josephine spent statistics like risk: would I prefer a

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Development & Communications Office Corpus Christi College Trumpington Street CAMBRIDGE CB2 1RH UK

Telephone: +44 (0) 1223 339718

Email: [email protected]

Website: www.corpus.cam.ac.uk

68 • The Pelican 2019