Uni-7141 News 24

ISSUE 24 TRINITY 2006 Spearheading Research From the Master At the end of my In Trinity 2003, we reported on the establishment of several academic research clusters across column in the the College, generously assisted by a group of Old Members. Three years on, funding has been last Newsletter obtained from Old Members for a further three research projects. I referred to the report of a One of Univ’s key strategic objectives is to integrate graduate Working Party students better into the daily life of the College and to secure our on the under- position as an inclusive and academically stimulating community graduate within the University. Since 2003, a succession of major gifts has admissions supported this aim, helping to attract first-class postgraduates in system, proposing Lord Butler areas in which Univ has existing strengths. They often share research a degree of of Brockwell interests with Fellows, may contribute to teaching, and help host centralisation. academic conferences, workshops, seminars and keynote lectures at the College. The first three beneficiaries of this funding were the Some newspapers had reported that Global Economic Governance Programme (led by Dr Ngaire colleges had surrendered the right to Woods), the Centre for Ethics & Philosophy of Law (Prof. John select undergraduates. I pointed out Gardner) and Experimental Psychology (Prof. Nick Rawlins). that the report was a consultative Now, we have Old Member support for a further three projects. Mid-sagittal MRI scan document not originating from the Prof. Peter Jezzard (Dunhill Professor of Neuroimaging) is establishing a Biomedical Imaging Training University’s central administration Programme. Drawing together Oxford’s outstanding research in a variety of imaging approaches, the and that Univ opposed any move Programme will help us to study biological systems all the way from single cells to whole organs – to take selection away from with applications for clinical neuroscience, cardiovascular imaging and cancer. Not only will this ‘hub’ College tutors. ensure that integrated and effective collaboration is fostered, it will also serve to attract and train A proposed common framework for brilliant young scientists in imaging methodology and enable them to take the research and its admissions and selection has now applications forward into the wider community. been produced. This provides that Similarly, it is hoped to make Univ a frontier of collaborative work across Oxford in Economic Theory. final decisions on who should be Prof. Sujoy Mukerji (The Schroder Family Fellow in Economics) hopes to develop a hub of graduate offered a place should rest with and undergraduate research around his own work at the interface of the economics of bounded colleges. At the same time the rationality and behavioural economics. A College-based cluster of graduate students interested in this system should ensure that the best area will ensure regular formal and informal interactions and discussions – from reading groups to candidates from a diversity of arguments over lunch. The result will not just be good discussions but new research ideas and, backgrounds should be admitted equally importantly, an ongoing training that will provide experience of collaborative work, from and weaker candidates should not undergraduate to doctorate level. get into Oxford simply because they apply to a college where A third cluster, led by Dr Gideon Henderson (Sollas Fellow in that year there happens to be in Geology), is working on understanding and predicting a weak field. climate change. It will focus some of Oxford’s multi- disciplinary research into climate change around a Colleges have long had dedicated cell at Univ, with the addition of junior research arrangements for pooling and fellows, visiting researchers and studentships. At the core exchanging candidates in order to will be paleoclimate observation and modelling – with an achieve that result. These procedures engagement of engineering, politics, international relations are now likely to be developed by and atmospheric chemistry within college and beyond. individual subjects. All candidates The spill-over for other undergraduates and graduates at within a subject will be assessed by Univ is clear. Establishing Univ as a collegiate centre for common criteria and short-listed climate research will help to educate the next generation candidates will be interviewed not of leaders about the science and policy issues underlying just by their College of first choice climate change – through holding College seminars and but also by another College when hearing invited speakers as well as through the simple their abilities suggest that they have presence of an energetic group of climate researchers in a reasonable chance of success. diverse disciplines within the College. The essential point is that candidates Together, these projects will help make Univ a physical and will continue to be admitted by the intellectual meeting point for those engaged in cutting- decision of the tutors in the College edge research, and ensure that it is a lively academic which offers them a place. This direct Gideon Henderson community in which members at all levels – from link between tutors and students undergraduate to professor – develop close relationships from the earliest stage of their with leading scholars in their own subjects and with each other across a broad range of disciplines. University lives is an essential aspect We will seek to extend this over the next few years – several Fellows are currently in the process of of the tutorial system which Univ, putting together proposals within their own fields of expertise – and it is an area in which together with other colleges, has Old Members’ support is always welcome. insisted on maintaining. College News The Master’s Sunday evening guests this term Charlotte Coles (2002) has accomplished the included Sir John Pattison (1960), former feat of playing Women’s Blues football over four chairman of the Spongiform Encephalopathy consecutive seasons. Charlotte, who took FA Advisory Committee, who spoke on the coaching qualifications last year, also captained compatibility of science with politics; Roz the Blues side during its 04/05 campaign and Savage (1986), who told the story of rowing has joined them on three European tours, across the Atlantic; and Lord Heseltine, who travelling twice to Portugal and once to Rome. spoke on “Thirty years in Politics: was it worth Fellow students Katy Langley (2004), Tim The portrait of Lord and Lady Butler by it?” As we went to press last term, there was a Marshall (2002) and Marcus Mason (2005), and Benjamin Sullivan, commissioned by the Fellows talk by Dame Eliza Manningham Buller, Director recent graduate Tom Brown (2002), also played for the Hall, was unveiled at the end of Hilary General of the Security Service, about her Varsity football this season. Term and exhibited at the annual exhibition of service’s work in countering terrorism. On Ascension Day, the Revd Canon Mountford the Royal Society of Portrait Painters. It is Below: Prof. Hartmut Pogge von Strandmann once again led the parishioners of St. Mary the believed to be the first College portrait in pictured (centre) at a conference held in his Virgin through the College to ‘Beat the Bounds’. Oxford to include a Head of House’s spouse. honour this March: “Wilhelmine Germany and As in previous years, the procession in Main Three graduate students gave Martlets talks in Edwardian Britain - Cultural Contacts and Quad was followed by the singing of hymns by the Master’s Lodgings this term. Rosemary Transfers.” school children in the Master’s Garden. March (2003) discussed the early letters and Dr Tamsin Mather, currently at Downing poetry of Lady Caroline Ponsonby Lamb. Tom College, Cambridge, will be coming to Univ on Lickiss (2005) explained how to make a brain (!) a five year RCUK Academic Fellowship in Earth as well as presiding over an animated discussion and Environmental Science. She works on the on Free Will. Chien-Jung Lo (2003) presented on near-source chemistry of tropospheric volcanic ‘Bacterial Flagellar Motor: A Natural Rotary plumes. Dr Tony Howe, a specialist in poetics, Molecular Machine’, offering insight into the philosophy and literary controversy in the unique and efficient method of propulsion of Romantic period, has accepted a three year microscopic organisms. stipendiary lectureship. He will replace Dr Jon This year’s Gareth Evans Memorial Lecture, Mee, Margaret Candfield Fellow in English, who “Composing Thoughts from Senses”, was given has been awarded a three year Leverhulme in May by Prof. Richard Heck of Brown The first of the lectures at the North American Trust Major Research Fellowship. University. The lecture was followed by a reunion was on Oxford’s contribution to The Master’s and Lady Butler’s annual walk and reception and dinner in Univ. countering disease in Africa and featured two picnic with the graduates took place on one of Gabriel Savage (2003) has been elected members of Univ, Ed Scott (1960), Chairman of the rare sunny days of the summer term. women’s captain of the Oxford University Real the Center for Global Development, and Dr Appropriately, it followed Shelley’s footsteps Tennis Club for 2006/7, having been women’s Ngaire Woods, Director of the Global Economic from Buscott to Kelmscott via Lechlade (where 2nds captain of the OU Lawn Tennis Club this Governance Programme. Those present he wrote some of his poetry). year. The Real Tennis Club is

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