The Eagle 2020
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The Eagle 2020 The Eagle 2020 Photo: Emma Dellar, Lead Clinical Nurse, living on-site during the lockdown Credit: (2017) VOLUME 102 THE EAGLE 2020 1 WELCOME Published in the United Kingdom in 2020 by St John’s College, Cambridge First published in the United Kingdom in 1858 by St John’s College, Cambridge Cover photo credit: Jo Tynan Designed by Out of the Bleu (07759 919440; www.outofthebleu.co.uk) Printed by CDP (01517 247000; www.cdp.co.uk) The Eagle is published annually by St John’s College, Cambridge, and is provided free of charge to members of the College and other interested parties. 2 Photo: Komorebi Credit: Paul Everest WELCOME THE EAGLE 2020 3 WELCOME Contents Welcome Contributors .................................................................................................... 6 Editorial .......................................................................................................... 7 Message from the Vice-Master . 8 Articles Research at the Centre for Misfolding Diseases ...................................................... 14 A word for Wordsworth .................................................................................... 18 Dyslexia, poetry, rhythm and the brain . 21 Portrait of a Lady ............................................................................................. 24 The Cambridge Carthaginians ............................................................................ 27 Innovation and entrepreneurship at St John’s ......................................................... 31 The academic year 2019/20 Director of Education & Senior Tutor’s summary of the academic year ..................... 36 New Research Fellows ...................................................................................... 38 In conversation with: the President ..................................................................... 40 In conversation with: the Tutor for Undergraduate Admissions ................................ 43 Tea with the Chaplain ...................................................................................... 46 Changes to the College’s Community Hub plans .................................................... 51 The Master and Fellowship ................................................................................ 54 Members’ news Connecting the community .............................................................................. 60 The latest news from students, alumni, Fellows and Honorary Fellows ...................... 62 Larmor winners .............................................................................................. 70 4 WELCOME Obituaries Professor Sir Christopher Dobson FRS, 1949–2019 ................................................ 74 Sir Jonathan Miller CBE, 1934–2019 ................................................................... 84 Professor Louis Cha GBM OBE, 1924–2018 ......................................................... 89 Alumni obituaries ........................................................................................... 94 Societies and sports Aquila taking flight ......................................................................................... 148 The Johnian Society ........................................................................................ 150 The JCR ....................................................................................................... 152 The SBR ....................................................................................................... 156 The Chapel ................................................................................................... 159 The Choir ...................................................................................................... 161 St John’s Voices .............................................................................................. 163 Music Society ................................................................................................ 165 Student society reports .................................................................................... 167 Student sports team reports .............................................................................. 183 LMBC reports ............................................................................................... 197 Donors Sir Christopher Dobson PhD Scholarship ........................................................... 210 Donors 2019/20 ............................................................................................. 212 Wordsworth at 250 ......................................................................................... 236 Donors to the Library ..................................................................................... 239 The last word Goodbye and thank you .................................................................................. 244 THE EAGLE 2020 5 WELCOME Contributors Thanks to all who have helped shape this issue of The Eagle, including: PAGE KADI LIIS SAAR PAGE ANDREW CHEN 14 Kadi joined St John’s as a Junior Research 24 After studying at Harvard as an Fellow in 2019. Before her university undergraduate, Andrew completed an studies, she was a world-ranked junior tennis MPhil and a PhD in History of Art at Cambridge. player and won ‘Estonia’s got talent’ for her mental Since 2016 he has been a Research Fellow at arithmetic skills. As a Schmidt Science Fellow, Kadi St John’s, working on a book-length study of now works between the Centre for Misfolding Renaissance allegories of navigation in a global Diseases and the Maxwell Centre, and her context. More broadly, his interests include research focuses on developing new experimental medieval and early modern art; Renaissance methods and predictive computational tools chapel decoration and contemplative practices; for understanding the behaviour of biological and allegory and the history of travel. Andrew molecules and systems in particular proteins. She lectures second-year History of Art students for is also the mother of two children and has worked the University, and in 2019 he was instrumental on several projects concerning Estonian diaspora in identifying a College-owned portrait of Lady abroad, including co-founding the Oxford & Margaret Beaufort as the work of sixteenth-century Cambridge Club Estonia. Netherlandish artist Meynnart Wewyck. PAGE RICHARD BROWN PAGE JOHN HOYTE 18 Richard is a veterinary surgeon who 27 John was born in China to medical divides his time between the North missionary parents and was in a Japanese of Scotland and overseas. His diverse research concentration camp as a boy during WWll. He led interests reflect the variety of his veterinary work. The British Alpine Hannibal Expedition in 1959, He jointly discovered a nervous condition in during which he took Jumbo, an Indian elephant cats called ‘Robotic cats’, worked on the first field from the Turin Zoo, over the Alps in a quest for research on haptoglobins in cattle and managed Hannibal’s route. After two years in the Army as the first 3D printing of a complete Omura’s an instructor in electronics, he worked in British whale skeleton. Richard is one of the founding industry for three years and then settled in Silicon veterinarians of Hong Kong’s first veterinary Valley, California, where he held patents at Hewlett school. He has also contributed three collections Packard. He founded his own company, Spectrex of tropical butterflies to the Boothe Museum in Corp, designing and manufacturing optical Brighton, and he is a keen amateur photographer instruments, and he has now retired to Bellingham who has contributed to past covers of The Eagle. in Washington State, USA. PAGE USHA GOSWAMI PAGE LIISA VAN VLIET 21 After graduating in Experimental 31 Liisa is an entrepreneur and a Psychology at Oxford with the top First postdoctoral researcher at the in her year, Usha trained and worked as a primary University of Cambridge. After obtaining her PhD school teacher in London. Noticing a significant in Biochemistry from St John’s, she worked at research gap to inform teaching practice, she Accenture in project management. She returned undertook a PhD instead. She joined St John’s as to Cambridge in 2009 and founded Drop-Tech, a Fellow in 1990, and her research as Professor a microfluidic droplet design and consultancy of Cognitive Developmental Neuroscience company. She is currently developing microfluidic focuses primarily on reading development and systems for drug discovery and diagnostics. Liisa is developmental dyslexia. She founded and directs particularly interested in helping social enterprises. the world’s first Centre for Neuroscience in She gives ‘Innovation & Entrepreneurship’ Education, and in 2019 she was the first academic workshops across Europe and facilitates or mentors at Cambridge to be awarded the Yidan Prize. for programmes run by the Cambridge Judge Business School. 6 WELCOME Editorial Although 2019/20 was undeniably exceptional, the truth is that no year at St John’s is typical. Fellows constantly break new ground with their research, and the hundreds of students who arrive each October bring enormous individual and collective potential to make a distinctive mark on the College and the world. Last October St John’s appointed a her personal account in the Last Word on Vice-Master for the first time, and Tim page 242. Elsewhere in the issue we discover Whitmarsh has led the College through this that the pandemic, while presenting untold interim year with characteristic