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New Fellows 2008-09: Biographies
Dr Boaz BEN-AMITAI (Teaching By-Fellow: 2008/2009)
Dr Boaz Ben-Amitai has a BA in Economics and an LLB from the University of Tel Aviv, Israel. He also has an LLM and PhD (Jurisprudence) from the University of Cambridge. He is currently a Teaching By-Fellow in Law, and is also a Lecturer in Law at Middlesex University.
Dr Jean-Marc CHOMAZ (French Government Overseas Fellow: Michaelmas Term 2008)
Jean-Marc Chomaz is Director of Research at the French National Center for Scientific Researches (C.N.R.S.) and co-chair of the Laboratoire d'Hydrodynamique (LadHyX) at École Polytechnique. He has been educated in Physics at École Normale Supérieure in Paris (BS 1981, MS 1982 and PhD 1985). After two postdoctoral years in the Department of Aerospace Engineering at the University of Southern California, he joined as Research Scientist in 1987 the French National Centre for Meteorological Research in Toulouse where he initiated an experimental research program in geophysical fluid dynamics. In 1992 he became Associate Professor at École Polytechnique and, with Patrick Huerre, created the Laboratoire d'Hydrodynamique (LadHyX). He was elected a Fellow of the American Physical Society in 2001. He also received the "Prix jeune chercheur D.R.E.T." in 1995 and the silver medal of the CNRS in 2007.
Mr Luke CHURCH (Teaching By-Fellow: 2008/2010)
Luke Church has a BA in Computer Science from the University of Cambridge, where he is a PhD student and Teaching By-Fellow at Churchill. His current work is interdisciplinary research into improving the usability of programming languages for end users, ranging from research biologists to choreographers and home users. He also researches, and consults internationally, on computer security usability.
Dr Paul DICKEN (Title B (Junior) Research Fellow)
Paul Dicken was elected to a non-stipendiary Junior Research Fellowship in Philosophy in October 2007, and was also appointed Director of Studies in History and Philosophy of Science. He has since been elected to a stipendiary Junior Research Fellowship. His current research interests involve the metaphysics and epistemology of the natural sciences, and in particular, what our cognitive engagement with a scientific theory tells us about our ontological commitments. He is also interested in the philosophy of modality, and how this relates to our understanding of science.
Dr Caterina DUCATI (Title B (Senior) Research Fellow)
Caterina Ducati was born in Milan, Italy. In 1999 she graduated in Physics in Milan, and moved to Cambridge, Engineering Department, where she worked on carbon nanotubes for field emission and electrochemistry applications under the supervision of Prof. John Robertson. After completing her PhD in 2003, she joined the Electron Microscopy group directed by Prof Paul Midgley, at the Department of Materials Science and Metallurgy, Cambridge. Caterina was initially elected to a Royal Society Dorothy Hodgkin Fellowship, but since 2007 she has been a Royal Society University Research Fellow, working on photon-stimulated electron spectroscopy and microscopy of nanostructures. Caterina was a graduate student at Churchill College. She then held a JRF in Churchill from 2005 to 2008. Her "other interests" include exploring parks and playgrounds with her two young sons, Paolo and Matteo.
Professor Andrew ELLIOT (Overseas Fellow: 2008/2009)
Andrew Elliot received his Ph.D in Social-Personality Psychology from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1994. He has been at the University of Rochester since 1994. He conducts research in the areas of approach-avoidance motivation, achievement and social motivation, colour psychology, motivation and culture, self and self-regulation, and well-being. He has published over 100 scholarly pieces, including two handbooks: Handbook of competence and motivation, and Handbook of approach and avoidance motivation. He is currently associate editor of Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, and Social and Personality Psychology Compass. He has received numerous awards for his research, and has given lectures on his work at approximately 40 different universities across the globe.
Professor Jens FEDER (Overseas Fellow: Michaelmas Term 2008)
Jens Feder has been a Professor of Physics at the University of Oslo since 1974. He was Director (2003/6) of the Centre of Excellence Physics of Geological Processes, established 2003, which following review has now been prolonged until 2014. His research interests are in the area of Statistical Physics, Nucleation Theory, Superconductivity, Structural Phase Transitions, Protein Adsorption and Aggregation, Transport in Porous Media and Fluid Dynamics, Sedimentation, Pressure dissolution, Fracture processes, Granular media and Friction. He has worked theoretically, experimentally and by computer simulations. Feder has published 127 papers in refereed journals [cited 4004 times]. His book Fractals has been cited 3019 times.
Professor Jerry GOLLUB (Overseas Fellow: 2008/2009)
Jerry Gollub is JBB Professor in the Natural Sciences at Haverford College. He attended Oberlin College and received his Ph.D. in experimental condensed matter physics at Harvard University in 1971. He has undertaken a wide range of experiments on nonlinear phenomena, including instabilities, patterns, chaos, turbulence in fluids, and the dynamics of granular flow. He co-authored an undergraduate textbook on chaotic dynamics, served as Provost of Haverford College, and is also affiliated with University of Pennsylvania. Gollub is a member of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences and won the Fluid Dynamics Prize of the American Physical Society. He is visiting Cambridge with his wife Diane Nissen, who works for IBM.
Dr Katja HAUSTEIN (Title B (Junior) Research Fellow)
Katja Haustein received her doctorate from Cambridge University in 2007, and holds a British Academy Postdoctoral Research Fellowship. She was a Max Weber Fellow at the European University Institute in Florence. Katja specializes in twentieth-century French and German literature, with a broad interest in the relations between autobiography, visual culture, and the emotions. She has published articles on identity and alterity as well as vision and affect in Proust and co-edited a book on conceptions of space in French studies. Katja is currently revising her PhD on vision and photography in Proust, Benjamin and Barthes for publication. She is also working on a new research project that focuses on aesthetic self-constructions by female artists in the Weimar Republic.
Ms Jules HOLROYD (Junior Research Fellow)
Jules Holroyd has a BA and MA in Philosophy from the University of Sheffield, where she has just completed her PhD. She has also spent time, with an overseas study grant, in the Department of Linguistics & Philosophy at MIT. Her PhD thesis defended relational conceptions of autonomy in political and moral philosophy. Her current research, to be undertaken as a JRF at Churchill, explores the role of autonomy in other philosophical debates: the compatibility of a relational conception of autonomy with liberal neutrality; the role of autonomy in the doctrine of informed consent; the metaphysical commitments of relational accounts.
Dr Geoff KEMP (By-Fellow: Michaelmas Term 2008)
Geoff Kemp is Lecturer in Political Studies at the University of Auckland, working on the history of political discourse and media and politics. A Lancastrian, he was a journalist before studying at King's College, Cambridge, where he gained a double first in SPS, an MPhil in intellectual history and political thought, and a PhD in early modern ideas of press freedom, supervised by Dr Mark Goldie. After completing his doctorate he took up his present post in 2002 and has since taught and published on censorship and the public sphere in seventeenth-century England, and on the media and democracy. He recently won a major grant from the Marsden Fund, Royal Society of New Zealand, for the research project, 'The Prehistory of "Media Effects" in the History of Political Discourse, 1640-1740.
Professor Richard KERSWELL (By-Fellow: Michaelmas Term 2008)
Rich Kerswell is on leave from the School of Mathematics at Bristol University while he co-organises the 4-month Isaac Newton Programme 'The Nature of High Reynolds Turbulence' starting at the end of August. His research interests are primarily in understanding how and why fluids choose to become turbulent motivated both by the mathematical challenge and the considerable applications in geophysics and astrophysics. Recently he has been focussing on the apparently mundane problem of understanding the fluid flow in pipes, a problem that is centuries old but still largely a mystery except for plumbers! Dr Kerswell is returning to Cambridge after a 20 year gap (Emmanuel, matric. 1984) and is looking forward to reacquainting himself with the Cam again.
Mr Nigel KNIGHT (Title A (Teaching) Fellow)
Nigel Knight is a lecturer in British Government to the Faculty of Economics and is Director of Studies in Economics and a former Teaching By-Fellow at Churchill College. He has been a lecturer in Economics at Magdalene College Cambridge since 1996, and formerly taught at University College and at Queen Elizabeth House, University of Oxford. He has worked in national politics with both the Conservative Party and the Liberal Democrats, advising and writing policy. His research interests are principally in the area of political economy.
Dr Pierre LESAFFRE (French Government Overseas Fellow: 2008/2009)
Pierre Lesaffre is an astrophysicist at the Ecole Normale Supérieure in Paris. He works on supernovae, magnetised disks and the fractal structure of the interstellar medium. His main hobby is to play the piano and he was lucky enough to get some success at international competition for outstanding piano amateurs in Paris. He is quite keen on meeting other musicians to play chamber music. Father of four daughters, he shares his time between music, research and family.
Mr David LOEFFLER (Title B (Junior) Research Fellow)
David Loeffler is a Pure Mathematician, working in the field of number theory: specifically, he studies automorphic forms and their p-adic interpolation properties. He was born in Bristol and lived there until 2001 when he began his undergraduate studies at Trinity College. He took the BA and Part III Mathematics degrees, graduating in 2005. He has since spent three years as a graduate student at Imperial College, London, supervised by Kevin Buzzard. During 2006 he was a visiting graduate student at Harvard University.
Dr Ralph MENNING (Archives By-Fellow: Michaelmas Term 2008)
Ralph Menning is Assistant Professor of History at Kent State University Stark Campus in Canton, Ohio. A graduate of Yale, he went on to study modern European history at Brown under the supervision of Norman Rich. He has taught international relations and international history at the University of Montana, Heidelberg College (Ohio), and the University of Toledo, and has given several lecture series on the transregional and urban history of Central Europe for the Study Tours division of the Smithsonian. He is author of The Art of the Possible: Documents on Great Power Diplomacy, 1814-1914 (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1996).
Dr Menning is currently finishing a manuscript on The First Cold War: Britain, Germany, and the Politics of Global Confrontation, 1905-1909.
Dr John MORSS (By-Fellow: July-December 2008)
John Morss was born in London and educated at Sir George Monoux School, Walthamstow, and at the Universities of Sheffield (BSc Psychology), Edinburgh (PhD) and Otago (LLB). He has been Lecturer in Psychology at the University of Ulster, Senior Lecturer in Education at the University of Otago, and is currently Senior Lecturer and Associate Head of School (Research) in the Law School, Deakin University, Melbourne. He is the author or co-editor of five books in psychology and author of numerous papers in psychology and in law. His research interests are in the jurisprudence of international law.
Dr Sebastian MOSBACH (Title B (Junior) Research Fellow)
Sebastian Mosbach studied Physics and Computer Science at the University of Kaiserslautern (Germany) and was awarded a scholarship by the German National Academic Foundation (Studienstiftung des deutschen Volkes). He then joined the Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics at Cambridge and completed the course Part III of the Mathematical Tripos. He did his PhD in the Computational Modelling Group at the Chemical Engineering Department at Cambridge on "Explicit Stochastic and Deterministic Simulation Methods for Combustion Chemistry". His current research focuses on modelling and simulation of internal combustion engines.
Mr Barry PHIPPS (Title G (Supernumerary) Fellow)
Barry Phipps' work as a curator is concerned with relationship between artistic practice and scientific research. In keeping with a wide ranging academic background, which is rooted in Fine Art, as both an undergraduate and lecturer, and includes research in Continental Philosophy (Warwick), History of Art (Oxford) and the History and Philosophy of Architecture (Cambridge), Barry Phipps has curated a number of multi-disciplinary exhibitions. Most recently, he organised the highly acclaimed "Lines of Enquiry: Thinking Through Drawing" and "Beyond Measure" exhibitions at Kettle's Yard Gallery, Cambridge (2006/8). He continues to lecture and write on a number of inter-disciplinary and art related topics.
Dr Paul RUSSELL (Title A (Teaching) Fellow)
Paul Russell has a Ph.D. in Pure Mathematics from the University of Cambridge, and before coming to Churchill spent two years as a College Teaching Officer at Emmanuel College. His research to date has mostly been in Ramsey Theory, a branch of mathematics sometimes summed up by the slogan "complete disorder is impossible": a typical result in the area will show that if one starts with some 'ordered' mathematical structure and attempts to introduce 'disorder' to the structure then, no matter how one does this, it is always possible to find highly concentrated pockets of order. He is currently interested in related Euclidean problems, regarding which geometric structures one can always find within a single part when a high-dimensional space is finitely partitioned.
Dr Alan STRATHERN (Title A (Teaching) Fellow)
Alan Strathern teaches subjects in the history of the world outside the West from the fifteenth century to the present day (Part I, papers 21 and 23). He is also a College Lecturer and Director of Studies at Murray Edwards College. He has wide-ranging interests in cultural history stemming from a degree in Ancient and Modern History at Oxford and an MA in History and Anthropology at University College London. Returning to Oxford for doctoral work, he specialized in the encounter between Portuguese imperialism and Sri Lanka. After taking up a Research Fellowship at Clare Hall, Cambridge in 2002, this research culminated in Kingship and Conversion in Sixteenth Century Sri Lanka: Portuguese Imperialism in a Buddhist Land (CUP, 2007). He has published articles on themes such as ethnic consciousness, early modernity, sacred kingship and origin myths. His major interest, however, is in religion as an historical force, and he is currently working on a comparative study of elite conversions to Christianity. See http://www.hist.cam.ac.uk/academic_staff/further_details/strathern.html.
Sir John STUTTARD (Møller Centre By-Fellow: 2008-2010)
Sir John Stuttard was educated at Shrewsbury School and Churchill College (1963-66), where he read Economics. After graduating he spent a year in Borneo teaching English with Voluntary Service Overseas.
He qualified as a chartered accountant and spent his career with PricewaterhouseCoopers, where is now a Vice-Chairman. Much of his career has been devoted to advising global businesses. For his services to Finnish industry he was awarded the honour of Commander of the Order of the Lion of Finland. He was later Chairman of the Finnish-British Chamber of Commerce. He was seconded for two years in the early 80s to the UK Government Cabinet Office (Think Tank) advising Ministers on the nationalised industries and their privatisation. For five years he was Chairman and Chief Executive of his firm's operations in China. At the end of this posting he wrote a book entitled The New Silk Road — Secrets of Business Success in China Today, published by John Wiley & Sons. He later served as a director of the China-Britain Business Council.
He was Sheriff of London in 2005-06 and then Lord Mayor in 2006-07. In this capacity his main role was representing, supporting and promoting the UK-based financial, maritime and business services industry. His book on the City and the Mayoralty will be published in December 2008 by Phillimore/The History Press with the title The City of London and its Lord Mayor — From Whittington to World Financial Centre.
He served for four years (1977-1981) on the Cambridge University Appointments Board. His theme for the year as Lord Mayor was promoting London as a centre of excellence for business education and professional skills i development under the banner "City of London — City of Learning". He received an Honorary DLitt at City University in 2006 and is the Pro-Chancellor effective 1 September 2008. He is a governor of King Edward's School Witley and an Honorary Court Assistant and the Sponsoring Alderman for the Guild of Educators. He is also a trustee of Charities Aid Foundation.
Dr Nick TREANOR (Title A (Teaching) Fellow)
Nick Treanor is a College Lecturer in Philosophy at Churchill and Trinity and a Fellow in Philosophy at Churchill. He did his graduate training at Brown University, focusing on the philosophy of mind and metaphysics. His research centres on understanding how the world is represented within thought, where this is a question partly about the nature of mind and partly about the nature of the world. He has also done some work on consciousness and is interested in a variety of problems in epistemology, philosophy of language and philosophy of science that connect closely to his main research interests. He holds a Bachelor of Arts in philosophy from Queen's University in Canada and comes to Churchill from the University of Toronto.
Dr Tim VORLEY (Title A (Teaching) Fellow)
Tim Vorley is a University Lecturer in Economic Geography, and his primary research interests are innovation, knowledge exchange, and entrepreneurship. Specifically his work focuses on two broad themes. Firstly he is interested in institutional changes in higher education under the auspices of the so-called "Third Mission", and the engagement of universities with the economy and society. Secondly his work examines the geographies of entrepreneurship focusing on the dynamics of SMEs in Europe and the effects of public policy across multiple scales. As a geographer the importance of place and spatiality are intrinsic to much of his work and thinking.
