During these testing times it’s reassuring to hear about all of the hard work being done by the Churchill Community to both manage and inform about the Covid-19 pandemic, as well as other work and achievements that have taken place. Here’s what has been happening in the last few days.
COVID-19
Statistician Professor Sir David Spiegelhalter was interviewed by The Times (log in required) about how Covid-19 has made interpreting numbers a life or death issue, as well as commenting on a possible new test and the challenges of mass testing.
PhD Student Ramit Debnath has had his paper with Ronita Bardhan on COVID and public policy published in PLOS One. Using nudge theory that involves subtly leading people to desired directions, the study of India’s public policy response to Covid-19 concluded that nudges from Prime Minister Narendra Modi were critical in creating herd effect on lockdown and social distancing norms across the country.
IN OTHER NEWS
Fellow and Reader in Anglophone and Related Literature, Dr Priyamvada Gopal’s book Insurgent Empire: Anticolonial Resistance and British Dissent, has been shortlisted for the British Academy’s £25,000 Nayef Al-Rodhan Prize for Global Cultural Understanding.
Fellow and Group Director of Assessment Research and Development at Cambridge Assessment, Tim Oates, commented on the technical limitations of this year’s approach to A-level results.
Fellow and Director of Studies in Management Studies, Professor Daniel Ralph, commented on a new comprehensive report from AXA XL, in collaboration with the Centre for Risk Studies (“CCRS”) at Cambridge Judge Business School, demonstrating the impact that (re)insurance has on the speed and quality of recovery following natural disasters.
Trinity Hall have released a new portrait of former Churchill Fellow and 2016 winner of the Nobel Prize in Physics, Professor David Thouless (1934-2019).
We will continue to keep you informed of all of the work being done by the Churchill College Community. If you have any news you would like to share, please get in touch by emailing comms.manager@chu.cam.ac.uk.
