Our people

In his long and successful career as an entrepreneur and venture capitalist, Hermann has founded or co-founded companies in a wide range of technology sectors. These include Acorn Computers (where he helped spin our ARM), Active Book Company, Virata, Net Products, NetChannel and Cambridge Network Limited.

Former President, US National Academy of Sciences

Kate Barker is a business economist.  She is presently as a non-executive director of Taylor Wimpey plc and Man Group plc.  Among other roles she is also chairman of trustees for the British Coal Staff Superannuation Fund.

Kate was a member of the Bank of England’s Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) from 2001 until May 2010.  During this period, she led two major policy reviews for Government, on housing supply and on land use planning.

Former Director of the Science Museum, London

Dr Alexandra Urban studied German philology and Latin at LMU Munich (First State Examination, 2016) and went on to complete a Master’s degree in German Language and Literature with a specialization in medieval studies (2017). From 2016 to 2020, she was a research associate in the DFG research group 1986 “Nature in Political Conceptions of Order: Antiquity – Middle Ages – Early Modern Period”, where she completed her PhD, awarded summa cum laude, in July 2020. The book was published in 2021 by De Gruyter under the title Poetik der Meisterschaft in ›Der meide kranz‹: Heinrich von Mügeln auf den Schultern des Alanus ab Insulis (series Deutsche Literatur. Studien und Quellen). Since 2020, she has been a research associate at the Chair of Professor Kellner (LMU Munich).

Dr Sean Butler is an Emeritus Fellow at St Edmund's College. His main field of research is animal rights law.

Dr Sean Butler studied Law at Oxford (St Edmund Hall) and the LSE, London, as well as Genetics at Cambridge (CPGS) before taking his PhD in social science at Imperial College, London. He supervises Roman Law and lectures Animal Rights Law in the Law Faculty, and is Co-Director of the Cambridge Centre for Animal Rights Law.

Academic Profile

Dr Suzanne Paul is the Keeper of Rare Books and Early Manuscripts at Cambridge University Library. She is a Tutor, Fellow Librarian and Fellow Archivist.

Suzanne obtained an MA in Classics and Medieval History from the University of Edinburgh, followed by an MA and PhD in Medieval Studies from the University of Leeds. A medieval manuscript scholar by training, she is particularly interested in the application of digital and scientific approaches to the study and curation of manuscripts.

She has collaborated on several large-scale manuscript digitisation and conservation projects, including the Polonsky Foundation Greek Manuscripts project. She currently a co-investigator on the Hidden in Plain Sight project, applying methods such as X-ray fluorescence, multispectral imaging and DNA analysis to the study of premodern books.

• Director of Studies: Law 

Matthew is a Fellow of St Edmund’s College and Director of Studies of Undergraduate Law.  He is a member of the Centre for Public Law, Cambridge.  He teaches constitutional law, and the law of trusts and equity, across a number of Cambridge colleges.  His research is in the field of constitutional law and constitutional theory.  His works on topics ranging from contemporary populism, constitutional change, referendums, and constitutional history, have been published in leading UK and Australian journals.

Matthew completed his PhD in law at Gonville & Caius College, Cambridge, supported by a WM Tapp Scholarship, on the topic of ‘Policy Referendums in the United Kingdom, New Zealand and Australia’.  In addition to his doctorate, Matthew holds a Bachelor of Arts and Juris Doctor from the University of Melbourne.  In 2015 he matriculated at St Edmund’s College, Cambridge, completing a Master of Laws.

Before Cambridge, Matthew was admitted to legal practice, and worked as an Associate at the Australian firm Allens-Linklaters, practising as a litigator.  He advised clients on a wide range of government investigations, business disputes, class actions, and cross-border disputes.  In a pro bono capacity, he instructed in constitutional proceedings concerning democratic rights, and advised peak human rights bodies on issues concerning offshore refugee detention and the drafting of anti-discrimination legislation.  Taking time out of practice, Matthew spent a year working as the Senior Judicial Assistant to a Judge of the Supreme Court of Victoria (Australia).  Before coming to the law, Matthew trained as an economist and worked, in 2012, as a policy analyst at the Department of Treasury and Finance (Australia).

His Law Faculty page, including a list of publications and research projects, is available here:  https://www.law.cam.ac.uk/people/academic/mj-psycharis/78801

Dr James Whitworth's research and clinical activity focuses on the identification of individuals at increased risk of cancer due to a heritable genetic cause, and methods to mitigate that risk where identified.

James obtained his medical degree from the University of Leicester in 2007. He continued his clinical training in the East Midlands before taking up an NIHR Academic Clinical Fellowship in Clinical Genetics in Birmingham. He moved to Cambridge to undertake a PhD, which was completed in 2019 and led to his appointment as an NIHR Academic Clinical Lecturer prior to his current post.

Dr Anna Gannon is an Emerita Fellow of St Edmund's College.

She specialises in early medieval Insular Art. She is part of an international group working on early Irish reliquaries found in Italy, and co-edits a Medieval studies Festschrift. Current research focuses on the exegesis of evoked sacred landscapes, religious approaches to nature in the Insular world.

Her first degree was in Italy: she studied Modern Languages and specialised in German Philology at the Catholic University of Milan, where she was teaching as an ‘Assistente Ministeriale’ for four years. She subsequently read History of Art at the University of Cambridge, with a PhD on the iconography of Early Anglo-Saxon coinage, published as a monograph by Oxford University Press in 2003. She worked on coin-related projects at the Fitzwilliam Museum and then at the British Museum as a Curator in the Department of Coins and Medals and supporting the Portable Antiquities Scheme, identifying and recording ‘treasure’.

Dr Gannon began attending St Edmund’s Chapel as a student, c. 1995, but her academic connection with the College began in 2001, first as a Director of Studies, then as a Senior Member, and eventually she was elected Fellow in 2006. Her roles at St Edmund’s (as DoS (for 25 years), Tutor, Keeper of Art and serving on several other committees) were combined with and complementary to her other activities for the University. In addition to research and publications on Anglo-Saxon numismatics and art, and an academic role as affiliated lecturer in Early Medieval Art at my Department, she was single-handedly in charge of the professional development of all newly-appointed lecturers on probation across the University – something that could be described as a 'pastoral role’, but which made a huge difference orienteering many new-comers. She retired in 2019.

Her current research interests and publications deal with Insular art and culture, particularly in responses to Christianity. She is part of the international Research Project ‘Insular reliquaries in Italy: in the footsteps of Columbanus’ and is editing a collection of early medieval papers. Her interests have moved towards Theology and ecotheology: she is a regular contributor to the Visual Commentary on Scripture and is exploring the exegesis of imagined sacred landscapes through the sense of smell.

She is a committed Benedictine Oblate and attends Mass at St Edmund’s Chapel regularly. She is happy to report that she was the one behind the project of the new entrance to the Chapel, with the access ramp and the bench for St Edmund’s.

Selected publications:

• The Iconography of Early Anglo-Saxon Coinage (6th-8th centuries), Oxford University Press 2003.
• Sylloge of Coins of the British Isles, 63. British Museum.  Anglo-Saxon Coins. Part i. Early Anglo-Saxon Coins and Continental Silver Coins of the North Sea, c.600-760, British Museum Publications, 2013.
• ‘The Coins of the Irish Free State, 1928: are animals good to think with?’ in Le Molte Facce di una Moneta: Saggi in Onore di Lucia Travaini, M. Baldasssari, B. Cook and S. Locatelli eds, Milano University Press, 2025, 109-26.
• ‘Insular numismatics: the relationship between ancient British and early Anglo-Saxon coins ‘, in Barbaric Splendor: the use of image in Europe before and after Rome, T.F. Martin and W.A. Morrison eds. Archeopress Publishing 2020, 121-139.
• ‘Guarding the Sacred: early Anglo-Saxon cylindrical containers’ Atti del convegno ’Custodire il Sacro’, Vercelli, 11-12 Gennaio 2021, "Temporis Signa. Archeologia della tarda antichità e del medioevo", Fondazione Centro italiano di Studi sull'Alto Medioevo di Spoleto, number XVI 2021, 213-233.
• ‘Art in the round: tradition and creativity in early Anglo-Saxon coinage’, in Money and Coinage in the Middle Ages, R. Naismith ed., Brill, 2019, 289-321

Contributions to the Visual Commentary on Scripture (VCS), Ben Quash ed., King’s College, London:

• ‘Benedictus’ – Luke 1:67–80
• ‘The Prophet Anna’ – Luke 2:36-38
• ‘Salt and Light’ – Matthew 5:13–16
• ‘A Song of Thanksgiving: Psalm 147’
• 'Blessed is the Mother’ – Luke11:27-8’
• ‘The Altar of Incense’ – Exodus 30’