Our people

Former Vice-Chancellor, University of Cambridge

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

Former Director of the Science Museum, London

Richard was elected Honorary Fellow of St Edmunds College in 2023 after being a Fellow since 2014.  He is Head of Space Weather at the British Antarctic Survey where he holds an individual merit promotion reserved for world-leading scientists.   He is also a member of the Executive Team and Visiting Professor at the University of Sheffield.

Richard has published over 250 research papers on wave-particle interactions, wave propagation and space weather.  He is known for his work showing that plasma waves accelerate charged particles to very high energies and play a major role in the formation of the radiation belts at Earth, Jupiter, and Saturn.  Working with the commercial sector, Richard led two EU projects to turn this basic research into a forecasting system that is now used by the European Space Agency, satellite operators and insurance underwriters to help maintain the safe and reliable operation of satellites.

Richard was awarded the Gold Medal from the Royal Astronomical Society in 2022, the NERC Impact Award for Economic Impact in 2023, the International Kristian Birkeland Medal from the Norwegian Academy of Sciences in 2020, the Appleton Prize from the International Union of Radio Science (URSI) in 2020, and the Lloyds Science of Risk Prize in 2014.  He was awarded Sc.D. from the University of Cambridge in 2020 for distinguished research.

Richard was elected Fellow of the Royal Society in 2021 and Academia Europaea in 2023.  He is also Fellow of the American Geophysical Union, Fellow of the International Union of Radio Science (URSI), and Fellow and former Vice President of the Royal Astronomical Society.

Richard is Chair of the Space Environment Impacts Expert Group that advises the Government on space weather.  He also serves on other Government and UKRI committees.

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 Vice-Chancellor of University of Cambridge, Lord Broers worked in the research and development laboratories of IBM in the United States for 19 years before returning to Cambridge in 1984 to become Professor of Electrical Engineering (1984–96) and Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge (1985–90). He is a pioneer of nanotechnology.

Former Director, Wellcome Trust

Professor Sandesh Sivakumaran's research focuses on international law, particularly the human dimension of international law.

Professor Sivakumaran is Professor of International Law at the University of Cambridge, Director of the Lauterpacht Centre for International Law, and Fellow of St Edmund's College, Cambridge. He is a Senior Fellow at the Lieber Institute for Law and Warfare, United States Military Academy (West Point), Fellow of the University of Nottingham Human Rights Law Centre, and Fellow of the Centre on Armed Groups. He advises and acts as expert for a range of states, international organizations and non-governmental organizations.

Academic Profile

Publications

• Sivakumaran, The Law of Non-International Armed Conflict, 2012, OUP
• Higgins, Webb, Akande, Sivakumaran & Sloan, Oppenheim's International Law: United Nations, 2017, OUP
• Harris and Sivakumaran, Cases and Materials on International Law, 2020, Sweet and Maxwell
• Moeckli, Shah, Sivakumaran (eds), International Human Rights Law, 2022, OUP
• Sivakumaran and Burne (eds), Making and Shaping the Law of Armed Conflict, 2024, OUP

Professor Chris Young became Master of St Edmund's on 1 October 2024.

Professor Chris Young is Professor of Modern and Medieval German Studies at the University of Cambridge and was Head of the School of Arts and Humanities prior to his appointment as Master of St Edmund's College. He is also Director of the Cambridge DAAD Research Hub for German Studies, and founder and Director of the Cambridge-LMU Strategic Partnership, Cambridge’s first institution-wide partnership with any university. He is both a medievalist and a prize-winning historian of modern sport.

His primary teaching and research interests focus on medieval German literature and language, as well as the history of European sport, with a particular emphasis on German sport. He has been a Fellow of the Alexander von Humboldt-Stiftung (Cologne), a Permanent Visiting Fellow of the Friedrich Schlegel Graduiertenschule für literaturwissenschaftliche Studien der FU Berlin (2010-12), a Visiting Fellow of the Institut für Zeitgeschichte Munich (2018) and an Honorary Fellow of the Historisches Kolleg Munich (2018). His monograph ‘The 1972 Munich Olympics and the Making of Modern Germany’ (UC Press, 2010, with Kay Schiller) was the first book to win the prizes of both the British and North American Societies for sports history. In 2021, his ‘The Whole World was Watching. Sport in the Cold War’ (Stanford University Press, 2020) also won the latter’s anthology prize. He curated a major exhibition this summer at the Fitzwilliam Museum on the 1924 Paris Olympics (best known through the film ‘Chariots of Fire’) and serves on the German government’s Historical Commission on the terrorist attack at the 1972 Olympics in Munich.

Professor Eilís Ferran is a Fellow at St Edmund's College and a Professor of Company and Securities Law at the University of Cambridge.

She is also the Provost of the Gates-Cambridge Trust, which provides scholarships for postgraduate study at Cambridge funded by a major donation from the Gates Foundation. She has written extensively on UK, EU and international financial regulation, company law and corporate finance law.  Her publications include Principles of Corporate Finance Law (OUP, 3rd edn, 2023, co-authored), Brexit and Financial Services (Hart Publishing, 2017 co-authored), The Oxford Handbook of Financial Regulation (OUP, 2015, co-edited) and The Regulatory Aftermath of the Global Financial Crisis (CUP 2012, co-authored).  She is a Fellow of the British Academy and an Honorary Bencher of Middle Temple.  She is an independent director of a number of profit and not-for-profit companies, and of a charitable foundation.

Professor Nick Mansley's research focuses on issues in real estate finance and investment, particularly issues around drivers of performance. He is still actively involved in the industry as an independent investment committee member and consultant.

Professor Nick Mansley is the Director of the Cambridge Real Estate Research Centre and Course Director of the part time Masters in Real Estate programme. He has published research on performance drivers of real estate, the structure of the market and fundamental value. He worked in the investment management industry for nearly 20 years in a global role at Aviva across all asset classes and previously in a Chief Investment Officer role in the real estate business. Prior to that he worked in economic consultancy based in Cambridge.

Academic Profile

Professor Evan Reid is a clinician-scientist who studies the molecular cell biology of genetic motor neuron disorders, with a research group based at Cambridge Institute for Medical Research. He is clinically active and see neurogenetics patients in my role as an NHS honorary consultant in Clinical Genetics.

Evan graduated in Medicine from Glasgow University in 1991 then trained in the specialty of Clinical Genetics in Glasgow and Cambridge. His main research interest is in the hereditary spastic paraplegias (HSPs), which are genetic forms of motor neuron degeneration. Evan moved to Cambridge in 1995 and completed a PhD in the Department of Medical Genetics in 2000, studying the genetics of these conditions. He has been involved in mapping and identifying numerous HSP genes. After stints as a Wellcome Trust Advanced and then Senior Research Fellow, he became a University Lecturer then Reader at the University of Cambridge. Since 2021 he has held the title of Professor of Neurogenetics and Molecular Neurobiology. Evan is a Principal Investigator at Cambridge Institute for Medical Research, a research institute of the University of Cambridge that has a strategic focus on unravelling the mechanisms of rare genetic disease. He is a clinically active and run a specialised neurogenetics clinic at Addenbrooke's Hospital. His research has encompassed the clinical features, genetics and cell biology of HSPs, but now concentrates on understanding the molecular pathology of HSP proteins that are involved in membrane traffic processes. This research has a strong focus on modelling the disease in human stem-cell derived neurons and encompasses proteomics, functional genomics and basic cell biological methodologies.

Academic Profile

Professor Campbell Joined the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) as a member of Her Majesty’s Diplomatic Service in 1997. He has worked at the United Nations Security Council in New York, the European Union, and at the Foreign & Commonwealth Office (FCO) in London and on diplomatic postings overseas. From 1999-2003, he served on the staff of the then Prime Minister Tony Blair, first as a Policy Adviser in the No.10 Policy Unit, and then as a Private Secretary to the Prime Minister. He also served on secondment with Amnesty International as the Senior Director of Policy. From 2005-2011, he served as Her Majesty’s Ambassador to the Holy See. From 2011-13, he served as Deputy High Commissioner in Pakistan. From 2013-2014 he was the Head of the Policy Unit in the FCO and Director of Innovation at UK Trade and Investment.

From 2014-2020, Professor Campbell served as Vice-Chancellor of St Mary’s University in London and also Professor of International Relations, while on special leave from the Foreign Office. In February 2020, Professor Campbell became the fourth Vice-Chancellor of The University of Notre Dame Australia. He also holds the position of Professor, International Relations.

He has been a Member of the Advisory Panel of the Independent Anti-Slavery Commissioner, London. He also served on a number of governing bodies including St. Mary’s University, St. Joseph’s Hospice (London), St. Elizabeth’s School (London) and Carlow College (Ireland). He continues to serve as a Trustee of Forward Thinking (London).

More recently, Professor Campbell was appointed a Governor of the Forrest Research Foundation, member of the Divine Word University Council, member of the Association of Catholic Colleges and Universities Board of Directors and is a founding member of the International Council on Human Trafficking at St Thomas University, Miami, School of Law.