Our people

Former Director of the Science Museum, London

Former Acting Bursar at St Edmund's College.

Chris is a Research Associate in the Centre for Photonic Devices and Sensors specialising in liquid crystal displays and scalable manufacturing processes. He completed his PhD in electronic engineering at St. Edmund’s College.

He has developed an electrically switchable window capable of reflecting heat, controlling privacy, and displaying images while using no continuous power. To commercialise this innovation, he cofounded Flexypix in 2016 and was awarded an Enterprise Fellowship from the Royal Academy of Engineering to pursue this venture.

His wider interests include playing the guitar, photography, and motorcycles.

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.

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.

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.

Tina Barsby is recognised for scientific achievements in crop science and is Honorary Professor of Agricultural Botany at the University. Following 18 years with the plant breeder Limagrain, in 2008 she became the first female CEO of NIAB, the National Institute of Agricultural Botany, from which she retired in 2021. She is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Biology, and a Fellow of the Royal Agricultural Society of England.

Tina was awarded the OBE in the 2018 New Year’s Honours List for services to agricultural science and biotechnology.  Tina chairs the Agricultural Advisory Board of Future Biogas, and the Board of Farm Data Principles. She is employed part-time as Agricultural and Scientific Advisor to the G’s group of companies.

She has extensive experience as a Trustee and is currently a member of the John Innes Foundation and the Lawes Trust, as well as a member of the College Council.

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 Bridges' research focuses on educational policy and practice in the UK and internationally.

Professor Bridges is probably best known for his work in philosophy of education through which he engaged critically with evolving educational policy over six decades. He was elected Chair of the Philosophy of Education Society of Great Britain (of which he is now Honorary Vice President) and was founder and Co-Convenor of the Philosophy Section of both the British and European Education Research Associations. However, from an early stage in his career he was also drawn into empirical studies, mainly employing ethnographic and case study approaches. This work took him into many different spheres including, school accountability, policing, an Evaluation of the Engineering Councils Neighborhood Engineer scheme and multiple evaluations for local authorities of their responses to government initiatives in teacher training. Professor Bridges bridged the philosophy of education community and the wider educational research community and became a member of the Council of the British Educational Research Association and represented the UK on the Council of the European Educational Research Association. He was twice a member of the Education panel for the UK Research Assessment Exercise. A lot of his later philosophical writing addressed issues arising out of contemporary practice in educational and wider social science research.

In parallel with this academic work, Professor Bridges took on a succession of leadership positions in higher education:, first as Deputy Principal of Homerton College (in which his early career was based) and as Professor and Dean of the School of Education and then as Pro Vice Chancellor in the University of East Anglia. On retiring (early) from this he came to St Edmund's as Visiting Fellow and then remained as Director of the Von Hugel Institute. In parallel with this he was appointed first Director of the newly established Association of Universities in the East of England, which was an HE response to the government's creation of Regional Development Agencies and a Regional Assembly. Through most of his career Professor Bridges has had extensive international engagement both as an academic (Addis Ababa -- for 26 years -- Hong Kong, University of Illinois, Oslo and Chung Chen University in Taiwan, Nazarbayeth University in Astana) and as a policy consultant (Ethiopia, Guyana, Belize, Ghana, Iran, Mongolia, and, Kazakhstan). The work in Mongolia and Kazakhstan was carried out under the auspices of the Cambridge University Faculty of Education which he rejoined in 2011 and with Cambridge Assessment. A number of Professor Bridges' publications are the product of these international partnerships or arise out of reflections on this international work.

Publications

• Bridges,D. (2023) Ethics in educational practice, policy and research. Ethics International Press.
• Bridges,D. (2017) Philosophy in educational research: Epistemology, ethics, politics and quality. Springer
• Bridges,D. Ed. (2014) Educational reform and internationalisation: The case of school reform in Kazakhstan. Cambridge University Press.
• Bridges,D, Smeyers,P. & Smith, R.D Eds. (2009) Evidence-based educational policy: What evidence? What basis? Whose policy? Wiley Blackwell (Originally as a special issue of the Journal of Philosophy of Education).?
• Bridges, D. and McLaughlin T.H. Eds. (1994) Education and the market place. Falmer Press

Awards & Recognitions 

• Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences
• Honorary Doctorate of the Open University
• Honorary Vice President of the Philosophy of Education Society of Great Britain
• Honorary Member of the European Education Research Association

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.

Professor Paul Luzio undertakes research in the field of molecular cell biology, to discover and understand the molecular mechanisms of intracellular membrane traffic between specialised organelles in mammalian cells, as well as abnormalities in these mechanisms and organelle function, which lead to disease.

Professor Paul Luzio MA PhD FMedSci was Master of St Edmund’s College from 2004-2014. Paul was an undergraduate in Cambridge, reading Natural Sciences (Part II Biochemistry) at Clare College before studying for a PhD in the Department of Biochemistry. After a period in Cardiff as a lecturer in medical biochemistry at the Welsh National School of Medicine he returned to Cambridge where, in 1979 he became a University Lecturer in the Department of Clinical Biochemistry and was later promoted to Reader (1996) and then Professor (2001). In 1987-88 Paul spent a sabbatical year at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory in Heidelberg, Germany. He was elected a Fellow of St Edmund’s College in 1987 and was Senior Tutor from 1991-1996. From 2002 until 2012 Paul was Director of the Cambridge Institute for Medical Research (https://www.cimr.cam.ac.uk), a cross-departmental research institute in the Clinical School with a mission to determine the molecular mechanisms of disease in order to advance human health. From 2007-2012 he chaired the Medical Research Council’s Molecular and Cellular Medicine Board and was a member of the Strategy Board. Paul was Deputy Head of the School of Clinical Medicine from 2012-2014.

Following retirement in 2014, Paul became Emeritus Professor of Molecular Membrane Biology. As a Voluntary Director of Research, he continues to lead a small research group funded by the Medical Research Council at the Cambridge Institute for Medical Research. Paul’s research is largely concerned with intracellular membrane traffic pathways in mammalian cells and the biogenesis, re-modelling and function of intracellular organelles (little organs) called lysosomes, which play an important role in cellular nutrition and signalling. Lysosomes are acidic organelles, with changes in acidity having effects on their degradative function and ability to signal to other parts of the cells. Paul is currently studying the molecular regulation of acidification and lysosome re-modelling and how these processes contribute to lysosome function. His work has contributed to a greater understanding of how defects in membrane traffic and lysosome function contribute to human diseases, including lysosomal storage and neurodegenerative diseases.

Academic Profile

Awards & Recognitions 

• 1987 Humboldt Research Fellowship
• 1998 FRCPath
• 1999 FMedSci
• 2005 Association of Clinical Biochemists (ACB) Foundation Award
• 2015 FRSB

Professor Patrick Griffin is Bye-Fellow at St Edmund's College and a Madden-Hennebry Professor at the University of Notre Dame. He is an historian, trained as an early Americanist and specialising in the Atlantic world. His work ranges from the seventeenth to the nineteenth century. It brings together American, British, and Irish history.

Patrick Griffin's work explores the intersection of colonial and early national American and early modern Irish and British history. As such, it focuses on Atlantic-wide themes and dynamics. He has published work on the movement of peoples and cultures across the Atlantic Ocean, as well as the process of adaptation. He also examines the ways in which Ireland, Britain, and America were linked—and differed—during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. He has looked at revolution and rebellion, movement and migration, and colonization and violence in each society in comparative perspective. Much of what he does explores these themes in the context of empire. In his most recent books, he studied how empire gave way to revolution, both in America and the wider Atlantic. His latest work on the period just after the Age of Revolution has taken a global turn, charting the plight of common men and women in a modernizing world.

Publications

• The Age of Atlantic Revolution: The Fall and Rise of a Connected World (Yale, 2023).
• The Townshend Moment: The Making of Empire and Revolution in the Eighteenth Century (Yale, 2017).
• America’s Revolution (Oxford, 2012).
• American Leviathan: Empire, Nation, and Revolutionary Frontier (Hill & Wang, 2007).
• The People with No Name: Ireland’s Ulster Scots, America’s Scots Irish (Princeton, 2001).

Awards & Recognitions

• Harold Vyvyan Harmsworth Professor of American History, University of Oxford, 2021-22.
• Honorary Professor, School of History, Classics, and Archaeology, University of Edinburgh, 2018-21.
• Distinguished Fellow, Rothermere American Institute, University of Oxford
• Honorary Member, Royal Irish Academy
• Member, American Antiquarian Society