Our people

My research focuses on relationship between religion and democracy in the Mediterranean region; interreligious dialogue; global Catholicism and Islam; and religious conceptions of humanism.

Michael Driessen is Professor of Political Science and International Affairs and the inaugural Director of the MA program in International Affairs at John Cabot University.

Michael received his doctorate from the University of Notre Dame and has been a post-doctoral fellow at Georgetown University's School of Foreign Service in Doha, Qatar as well as a Jean Monnet Fellow at the European University Institute in Florence. He has taught at John Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies in Bologna and holds a research affiliation with Cambridge University’s Von Hügel Institute. He also serves as an advisor for the Adyan Foundation in Lebanon.

Professor Driessen also directs the Rome Summer Seminars on Religion and Global Politics, an annual writing workshop and policy dialogue supported by a consortium of institutions and scholars working at the crossroads of religion and international relations and held under the patronage of the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. He is also a longtime member of the communities of L’Arche and am working on the Disability and Knowledge research project co-sponsored by the Von Hügel Institute.

Driessen’s books include The Global Politics of Interreligious Dialogue (Oxford University Press, 2023), Human Fraternity and Inclusive Citizenship: Interreligious Engagement in the Mediterranean (ISPI, 2021; co-edited with Fabio Petito and Fadi Daou), and Religion and Democratization (Oxford University Press, 2014). He has published scholarly articles in Comparative Politics, Sociology of Religion, Politics and Religion, Constellations and Democratization and essays in America Magazine and Commonweal.

Academic Profile

Stephan van Erp is Full Professor of Fundamental Theology, and holds the Ladies of Bethany Chair at KU Leuven, Belgium.

He is the Coordinator of the Research Group for Fundamental and Political Theology, and Director of the Interfaculty Centre for Catholic Thought. Currently, he is also a Professorial Fellow at the Institute for Religion and Critical Inquiry at the Australian Catholic University, and Director of the KUL/AdMU Research Centre for Catholic Theology and Social Justice at Ateneo de Manila University. He studied theology at the Theological Faculty of Tilburg and at the University of Oxford, and philosophy at the Catholic University of Nijmegen. His dissertation was on fundamental theology and aesthetics, and was entitled The Art of Theology: Hans Urs von Balthasar's Theological Aesthetics and the Foundations of Faith. His research interests concern the fields of philosophical and fundamental theology, in particular the relationship between faith and reason, and between metaphysics and theology.

My research is focused on resilience of infrastructure, the assessment of large scale projects for sustainability, and energy efficiency and infection control in buildings.

Peter Guthrie was the first Professor in Engineering for Sustainable Development in the UK, taking up this post at the University of Cambridge in 2000. Prior to that he was in engineering consultancy for over 25 years. His research is focused on resilience of infrastructure, the assessment of large scale projects for sustainability, and energy efficiency and infection control in buildings. A civil engineer, Peter has worked in countries such as Nigeria, Malaysia, Lesotho, Sudan, Philippines, Ethiopia, and Botswana, and on major infrastructure projects such as London 2012, Channel Tunnel Rail Link (HS1), Conwy Tunnel, major airports, and building projects. He has recently led research consultancy for Lloyd’s Register Foundation (LRF). Peter was a Vice-President of the Royal Academy of Engineering (2020-2024), and is currently leading work on Pandemic Preparedness and on Infection Resilient Environments. Peter is founder and Vice-President of the charity RedR Engineers for Disaster Relief.

Academic Profile

Publications

• MacAskill, Kristen, O’Hanlon, Francesca, Guthrie, Peter, Mian, Juliet, (2020). Fostering resilience-oriented thinking in engineering practice Proceedings of the Institution of Civil Engineers - Engineering Sustainability Volume 173 Issue 7, October pp. 356- 364 DOI: 10.1680/jensu.19.00049
• George, Jennifer; Guthrie, Peter; Orr, John, (2022). "Re-Defining Shelter: Humanitarian Sheltering". July. Disasters Journal doi: 10.1111/disa.12555
• Short, CA, Forman, T, MacAskill, KA, Soulti, E, Mutschler, R, Mohareb, E, Solanki, J, Britnell, J, Georgiadou, MC, Brady-Patel, B, Guthrie, P, (2020). NHS Estate: Energy Efficiency and Practice. Journal of Building Engineering. Submitted for review, May.
• Zhou, W., Reiner, D., Moncaster, A., Guthrie, P., (2022) Modelling future trends of annual embodied energy of urban residential building stock in China. Energy Policy Vol 165, June doi.org/10.1016/j.enpol.2022.112932
• Blom CM and Guthrie PM, 2019. Strategic intent .... Proc ICE – Engg Sustainability 172(4): 167–183

Awards & Recognitions

• CBE 2024
• FREng 1997
• OBE1993

My clinical interests include all aspects of small animal medicine and diagnostic imaging. I was the former Vice-Master of St Edmund’s College and the former Dean of the Veterinary School. 

Mike Herrtage graduated in Veterinary Medicine from the Liverpool University in 1975. He is currently Emeritus Professor of Small Animal Medicine in the Department of Veterinary Medicine. He became a Fellow of St. Edmund’s College in 1990. He oversaw the small animal medicine and diagnostic imaging services at the Queen’s Veterinary School Hospital until his retirement and still works part-time in the Hospital. His clinical interests include all aspects of small animal medicine and diagnostic imaging, but he has a particular interest in endocrine and metabolic disorders. He has spoken at many international meetings and published over 200 articles in refereed journals. He was awarded the British Small Animal Veterinary Association (B.S.A.V.A.) Woodrow Award in 1986 for outstanding contributions in the field of small animal veterinary medicine and the B.S.A.V.A. Blaine Award for outstanding contributions to the advancement of small animal medicine in 2000. In 2014, he was awarded the World Small Animal Veterinary Association International Award for Scientific Achievement for outstanding contributions by a veterinarian, who has had a significant impact on the advancement of knowledge concerning the cause, detection, cure and/or control of disorders of companion animals.

He received the B.S.A.V.A. Bourglet Award for really outstanding international contributions to the fields of small animal practice and science in 2019, the British Veterinary Association’s Dalrymple-Champneys Cup and Medal for outstanding services to the advancement of veterinary medicine and science in 2021 and the Queen’s Medal, the highest honour the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons can bestow on an individual in recognition of a highly distinguished career with sustained and outstanding achievements, in 2022.He has been President of the British Veterinary Radiology Association, President of the British Small Animal Veterinary Association, President of the European Society of Veterinary Internal Medicine and the first President of the European Board of Veterinary Specialisation, which was instrumental in promoting and co-ordinating the development of veterinary specialisation in Europe. He is a Diplomate of both the European College of Veterinary Internal Medicine and of the European College of Veterinary Diagnostic Imaging and is a Past President of the European College of Veterinary Internal Medicine.

I am an Emeritus Professor in Solar Physics at DAMTP. I was a Tutor at St Eds for many years and then Senior Tutor from 2006-2011. I also served on many college and University committees. My photo portrait hangs in the Garden Room with other Life Fellows.

Helen Mason’s field of research is solar physics. She is one of the world’s leading experts on the ultraviolet, UV, and X-ray spectrum of the Sun. She led the Atomic- Astrophysics Group at DAMTP until her retirement in 2017. She has worked as a co-investigator and associated scientist on many joint UK, NASA, ESA, Japanese and Indian space projects including SoHO (Solar and Heliospheric Observatory), Hinode and SDO (Solar Dynamics Observatory). Solar space observations have completely changed our view of the Sun. She is a founder member of the CHIANTI team, an atomic database universally used for the analysis of solar spectroscopic observations, with over 4000 citations. Helen has been based at Cambridge University for over 40 years, having obtained a BSc (First Class Honours) in Physics and Astronomy and PhD at the University of London. She has taught at Cambridge University, London University and for the Open University. She has served as lecturer, examiner, Director of CATAM and on the Maths Faculty Board. She has also supervised many PhD students and post-docs who now have successful careers in the UK, Europe, India and the USA. She has organised and led many international conferences on solar physics. She has an extensive publication list (around 250 papers in refereed journals), with several (25) invited reviews and book chapters.

Helen has always been keen to convey her passion for solar physics to the public and school students. She has given many public lectures, including at the Cambridge Festival, Royal Institution and Institute of Physics. She has written articles for science magazines and participated in many radio and TV programmes, for example the BBC program ‘Seven Ages of Starlight’ and BBC Radio4 ‘In Our Time – Solar Wind’, reaching thousands of people. She was NASA’s solar representative at the Great American Eclipse, 2017, in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, with media coverage reaching thousands. She has engaged in a multitude of outreach activities throughout her career, in particular working with school children, locally and nationally. She has focussed on those schools most in need of science enrichment. She produced an educational web site for teachers and students called Sun|trek (www.suntrek.org) which has been used extensively in the UK, USA and worldwide. More recently, she has led the SunSpaceArt project (sunspaceart.org), a team of scientists and artists, funded by STFC. Her team have run workshops in many schools (for children aged 7-12 years old) and led family activities at science festivals, reaching around 15,000 children and 2,000 teachers. The feedback has been superb. Helen has also been keen to promote education in developing countries. She has visited South Africa to work on astronomy projects with teachers and students in the former townships. She has also worked extensively in India, with schools in Pune, Maharashtra, and the rural areas of Tamil Nadu.

Academic Profile

Publications

• Mondal, B, Mason, H.E. et al., Evolution of the Elemental Abundances during B-class solar flares: soft X-ray spectral measurements with Chandrayaan-2 XSM, 2021, ApJ, 920
• Mulay, S., Tripathi, D. & Mason, H.E., Thermodynamic evolution of a sigmoid active region and associated flares, 2021, MNRAS, 504,
• Mason, H.E. & Schell, H., We love STEAM, 2021, Astrononmy and Geophysics, 62,
• Del Zanna, G. & Mason, H.E., Solar UV and X-ray Spectral Diagnostics, 2018, Solar Physics Living Reviews, 15, 5
  Awards & Recognitions
• 2010- Helen was nominated as one of the six ‘Women of Outstanding Achievement’.
• 2010 - An international meeting was held in her honour at DAMTP, Solar Plasma Spectroscopy- Achievements and Future Challenges: Celebrating the Career of Dr Helen Mason.
• 2014 - Helen was awarded an OBE for her services to Higher Education and to Women in Science, Engineering and Technology.
• 2018 - Helen was awarded the Royal Astronomical Society’s Annie Maunder Medal for Outreach.
• 2024 - Helen won an Ogden Trust award for Sustained Contribution to Physics Outreach.
• 2021 - the SunSpaceArt team, which Helen Mason leads, was awarded the Sir Arthur Clarke Group Award for Space Achievement in Education and Outreach.
• 2024 - the CHIANTI team, of which Helen Mason is a Founder Member won the NASA Group Achievement Award ‘for outstanding contributions to the scientific productivity of NASA missions and the creation of a uniquely valuable tool for spectroscopic scientists worldwide’.

Former President, US National Academy of Sciences

Former Director of the Science Museum, London

Former Master of Trinity College Cambridge

Lorraine Krall McCrary is Associate Professor of political science at Wabash College, a liberal arts school in Indiana, where she is also Department Chair. After serving as a visiting scholar at St Edmund’s, Lorraine has been appointed as a Research Associate to continue her work on disability and community at the VHI.

McCrary is a political theorist whose research focuses on communities of care that include people with disabilities. She is drafting a monograph provisionally entitled, Care for Citizens: A New Political Theory of Cognitive Disability and Community. She is the recipient of a National Endowment for the Humanities grant, which supported work on earlier phases of this project. She also writes about topics in politics and literature, as well as the relationship between the family and politics.

Lorraine earned her Ph.D. from Georgetown University where she wrote about Alexis de Tocqueville’s and John Stuart Mill’s conceptions of women as members of families and as political actors. Her work has been supported by grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the American Political Science Association, among other institutions. An advocate of community-engaged learning, Lorraine’s classes bring students outside the university to learn with people who have been excluded from colleges and universities, including people with cognitive disabilities and incarcerated people.

Paolo Carozza is Professor of Law and Concurrent Professor of Political Science at the University of Notre Dame (Indiana, USA), where he has been on the faculty since 1996. His expertise is in the areas of comparative constitutional law, human rights, law and development, and international law. His more recent books and edited volumes include The Practice of Human Development and Dignity (2020), Dialogues on Italian Constitutional Justice (2020), Italian Constitutional Justice in Global Context (2016), Comparative Legal Traditions (2014), and Regional Protection of Human Rights (2013). His numerous articles, published in four languages, have focused primarily on foundational principles of human rights law, such as human dignity, democracy, and subsidiarity.

From 2012-2022 he served as the Director of the Kellogg Institute for International Studies at the University of Notre Dame, an interdisciplinary institute focusing primarily on the themes of democracy and human development, where he was also the founder and principal investigator of the Notre Dame Constitutionalism and Rule of Law Lab.

Carozza currently serves as a member of the Oversight Board, an independent expert body created by Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, to render binding decisions and policy recommendations regarding difficult content moderation questions on Meta’s platforms. From 2019-2023 he was the United States member of the European Commission for Democracy through Law (the Venice Commission), the Council of Europe’s expert advisory body on issues of constitutionalism, the rule of law, democracy, and fundamental rights. In 2019-2020 he was a member of the U.S. State Department’s independent, nonpartisan, advisory Commission on Unalienable Rights. From 2006 to 2010 Carozza was a member of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, the principal international body responsible for the promotion and protection of human rights in the Western Hemisphere, and served as its President in 2008-09. He was appointed by Pope Francis in 2016 to be a member of the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences.

My research focuses on all aspects of Intellectual Property.

Qualifying in Pharmacology at Kings College London, called to the Bar in 1989, St. Edmunds College Camb, Research Associate, Intellectual Prop. 2015 - 2025, Notre Dame University – Prof. of IP, 2018 – 2020-advocacy and IP for New York State JDs, Hon. Soc. of Gray’s Inn Advocacy Trainer – 2010-current, Visiting Professor – Trade Mark for Practitioners Course - Brunel University & Oxford University. Appointed Bencher (Master) of Hon Soc. of Gray’s Inn – 1999- current ; Chair-elect – Bar Association for Commerce Finance and Industry; Elected Member of the Bar Council (twice); Member of the IP Commission Panel of the Federation Barreaux D’Europe (The European Bar).

Directorships: Autumnpaper Ltd – Alexander McQueen’s company – 2005-2006; The Globe Theatre – Development Council – twice-present.

Published Engelman's IP Updates - Bloomsbury; published over 40 IP papers; notable cases: Intel Corp v CPM (UK) Ltd cited daily in courts & tribunals ojn Trade Mark Dilution across the UK & all Member States of the EU.

Personal Website

Jonathan Warner holds a B.A. in PPE from Oxford University, a PhD in welfare economics from the University of Wales, and a Post-Graduate Certificate in Education from Birmingham University. After completing his degrees, Jonathan taught at Maidstone Grammar School (England) for four years, moving on to North Cyprus in 1988 to teach at Eastern Mediterranean University. After ten years (with a year off at Nicholas Copernicus University, in Torun, Poland), he moved to Central Asia and taught for a year at the American University in Kyrgyzstan, before moving to Dordt College, in the scenic corn country of northwestern Iowa, U.S.A. After nine years there, he joined Quest University Canada, an innovative new teaching university.

He has also taught at the Russian-American Christian University in Moscow, and in the Creation Care Study Program in Belize, and latterly at LCC International University in Klaipeda, Lithuania. In 2018 he retired from Quest, allowing him to begin concentrating on new research areas.

My research focuses on contemporary political philosophy in the analytic tradition. I have also worked on moral philosophy, the philosophy of education and medieval political theory.

Paul Weithman is the Glynn Family Honors Professor of Philosophy at Notre Dame, the university from which he received his B.A. in 1981. He earned his Ph.D. at Harvard, where he wrote his dissertation under John Rawls and Judith Shklar. He joined the Notre Dame faculty in 1991. Professor Weithman chaired the Philosophy Department between 2001 and 2007 and currently directs the interdisciplinary minor in Philosophy, Politics and Economics. He serves on the editorial boards of the JOURNAL OF RELIGIOUS ETHICS, THE REVIEW OF POLITICS and POLITICS, PHILOSOPHY AND ECONOMICS. He is a member of the international advisory board of PHILOSOPHY AND PUBLIC ISSUES and is an honorary member of the Brazilian Society for Legal Philosophy. Professor Weithman has won several awards for his teaching. His book RELIGION AND THE OBLIGATIONS OF CITIZENSHIP (Cambridge, 2002), won the annual book award from the North American Society for Social Philosophy. His WHY POLITICAL LIBERALISM (Oxford, 2010) won the David and Elaine Spitz Prize for the best book on liberal democratic theory published in its year. In 2015, Cambridge University Press published a collection of his papers under the title RAWLS, POLITICAL LIBERALISM AND REASONABLE FAITH.

Academic Profile

Awards & Recognitions 

• National Humanities Center Residential Fellowship, 2000
• Annual Book Award from the North American Society for Social Philosophy, 2003
• David and Elaine K. Spitz Prize for the best work of liberal and democratic theory published in 2010
• NEH Grant to host a conference, "A Theory of Justice at Fifty", 2021

Sarah Irving-Stonebraker is Associate Professor of History at Australian Catholic University.

She is an intellectual historian of early modern Britain with a particular interest in the intersections of theology, natural philosophy, and historical writing. She was awarded her BA with First Class Honours and the University Medal from the University of Sydney, and her PhD in History from the University of Cambridge, where she was a Commonwealth Scholar at King’s College. She then held a Junior Research Fellowship in History at Wolfson College, Oxford University. Her first book, Natural Science and the Origins of the British Empire (London: 2008) won the Royal Society of Literature and Jerwood Foundation Award for Non-fiction. Her most recent book is Priests of History: Stewarding the Past in an Ahistoric Age (Zondervan/HarperCollins, 2024), which was awarded The Gospel Coalition’s 2024 Book of the Year (Culture Category) and shortlisted for Australian Christian Book of the Year.

Dr Phung Dao is Associate Professor in Second Language Education. His research focuses on the intersection of second language acquisition (SLA), educational technology, and language education.

Phung Dao is Associate Professor in Second Language Education at the Faculty of Education, University of Cambridge, where he teaches MPhil/MEd courses in Research in Second Language Education (RSLE) and supervises PhD students. Before joining the University of Cambridge, Phung was a senior Lecturer in TESOL and Applied Linguistics at Manchester Metropolitan University (2018-2022), teaching undergraduate/postgraduate courses and supervising PhD students in TESOL/Applied Linguistics. He also taught undergraduate/postgraduate courses in Applied Linguistics at University of Queensland (Australia), Concordia University (Canada) and An Giang University (Vietnam). His research interests focus on instructed second language acquisition (ISLA), technology for language teaching and learning, peer interaction, learner engagement, Task-Based Language Teaching (TBLT), L2 pedagogy, and L2 teacher education. His publications appear in international peer-reviewed Applied Linguistic journals such as Modern Language Journal, TESOL Quarterly, Studies in Second Language Acquisition, Language Teaching, Computer Assisted Language Learning, Language Teaching Research, Applied Linguistics Review, TESOL Journal, System, Innovation in Language Learning and Teaching, Language Learning Journal, IRAL and among others.

His current research projects, funded by British Council and IELTS IDP Australia, investigate online English language teaching in Vietnamese public schools, IELTS impacts on stakeholders, and young learners’ engagement in L2 learning tasks in face-to-face and online classes.

Academic Profile 

Publications

• Dao, P. (2024). Learner Engagement in Online Second Language Classrooms. Palgrave Macmillan.
• Iwashita, N., Dao, P., & Nguyen, M. (2025). Understanding Interaction in the Second Language Classroom Context. Multilingual Matters.
• Dao, P., M. Nguyen, PT. Duong, V. Tran-Thanh. (2021) Learners’ Engagement in L2 Computer-Mediated Interaction: Chat Mode, Interlocutor Familiarity, and Text Quality. Modern Language Journal. https://doi.org/10.1111/modl.12737
• Dao, P., Bui, T. & Nguyen, XNCM (2024). Public primary school teachers’ perceptions and assessment of young learners’ engagement. Language Teaching Research. https://doi.org/10.1177/13621688241253546