Our people

David Friedman studies Judaism in the Greco-Roman world, with a particular focus on Josephus and ancient historiography. After receiving a BA in Mathematics (Yale) and working first at a physics lab and for many years in derivatives trading, he returned to university to earn an MA (UCL), MPhil (Oxford), and DPhil (Oxford), which explored how Josephus presented the origins of the Jews to his Roman audience. David is a Bye Fellow of Darwin College, a Bye Fellow and Director of Studies in Classics at St  Edmund's and an affiliated researcher in the Faculty of Classics.

After having studied physics at EPFL, Switzerland, Arnaud Comment joined the group of Prof. Charles P. Slichter at the University of Illinois, Champaign-Urbana, for a PhD in the field of solid-state nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR). He then spent the following one and half years working in condensed matter physics at the Grenoble High Magnetic Field Laboratory (CNRS/Max Planck Institute). In 2005, he launched a dynamic nuclear polarization (DNP) project at EPFL. He designed and implemented a DNP setup that he coupled to a preclinical MRI scanner for performing in vivo hyperpolarized NMR and MRI. He then joined the Faculty of Biology and Medicine of the University of Lausanne to lead the developments of biomedical applications of hyperpolarized MRI in Lausanne. In 2011, he was awarded a professorship grant from the Swiss National Science Foundation and became assistant professor at EPFL. In 2015, he joined General Electric Healthcare as senior scientist to further develop  the clinical applications of hyperpolarized ¹³C imaging. Since 2016, he has also been working on a project supported by an ERC Consolidator grant hosted by the University of Cambridge at the Cancer Research UK Cambridge Institute (CRUKCI).

The overall aim of his current research is to break new grounds in metabolic and molecular imaging and to lead novel methods and technologies towards clinical applications. His expertise in instrumentation along with his background in physics provides him with unique opportunities to translate discoveries from basic science research into medical applications. He is committed to a multidisciplinary approach which combines physics, engineering, chemistry, biology and medicine in order to develop hyperpolarized ¹³C MRI and new imaging methods based on secondary-ion mass-spectroscopy (SIMS) as technologies to answer key questions relating to mammalian metabolism both in healthy and diseased tissues.

A former Visiting Fellow at St Edmund's, Joaquín Almunia is one of Spain’s most experienced politicians on the international scene, especially in relation to the European Union. He was the EC Vice President and European Commissioner for Competition from 2010 to 2014, and prior to that was the European Commissioner for Economic and Monetary Affairs from 2004 to 2010.  Nowadays, having left his positions in the European Union, Almunia devotes his time to research and thought at various think tanks and through other platforms, such as lectures, books and articles for different media. He is currently a Visiting Professor at the European Institute of the London School of Economics and Political Science.

Edward Acton is an Emeritus Professor at the University of East Anglia where he is Professor of Modern European History.  Professor Acton was formerly Vice Chancellor of UEA.