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Professor Helen Mason OBE

Life Fellow

Professor Helen Mason OBE

Life Fellow

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’.
Professor Michael Herrtage

Professor Michael Herrtage

Life Fellow

Professor Michael Herrtage

Life Fellow

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.

Dr Philip Gardner

Life Fellow

Dr Philip Gardner

Life Fellow
Senior Lecturer in the Faculty of Education

Dr Philip Gardner was elected to the Fellowship of St Edmund’s in 1993.  Following a ten-year teaching career in West Country comprehensive schools, he was appointed to a Lectureship at the Faculty of Education in 1990 and latterly to a Senior Lectureship, specialising in the History of Education. He took his first and second degrees at the University of East Anglia, followed by a doctorate at the University of Sussex. His early research work focused on currents of informal working-class education in the nineteenth century and was the foundation for his prize-winning first book, The Lost Elementary Schools of Victorian England. His subsequent research interests, on which he has written extensively, include the history of the teaching profession, education and the British Empire in the early twentieth century, oral history, history and memory, and hermeneutical aspects of historical methodology. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society in 2010.

Within College Philip has undertaken a number of roles over the years, successively serving as Tutor, Director of Studies in History, Director of Studies in Education and, from 2008 to 2015, Secretary of the Governing Body. Between 1994 and 2018 he also served as College Archivist and latterly Fellow Archivist.

Rev Dr Geoffrey Cook

Life Fellow

Rev Dr Geoffrey Cook

Life Fellow
Affiliated Lecturer, Department of Physiology, Development and Neuroscience and former Vice-Master

Rev Dr Geoffrey Cook MSc PhD CBiol FRSB CChem FRSC was elected to the Fellowship at the end of 1978. After a period as Secretary to the Fellows Council he was elected Vice-Master, an office he held for twenty five years. During this period he was responsible for petitioning the Earl Marshall for the grant of Arms for the College, as well as serving on the group of fellows charged with drafting Statutes that enabled the College to successfully petition the Privy Council for a Royal Charter. In 1986 he became Chairman of the College's newly established Development Committee and was responsible for coordinating and the delivery of the extensions to the Norfolk Building, the construction of the College Tower, the Library Building and the three residential buildings on the College's site. Retiring from the Governing Body in 2007 he was elected to a Life Fellowship.

Dr Cook read Chemistry at the University of Nottingham coming to Cambridge in 1959 to undertake his doctoral research in the Department of the then Regius Professor of Physic. From 1963-65 he was a Research Associate, Department of Biochemistry, University of Southern California School of Medicine, Los Angeles. He returned to Cambridge as a Member of the External Scientific Staff of the Medical Research Council, initially at the Strangeways Research Laboratory, moving in 1976 to the Department of Pharmacology, where the University granted him an Associate Lectureship. In 1977 he was a Canadian Commonwealth Research Fellow, Biological Sciences Centre, University of Alberta, Edmonton. In 1986 he transferred his MRC appointment to the Department of Anatomy, now part of the Department of Physiology, Development & Neuroscience, where as an Affiliated Lecturer he is undertaking research in developmental neurobiology.

In 1978 Geoffrey Cook was ordained as the first permanent deacon in the newly erected Diocese of East Anglia. He has chaired the Diocesan Commission for Dialogue and Unity since 1984 and was a Member of the Committee for Christian Unity of the RC Bishops' Conference of England & Wales 1984-92. He served as a Member of the Governing Council of the Cambridge Theological Federation 2008-14 and is currently the RC Member, Methodist-Anglican Panel for Unity in Mission. Chairman of the Cambridgeshire Ecumenical Council 1990-92 he has Chaired Shared Churches (Ely) Limited, a company established by the mainstream churches in the County to build and own church centres in the newly developing townships, from 2003-to date. He is a Member of the Society of Ordained Scientists and a Member of the Advisory Board, Faraday Institute for Science and Religion, a Governor of Ipswich School, Suffolk and Chair of Governors, St Bede's Inter-Church School, Cambridge.

Professor Robert (Bob) White, FRS

Emeritus Fellow

Professor Robert (Bob) White, FRS

Emeritus Fellow
Bob White is Emeritus Professor of Geophysics at Cambridge University and a trustee and Emeritus Director of The Faraday Institute for Science and Religion

Bob White is Emeritus Professor of Geophysics at Cambridge University and a trustee and Emeritus Director of The Faraday Institute for Science and Religion, originally founded in St Edmund's College, Cambridge in 2006. He studied Geology as an undergraduate at Emmanuel College, Cambridge and stayed to do research for a PhD in marine geophysics, which he completed in 1977. Since then he has been mostly in Cambridge, though with research interests around the world. He was elected a Fellow of St. Edmund’s College in 1988. In 1989 he was elected Professor of Geophysics, in 1994 a Fellow of the Royal Society, in 2016 a Fellow of the American Geophysical Union, and in 2018 was awarded a Gold Medal of The Royal Astronomical Society for his research.  His research interests include a wide variety of topics to do with how the earth works, with particular emphasis in recent years on the way in which molten rock is generated beneath the earth's major rift zones, and then stored in magma chambers in the crust before being erupted from volcanoes. Much of his current fieldwork is in Iceland.

He lectures and writes widely on science and Christian faith and believes that they are two ways of looking at the same world which give a richer and deeper view of it than either on their own. He is President of the charity Christians in Science, and Vice-President of the John Ray Initiative, a Christian environmental charity.

Dr Michael Robson

Emeritus Fellow

Dr Michael Robson

Emeritus Fellow
Emeritus Fellow and former Dean of Chapel, Admissions Tutor and Praelector

Michael J.P.Robson, BA, Ph.D. (Cantab), Fellow, Dean of Chapel (1992-2011 as a member of the Friars Minor Conventual), Admissions Tutor for Undergraduates (1996-2002 and 2011-13), Tutor (2007-13), Director of Studies in Theology and Religious Studies (1996-2013) and Praelector (from 2003-15).  He has been an Emeritus Fellow since 2013.  He read Theology at the University of Kent in Canterbury (1974-77) and obtained a Ph.D. in the Faculty of Divinity as a member of Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge (1983-85). He was a lector at the Franciscan Study Centre, Canterbury, and an honorary lecturer at the University of Kent (1986-92). He obtained a dispensation from the priesthood and religious life in 2020. He was appointed socio esterno o aggregato of the Istituto storico dei Cappuccini, Rome, on 29 December 1988 and a fellow of the Royal Historical Society from September 1999. He has assessed book proposals submitted to Cambridge University Press, Brill and Oxford University Press. He has supervised undergraduates, marked M.Phil. questions and examined dissertations and Ph.Ds in Cambridge and elsewhere. He was elected as an honorary visiting fellow in the Borthwick Institute of Historical Research, University of York, for 1999-2000.

Membership of historical & theological societies  2018, 14 April:

1988, 29 December: Appointed socio esterno o aggregato of the Istituto storico  dei Cappuccini in Rome on the recommendation of Revd.Dr. Servus Gieben, OFM. Cap.

1992, 1 October: elected a Fellow (Class A) of St Edmund’s College, Cambridge, until 30 September 2013 and thereafter as an Emeritus Fellow.

1999, September: elected a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society, resigned 2011.

1999/2000: Honorary Visiting Fellow in the Borthwick Institute of Historical Research at the University of York.

2004, 29 November: appointed as Associate Editor of Franciscan Studies, St Bonaventure’s University, New York.

2009, March: appointed as a member of the Conseil International of Revue d’histoire ecclésiatique, Leuven, for five years.

2011, October: appointed a member of the Comitato scientifico of Il Santo: rivista francescana di storia dottrina arte, Padua

2012, November: appointed a member of the Comitato scientifico of Frate Francesco, rivista di cultura francescana, Rome

2012, October: appointed to the scientific committee of Studii Franciscane: Revista Institutului Teologic Romano-Catolic Franciscan Roman, Romania.

2013, 1 October: elected emeritus Fellow of St Edmund’s College.

2017, 15 December: co-opted as a Socio ordinario of Società Internazionale di Studi Francescani in Assisi.

2018, 6 February: nominated for the editorial board of Archivum Franciscanum Historicum, Rome.

Unpublished doctoral thesis

Saint Anselm’s Influence upon Saint Bonaventure’s Theology of Redemption, Dissertation for a Ph.D., Cambridge University, approved 15 November 1988.  Unpublished thesis, BLDSC number: D60255.

Monographs

St Francis of Assisi: The Legend and the Life, Geoffrey Chapman, Cassell (London, 1997).  ISBN 0225667363, Paperback published in 1999, ISBN 0-225-66736-3. Reprinted by Continuum in 2002, ISBN 0826465080.

The Franciscans in the Medieval Custody of York, Borthwick Institute of Historical Research, University of York, Borthwick Papers, 93 (York, 1997), pp. 1-40, ISSN 0524-0913.  An Ebook.

The Franciscans in the Middle Ages (Monastic Orders, general editor, Janet Burton), Boydell and Brewer (Woodbridge, 2006), pp. i-xiv, 1-239, ISBN 1-84383-221-6.  Paperback printed in 2009, ISBN 9781 843835158. An eBook from November 2011.

The Greyfriars of England (1224-1539): collected papers, Centro Studi Antoniani, 49 (Padua, 2012), pp. vii-xiv, 1-400.  ISBN 978-88-85155-90-9.  An Ebook from 2012.

A Biographical Register of the Franciscans in the custody of York, c.1229-1539, The Yorkshire Archaeological and Historical Society, Record Series, 156 (Woodbridge, 2019), pp. ii-xviii, 1-307.   ISBN 978-0-9932383-9-0. An e-book.

Edited volumes

The Cambridge Companion to Francis of Assisi, ed.M.J.P.Robson, Cambridge Companions to Religion, Cambridge University Press, (Cambridge, 2012), ISBN 978-0-521-76043-0, Paperback 9780521760430. An eBook. A Portugese translation by Alessandra Siedschlag, Francisco de Assis História e herança, Editora Santuário, Aparecida, São Paulo, Brazil, 2015, ISBN 978-85-369-0409-2.

The English province of the Franciscans (1224-c.1350), ed.M.J.P.Robson, The Medieval Franciscans, 14, Brill (Leiden, 2017), pp. i-xxx, 1-416. ISBN 978-90-04-33161-7, An E-book.

Co-edited volumes

Canterbury Studies in Franciscan History, I, ed.M.J.P.Robson and J.Röhrkasten, (Canterbury, 2008), ISBN 978-0-9549272-1-9.

Franciscan Organisation in the Mendicant Context: Formal and informal structures of the friars’ lives and ministry in the Middle Ages, ed.M.J.P.Robson and J.Röhrkasten, Vita Regularis, 44 (Münster, 2010), pp.i-xxiii, 1-414, ISBN 9783643108203.

Insanity and Divinity: Philosophical and Psychoanalytic Studies in Psychosis and Spirituality, ed.J.Gale, M.J.P.Robson and G.Rapsomatioti, Routledge, Studies in Psychosis and Spirituality (London, 2013).  ISBN 978-0-415-60861-9

The Franciscan Order in the Medieval English Province and Beyond, ed.M.J.P.Robson and P.N.R.Zutshi, Church, Faith and Culture in the Medieval West (Amsterdam University Press, 2018).  ISBN 978-94-6298-647-3.

Testimony, Narrative and Image: Studies in Medieval and Franciscan History, Hagiography and Art in memory of Rosalind B.Brooke, eds.M.F.Cusato and M.J.P.Robson, The Medieval Franciscans, 20, Brill (Leiden, 2022), ISBN  978-90-04-50375-5

Dr Tony Palmer

Emeritus Fellow

Dr Tony Palmer

Emeritus Fellow
I was Assistant Director of Research at the Veterinary School responsible for clinical neurology and neuropathology. My research concerned the neuropathology of nervous diseases of animals and a special interest in the neuropathology of decompression sickness.

Dr Palmer raised grants for the building of a unit of Comparative Neurology including the provision of three electron microscopes. His research was focussed on the relation of clinical signs to underlying neuropathology. He was the Senior Tutor at St Edmund's from 1974 - 1978.

Publications

  • Introduction to Animal Neurology. Blackwell Scientific Publications 1976

Awards & Recognitions

  • President of the British Neuropathological Society

Professor Sandesh Sivakumaran

Fellow

Professor Sandesh Sivakumaran

Fellow

My research focuses on international law, particularly the human dimension of international law.

Sandesh 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
Norfolk Building and Chapel

Professor Evan Reid

Fellow

Professor Evan Reid

Fellow

I am 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. I am 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

Dr Matthew Psycharis

Fellow, Director of Studies

Dr Matthew Psycharis

Fellow, Director of Studies

Director of Studies in Law 

Matthew is a Fellow of St Edmund’s College, Director of Studies of Undergraduate Law, and a College Teaching Officer in 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 Jeff Phillips

Tutor, Director of Studies, Fellow

Dr Jeff Phillips

Tutor, Director of Studies, Fellow
Director of Studies, Philosophy

Jeff Phillips holds a number of degrees across a range of disciplines, and his work in philosophy draws from analytic, continental, classical and medieval philosophy and reflects his interests in politics, science, philosophy of language, and theology. His PhD (Jesus College, Cambridge & Faculty of Divinity) in philosophy and theology of language, had particular reference to the works of Ludwig Wittgenstein and Thomas Aquinas. He has teaching experience across a range of subjects in the Divinity and Philosophy Faculties. One of the major themes in his current research concerns political theory, and reimagining contemporary politics. He is a member of the Faculty of Philosophy.

Dr Jonnie Penn

Fellow

Dr Jonnie Penn

Fellow
Research Fellow

Dr Jonnie Penn is a historian of information technology, broadcaster, and public speaker. He is an Affiliate at the Berkman Klein Center at Harvard Law School, a New York Times bestselling author, a fellow of the Royal Society of the Arts and a Research Fellow at St. Edmunds College at the University of Cambridge. He has held prior fellowships at the MIT Media Lab, Google, and the British National Academy of Writing. He writes and speaks widely about youth empowerment, the future of work, data governance, and sustainable digital technologies.

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