Our people

Alain Tschudin is Professor of Peace Studies and Director of the International Centre of Nonviolence at the Durban University of Technology, South Africa. Prior to this he was Lead Consultant for the United Nations Office of the Special Adviser on Africa on the nexus approach to peace, development, human rights and humanitarian aid to fast-track the implementation of the SDGs in Africa. Alain served as Executive Director of a pan-African NGO dedicated to governance (2015-2020), during which time he was appointed as a Professor in the WITS School of Governance. He has deployed as a humanitarian in emergency coordination with UNICEF in conflict zones in Africa and the Middle-East and was Programme Coordinator for Conflict Transformation and Peace Studies at the University of KwaZulu-Natal (2011-2014).

Alain has worked extensively with governmental, NGO and multilateral organisations on a range of themes: the social integration and economic participation of immigrants and ethnic minorities using ICT for the European Commission, child protection and migration with Save the Children International, and on xenophobia and refugee trauma. Alain has published diversely, most recently on Africa’s first Nobel Peace Prize winner, Chief Albert Luthuli, on climate action and planetary integrity, public participation for sustainable local peace, and on inter-cultural understanding between partners confronting violent extremisms. He has edited a volume on Gandhian principles Gandhi Now (2020) and a trilogy entitled Extremisms in Africa (2018-2020).

Prof. Tschudin holds a Ph.D. in Psychology from the University of Natal, South Africa, completed as a Commonwealth Scholar at the University of Liverpool, an M.Phil. in Theology and Religious Studies and a Ph.D. in Divinity from the University of Cambridge, where he also served as a Swiss Academy Research Fellow. He has been a Visiting Fellow in the Centre on Conflict, Development and Peacebuilding at the Graduate Institute in Geneva, Switzerland and was recently appointed as a Senior Research Fellow in the Centre for the Study of the Afterlife of Violence and the Reparative Quest at Stellenbosch University, South Africa. Since his election in 2022, Alain has served in a voluntary capacity as President of the Association Montessori Internationale, the global educational NGO founded by Dr Maria Montessori in 1929.

My research is in the the interface between Classical and Hellenistic culture and the rise of Christianity. focusing on the evolution of the Roman Community in the Second Century, on the political history of early Christianity, the positive role of ambiguous iconography in cultural transformation.

Allen Brent is a scholar in the field of Early Christian History, exploring the interface between Christianity and Classical Culture, particularly in the development of Church Order. At the Augustinianum, the Patristics Institute of the Lateran University, Rome, he taught whilst working on his research project a second semester course on early Christian history, addressing non-literary, epigraphic and iconographic sources in addition to literary ones. He was joined by his King's London PhD students, who were resident and supervised at the British School at Rome.

He has British Academy and Leverhulme research awards, 1. Early "Christian" Epigraphy and Iconography: A new approach to Dölger's classical project. (British Academy: BR100083), administered by Kings London. 2. Cyprian and Julian: Pagan and Christian Concepts of Order. Leverhulme Trust (Cambridge, Divinity). 3. Christian-Pagan syncretism emerging in the time of Julian and its literary, epigraphic and iconographic antecedents (British Academy: SG-49301). These research projects funded by the British Academy and the Leverhulme Trust have resulted in the production of (i) a new model of episcopacy that is cultural rather than territorial, (ii) a critical account of the development of the Papacy in the late second century from a ‘fractionalized’ structure of distinct house churches into an episcopal monarchy, (iii) a critical analysis of the development of church order in a Graeco-Roman historical and cultural context and (iv) the role of iconography in the transformation of culture.

The impact of his early work on church order resulted in his proposed model of cultural rather than territorial episcopacy leading to the creation of Anglican bishops in Australia with cultural rather than territorial jurisdiction representing Aboriginal and Islander, indigenous communities. These bishops welcomed Pope John Paul II to Australia at Alice Springs on an ecumenical gathering in 1986. Allen was the Former Acting Dean at St Edmund's.

He is joint editor with Markus Vinzent of Studia Patristica and is a member of the editiorial board of Vetera Christianorum.

Publications

• Allen Brent, A Political History of Early Christianity, 2009, Clarke-Continuum, ISBN-10: 0567031756
• Allen Brent, Ignatius of Antioch and the Second Sophistic, 2006, Mohr Siebeck, ISBN-10: 316148794X
• Allen Brent, The Imperial Cult and the Development of Church Order, 1999, Brill, ISB 10 : 9004114203
• Allen Brent, Hippolytus and the Roman Church in the Third Century, 1995, Brill, ISBN-10: ‎9004102450
• Allen Brent, Cyprian and Roman Carthage, 2010, Cambridge University Press, ISBN 978-0-521-51547-4

Awards & Recognitions

• Higher doctorate of Cambridge University (DD), following peer review examination of published corpus
• Fellow of the Academia Ambrosiana, Veneranda Biblioteca Ambrosiana, Milan

Former Master of Trinity College Cambridge

My research focuses on Foundations of mathematics, in particular set theory and mathematical logic. Philosophy of mathematics. Empirical studies of mathematical practices.

Benedikt Löwe is a researcher connecting mathematics, computer science, philosophy and the social sciences. He is the Professor of mathematical logic and interdisciplinary applications of logic at the Universität Hamburg and is the chair-holder of the CIPSH chair ‘Diversity of Mathematical Research Cultures and Practices’. He is a member if the Académie Internationale de Philosophie des Sciences (AIPS), the Academia Europaea (AE), the Akademie der Wissenschaften in Hamburg, and a Fellow of the International Science Council (FISC). He currently serves as Vice President of the International Humanities Council (CIPSH) and the Association for Logic, Language and Information (FoLLI).

In addition to being the Director of Studies for Mathematics at St Edmund's, he is a College Professor, Bye Fellow, Director of Studies at Lucy Cavendish College and a Fellow of Churchill College.

Academic Profile

Awards & Recognitions 

• Member of the Académie Internationale de Philosophie des Sciences
• Member of the Academia Europaea (MAE)
• Member of the Akademie der Wissenschaften in Hamburg
• Fellow of the International Science Council (FISC)

Former President, US National Academy of Sciences

Former Director of the Science Museum, London

Clemens is Professor of Social Ethics in the Keough School of Global Affairs and Director of the Nanovic Institute for European Studies, University of Notre Dame (USA), and holds a joint appointment with Notre Dame’s Center for Social Concerns. He is also a concurrent professor of theology in the Department of Theology.

Sedmak holds doctoral degrees in theology (Catholic University of Linz), philosophy and social theory (University of Innsbruck). Prior to his appointment at the University of Notre Dame, he was F. D. Maurice Professor for Moral and Social Theology at King's College London, and has held multiple positions at the University of Salzburg, serving as Director of the Center for Ethics and Poverty Research and Chair for Epistemology and Philosophy of Religion, and as President of the Institute for Advanced Studies in Social Ethics.

Colin is a graduate of the University of Wales, and has been involved at several universities, including Geography at University of Western Ontario, Geography at Staffordshire University, Geography at Pennsylvania State University as Fulbright Professor,  Multicultural History Society of Ontario,  University of Toronto,  Political Science at the University of Ottawa, and School of Welsh at Cardiff University. He has advised governments in the UK, Ireland and Canada on aspects of official language promotion, protection and regulation. Currently, Colin is a Leverhulme Emeritus Fellow working on a project “Official Language Regimes: Transformation and Innovation."

Daniel is currently Head of Major Projects, Digital Strategy for Historic England after working for the British Museum and Fitzwilliam Museum. He is a trustee of Cambridge University Rugby Union, Roman Research Trust and Buckingham Museum Trust and a member of the AHRC Peer Review College and an honorary professor at Stirling University.

My 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