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Dr Suzanne Paul

Fellow, Fellow Archivist and Librarian

Dr Suzanne Paul

Fellow, Fellow Archivist and Librarian
Keeper of Rare Books and Early Manuscripts at Cambridge University Library, Fellow Librarian, Fellow Archivist

Dr Suzanne Paul is the Keeper of Rare Books and Early Manuscripts at Cambridge University Library.  She obtained an MA in Classics and Medieval History from the University of Edinburgh, followed by an MA and PhD in Medieval Studies from the University of Leeds. From 2003-2007, she undertook post-doctoral research at the University of Hull which resulted in the publication of the 4-volume Repertorium of Middle English Prose Sermons. In 2007, she moved to Cambridge to work as a researcher on the Parker on the Web project at Corpus Christi College and subsequently became sub-librarian of the Parker Library. From 2013-2015, she was the Medieval Manuscripts Specialist in the Department of Manuscripts and University Archives in Cambridge University Library. Within the broad field of manuscript research, she has a particular interest in the application of digital technologies to the study and curation of medieval manuscripts.

Dr Michael Pashkevich

Visiting Scholar

Dr Michael Pashkevich

Visiting Scholar
Research Fellow

Michael is the Marshall Sherfield Fellow and a postdoctoral researcher in the Insect Ecology Group (Department of Zoology). He uses field-based data collection methods and statistical modelling to study how management of tropical agricultural systems affects biodiversity and ecosystem functioning. His current research is based in oil palm ecosystems in Indonesia and Liberia. Prior to joining St Edmund’s College, Michael completed his BSc in Biological Sciences at Loyola University New Orleans, and his PhD in Zoology at the University of Cambridge. Michael is passionate about public engagement and teaching, especially with the University Museum of Zoology. In his free time, he enjoys long-distance running, camping, and cooking foods that are native to his hometown (New Orleans, USA).

Dr Diana Wood

Emeritus Fellow

Dr Diana Wood

Emeritus Fellow
Emeritus Clinical Dean in the University of Cambridge School of Clinical Medicine

Dr Diana Wood MA MD FRCP FHEA was the Vice-Master of St Edmund's College, from 1 September 2020 to 30 September 2022.

Dr Wood is Emeritus Clinical Dean at the University of Cambridge School of Clinical Medicine. She studied medicine at the University of Birmingham, qualifying in 1980.  Having followed postgraduate training and research posts in Birmingham, she became a Lecturer in Clinical Medicine at St Mary’s Hospital Medical School, London and later was appointed as Senior Lecturer, and then Reader, in Medicine and Honorary Consultant Physician at Barts and the London School of Medicine, University of London.  She moved to Cambridge in 2003 having been appointed as the University’s first full-time Director of Medical Education and Clinical Dean, a post which she held until the end of 2020.  She was an honorary consultant physician in the Department of Endocrinology at Addenbrookes Hospital, Cambridge University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust from 2003 - 2020.

Diana was elected to the Fellowship at St Edmund’s College in October 2003.  Having retired from the substantive Clinical Dean role, she maintains an active involvement in the University’s student mental health and wellbeing programme and is a past Non-Executive Director and current University–appointed Governor of the Cambridge and Peterborough Foundation Trust.  She has served on numerous committees relating to undergraduate and postgraduate medical education locally, nationally, and internationally, with special interests in clinical education, clinical communication skills, and the development of professional skills, resilience, and wellbeing in medical students and junior doctors.

Dr Anna Spathis

Fellow, Director of Studies

Dr Anna Spathis

Fellow, Director of Studies
Associate Professor (Honorary Consultant) in Palliative and End of Life Care

Anna Spathis trained in hospital medicine, general practice and palliative medicine, before working as a palliative medicine consultant in the NHS for over a decade. Since 2019, she has been employed by the University of Cambridge, continuing to work clinically as an honorary consultant in the Cambridge Breathlessness Intervention Service, Cambridge University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust.

Her research focuses on designing and testing of complex interventions for the management of chronic symptoms caused by long-term conditions, particularly breathlessness and fatigue. She has a particular interest in the development of health professional educational tools that facilitate symptom management by providing treatment rationale and structure.

Anna is the Specialty Director for the palliative care clinical course within the Cambridge School of Clinical Medicine, Academic Lead for the East of England Specialty Training Committee and a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy. She is a Fellow and Clinical Director of Studies at St Edmund’s College, University of Cambridge.

 

Dr Mandy Swann

Fellow

Dr Mandy Swann

Fellow
University Lecturer, Faculty of Education

Mandy Swann has been a University Lecturer since 2005 working in teacher education and research into teaching and learning. She was previously a primary school teacher. Her teaching and research concerns issues of anti-determinist pedagogy, professional learning, informal learning, parental involvement in education and ethnographic research. Mandy leads the faculty’s research into Learning without Limits which has focused on working with teachers to develop alternative approaches to teaching and learning that do not rely on determinist beliefs about ability. The project is inspired by decades of research that have drawn attention to the many complex ways in which ideas of fixed ability, and the practices based on them, can unintentionally limit learning. We have developed the concept of ‘transformability’ where all children (not just some) can become more powerful, committed, successful learners given conducive conditions and opportunities for learning.  Our most recent published work, Creating Learning without Limits, has just been translated into its third language. Mandy has helped to establish the Learning without Limits Network which brings together early years, primary and secondary teachers, head teachers and researchers who are interested in exploring the core Learning without Limits theoretical ideas and principles in practice. Mandy has served on a number of editorial boards, including the best-selling textbook Reflective Teaching, the Journal FORUM, and Cambridge Curiosity and Imagination, a charity which she co-founded in mid-2000 and worked with artists to develop arts-based approaches to re-engage disaffected learners, working with teachers, children, families and local communities. Mandy lives in Cambridge with her husband Robert and their two children.

Dr Sandro Tacchella

Fellow

Dr Sandro Tacchella

Fellow

My research focuses on understanding the physics of the formation and evolution of galaxies and black holes across cosmic time. One of my main goals is to find the very first galaxies and black holes in the early Universe with cutting-edge observations obtained with the most advanced telescopes.

Sandro Tacchella is an Assistant Professor in Astrophysics working at the Department of Physics (Cavendish Laboratory) and at the Kavli Institute for Cosmology of the University of Cambridge. Before joining the University of Cambridge in 2022, he was Assistant Professor at the Physics Department of UNIST in Ulsan, Korea. From 2017-2021, he was a CfA Fellow at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge, USA. He has received his Ph.D. from ETH Zurich (Switzerland) in 2017.

Academic Profile

Dr Eden Yin

Fellow

Dr Eden Yin

Fellow
Associate Professor at the Judge Business School

Eden Yin is an associate professor and the co-director of the Cambridge Centre for Chinese Management at the Judge Business School, University of Cambridge. He obtained his PhD in Marketing at the Marshall School of Business, University of Southern California in Los Angeles, where he taught strategy marketing courses. At Cambridge, Dr Yin teaches core and elective courses in marketing for the MBA, EMBA and MOTI programs and executive programs on topics such as brand management, high-tech marketing and marketing strategies. Dr Yin has also taught courses at the Helsinki School of Economics, Australian National University, Hong Kong University, Shanghai Jiaotong University, Nanjing University (China), University of Pecs (Hungary), University of Arhus (Denmark), University of Sao Paulo (Brazil), and University of San Andres (Argentina).

Dr Denis Alexander

Emeritus Fellow

Dr Denis Alexander

Emeritus Fellow

Dr Alexander spent 40 years in the sciences, first in the field of neurochemistry, then human genetics, and finally in molecular immunology, spending 15 years helping to develop new science initiatives in the Middle East. Dr Alexander is also engaged in the academic field of science and religion.

Dr Alexander was an Open Scholar at Oxford University reading Biochemistry [1964-1968] before a PhD in Neurochemistry at the Institute of Psychiatry, London University [1968-1971]. This was followed by a period of 15 years helping to develop scientific research in the Middle East [1971 – 1986], first in Ankara, Turkey, at Hacettepe University and the Middle East Technical University, and then as Associate Professor of Biochemistry on the medical faculty of the American University of Beirut, Lebanon, where he helped to establish the National Unit of Human Genetics in the Department of Pediatrics. Working in Beirut [1981-1986] involved three evacuations due to political violence. After the third and final evacuation Dr Alexander returned to the UK to take up a position as a Visiting Research Fellow at the Imperial Cancer Research Fund [now Cancer Research UK] in London [1986 – 1989], before becoming a Project Leader at The Babraham Institute, and establishing a new research laboratory in molecular immunology, initially entitled the ‘T Cell Laboratory’. Dr Alexander eventually became Head of this expanded laboratory, incorporating the research teams of five Project Leaders, re-named as the Laboratory of Lymphocyte Signalling and Development, also becoming Chair of the Programme of Molecular Immunology. During this period Dr Alexander had consultancies with Biogen and GenMab; served on the Babraham Executive Committee and on the BBSRC Biochemistry and Cell Biology Grants Committee; and became a Fellow of St. Edmund’s College in 1997. During his final two years at The Babraham Institute [2006 – 2008], Dr Alexander worked as a part-time Senior Affiliated Scientist.

Upon retirement from active science, Dr Alexander further developed his interests in the academic field of science and religion, co-founding The Faraday Institute for Science and Religion as part of St. Edmund’s College in 2006, and becoming the Institute’s first director from 2006 – 2012. He became a Founding Fellow of the International Society for Science and Religion in 2001, serving on its Executive Committee; Editor of the Journal Science and Christian Belief, 1992-2013; and served from 2008 - 2014 as a Trustee of the John Templeton Foundation and the Templeton World Charity Foundation, and on the Steering Committee of the Templeton Religion Trust. Having given the Gifford Lectures at St. Andrews University in 2012, these lectures were published by CUP under the title Genes, Determinism and God. By 2017 The Faraday Institute had become too large to stay in College and so moved to become a tenant of the Woolf Building on the grounds of Westminster College, signing an academic agreement with St. Edmund’s College and becoming a member of the Cambridge Theological Federation. Dr Alexander was Chair of the Board of Trustees of The Faraday Institute from 2017 – 2024. Dr Alexander continues to publish and speak widely in the UK and internationally in the field of science and religion.

Publications

  • Denis Alexander, Are We Slaves to Our Genes? 2023. Cambridge University Press.
  • Zhao, R., Follows, G.A., Beer, P.A., Scott, L.M., Huntly, B.J.P, Green, A.R. and Alexander, D.R. ‘Inhibition of the Bcl-xL deamidation pathway in myeloproliferative disorders’ (2008). New England J. Medicine, 359: 2778-2789.
  • McNeill, L. Salmond, R.J. Cooper, J.C., Carret, C.K., Cassady-Cain, R.L., Roche-Molina, M., Tandon, P., Holmes, N. and Alexander, D.R. ‘The differential regulation by CD45 of Lck kinase phosphorylation sites is critical for TCR signaling thresholds’ (2007). Immunity 27: 425-437.
  • Zhao, R., Yang, F.-T., and Alexander, D.R. ‘An oncogenic tyrosine kinase inhibits DNA repair and DNA damage-induced Bcl-xL deamidation in T cell transformation’ (2004). Cancer Cell, 5: 37-49.
  • Denis Alexander, Rebuilding the Matrix - Science and Faith in the 21st Century, 2001. Oxford: Lion.

Ms Kate Wilson

Fellow

Ms Kate Wilson

Fellow

Kate has been a Governing Body member and Fellow of St. Edmund’s College since 2016, and currently serves as a member of its trustee Council.

Kate works at the intersection of the higher education, private and charitable sectors helping organisations clarify strategy and deliver mission-focussed programming and partnerships. She has significant operational experience working within large corporate, start-up and not-for-profit enterprises. Kate worked as COO of the University of Cambridge’s Development and Alumni Relations team for several years and was responsible for its £2 billion philanthropic campaign. As a freelance advisor, she collaborates with leaders and senior teams around strategy, partnerships and operational delivery.

Kate served as CEO of RegGenome, a public and private impact research spin-out of the Cambridge Judge Business School. She was Director of IMAGINE, a global community of purpose and power for corporates, entrepreneurs, and civil society leaders committed to positive impact.

Kate is Canadian and has three grown children (and two dogs). She holds an MBA from the Harvard Business School.

Dr James Whitworth

Fellow

Dr James Whitworth

Fellow

My research and clinical activity focuses on the identification of individuals at increased risk of cancer due to a heritable genetic cause, and methods to mitigate that risk where identified.

James obtained his medical degree from the University of Leicester in 2007. He continued his clinical training in the East Midlands before taking up an NIHR Academic Clinical Fellowship in Clinical Genetics in Birmingham. He moved to Cambridge to undertake a PhD, which was completed in 2019 and led to his appointment as an NIHR Academic Clinical Lecturer prior to his current post.

Dr Esther-Miriam Wagner

Fellow, PDRA Convenor

Dr Esther-Miriam Wagner

Fellow, PDRA Convenor
Executive Director, Woolf Institute

Dr Esther-Miriam Wagner is the Executive Director of the Woolf Institute and Fellow of St Edmund's College, Cambridge. Miriam joined the Woolf Institute in 2013 having been Research Associate at the Cambridge University Library and was appointed Director of Research in 2017. She is an Affiliate Lecturer at the Faculty of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies, and teaches on the MPhil in Middle Eastern Studies: Muslim-Jewish Relations at the University of Cambridge.

She completed her doctorate at the University of Cambridge on Judaeo-Arabic in the Cairo Genizah and has written and edited numerous books and articles on sociolinguistics, historical linguistics of Judaeo-Arabic and Yiddish, scribal practice, and Jewish-Muslim relations in Egypt and Muslim Spain as reflected in the Genizah sources. These include Scribes as Agents of Language Change (2013), Merchants of Innovations. The Languages of Traders (2016) and A Handbook and Reader of Ottoman Arabic (2021). Her work has been featured on TV and Radio programmes, such as on BBC3 The Essay, in History Magazine and in documentaries on the Cairo Genizah.

In recent years, Miriam has become a popular speaker, invited to deliver academic keynote lectures and lectures to the wider public, including at the Hay on Wye Festival. She chairs Woolf Institute panels and webinars, including the Institute's How to talk about … series, which among other topics, has considered Religious rights and Freedom of Speech and Humour and Religion.

Miriam is also the Vice-President of the Society for the Medieval Mediterranean, and the Editor-in-chief of the prestigious journal Al-Masāq.

Dr Martin Thompson

Bye-Fellow

Dr Martin Thompson

Bye-Fellow

I am the intercollegiate Director of Undergraduate Admissions. I work with the Colleges on matters of process, policy and strategy relating to undergraduate admissions.

Martin began working in the admissions office at Peterhouse, Cambridge. Initially as a Schools Liaison Officer and then as Outreach Manager and Admissions Coordinator, Martin worked to support the admissions team and to plan and run programmes of events for schools and students about studying at Cambridge.

Martin moved on from Peterhouse in 2019, taking up the position of Director of Admissions and Fellow at St Edmund's College. Martin took up the role of Director of Undergraduate Admissions in July 2023. This role acts as the principal officer acting on behalf of all of the Cambridge Colleges to guide and to articulate strategy and policy relating to undergraduate admissions.

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