Our people

Professor Edwin Chilvers [FRCP, FMedSci, ScD] graduated from Nottingham University Medical School and after Junior medical posts in London started specialist training in Respiratory Medicine at Hammersmith Hospital. This was followed by an MRC Clinical Training Fellowship to work with Professor Steve Nahorski in University of Leicester, studying inositol phospholipid metabolism in airways smooth muscle. He was then appointed Lecturer in Respiratory Medicine at Edinburgh University, working with Professor Chris Haslett, and thereafter to a Wellcome Senior Research Fellowship in Clinical Science, Reader in Medicine at Edinburgh, and Hon Consultant Physician at the Royal Infirmary Hospital.

During this he developed his research interest in inflammatory cell biology, in particular the intracellular signals that regulate the activation and survival of white blood cells (neutrophils and eosinophils). This has translational relevance to a range of inflammatory lung diseases including COPD, asthma, and acute lung injury.

Professor Chilvers was Professor of Respiratory Medicine at Cambridge from 1998-2018 prior to his appointment as Professor of Medicine and Head, National Heart and Lung Institute, Imperial College London 2018-2023 (now Emeritus Professor of Medicine). He was elected a Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences in 2007 and President of the British Thoracic Society in December 2016.

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

Professor Harriet Allen, Director of Studies for Geography

Professor Harris Beider is the Pro Vice-Chancellor for Research, Innovation and Engagement at the University of Bradford.  He is  responsible for leading the work of the University in these thematic areas as well as working with colleagues on the University Executive Board to shape the future direction of the institution.

He is Professor of Communities and Public Policy at Birmingham City University where he has held leadership roles including Dean for Research in the Faculty of Business, Law and Social Sciences and Head of the School of Social Sciences.  Previously he had been Director of Research Development and Professor of Community Cohesion at The Centre for Trust, Peace and Social Relations: Coventry University and Senior Fellow at the Centre for Urban and Regional Studies at the University of Birmingham. In 2014 and 2016, Prof Beider was awarded a Visiting Professorship in the School of International and Public Affairs at Columbia University in the City of New York and was nominated for the Columbia University Presidential Teaching Prize in 2017.

Prior to working in higher education, he held a number of leadership positions including Executive Director of the Federation of Black Housing Organisations and National Director of People for Action.  Prof Beider has published widely with his last book - The Other America: White Working-Class Perspectives on Race, Identity and Change (2020: University of Chicago Press) -   nominated for the 2021 Komarovsky Book Prize.   His work has been featured in The Guardian, The Huffington Post and BBC TV. Prof Beider’ s passion for his work  on issues of inclusion, identity and change is shaped in part by being born in Karachi, Pakistan but growing up inner city Birmingham and then attending secondary school in one of the poorest parts of the city.

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’.

My research focuses on anthropology in the age of artificial intelligence, the spiritual resources of human intelligence, and the pre-modern tradition of Christian orthodoxy. I am the director of the research project "Embodiment in Theological Anthropology", funded by the Austrian Science Fund.

Johannes Hoff is VHI Senior Research Associate and Full Professor at the Institute of Systematic Theology of the University of Innsbruck (Austria), succeeding Karl Rahner. Prior to this he was Professor of Philosophical Theology at Heythrop College, University of London, St David’s University of Wales (previously University of Wales, Lampeter), and Assistant Professor at the Faculty of Catholic Theology at the Eberhard Karls University of Tübingen. His first academic monograph was on the theological implications of the work of Jürgen Habermas, Jacques Derrida, Michel Foucault and Michel de Certeau, his second on Nicholas of Cusa (1401-1464). His first English-language monograph, The Analogical Turn: Rethinking Modernity with Nicholas of Cusa (2013), brought together these areas of research. It shows how Cusa developed a critical response to the celebration of mathematically generated 'images of the world' in early modern art and science, and the related narcissistic fascination with immersive virtual spaces. In his German monograph Defence of the Sacred. Anthropology of the Digital Transformation (2021), Hoff presents a first synthesis of his recent research on anthropology in the age of artificial intelligence. According to Hoff, the digital transformation has caused an economically accelerated devastation of spiritual diversity that has provoked one of the greatest civilizational ruptures since the Axal Age, in which the religious and philosophical traditions of world history originated (around 500 BC). This challenge, Hoff argues, requires us to revise the theological underpinnings that have made our modern view of humanity plausible in the wake of the media-technological innovations of the Renaissance. Moreover, it requires us to recover the spiritual potentials that distinguish humans from computing machines and mark them as intellectually gifted, personal beings. His research on a Trinitarian anthropology of technology, building on Augustine and Cusa, is a first response to this challenge. Against this background, the Austrian Science Fund (FWF) granted the research project "4e Cognition in Theological Anthropology" proposed by Johannes Hoff in collaboration with Enrico Grube, which started in September 2023. The project explores the significance of the body/living body problem for Christian doctrine from a historical and systematic perspective, with particular emphasis on the doctrine of salvation and the patristic doctrine of the deification of man (theosis). The findings of contemporary phenomenology of the body and the neurobiological concept of embodied intelligence are hypothesised to facilitate a reorientation of Christian anthropology in the context of its historical sources. Part of this research is Hoff's research cooperation with the "Institute for Information Systems & Society" at the Vienna University of Economics and Business Administration.

My research focuses on the philosophical and theological foundations of European political life, particularly the concept of human dignity as it has evolved in the Western tradition. I am especially interested in Catholic social teaching, Christian democracy, and the tensions between religious and secular visions of the person. My current work explores how the personalist tradition can offer a richer understanding of politics and society in the face of contemporary European challenges.

Professor John Loughlin is Emeritus Fellow of St Edmund’s College, Cambridge, Senior Research Fellow at Blackfriars Hall, Oxford, and Emeritus Professor of European Politics at Cardiff University. He is a political scientist with a longstanding interest in the intersection of political theory, religion, and European integration. Formerly Director of the Von Hügel Institute at St Edmund’s, he led research and public engagement on questions of human dignity, religious freedom, and the role of Christianity in European political life.

He has published widely on subsidiarity, regionalism, and the relationship between Church and state, and most recently authored Human Dignity: Its Roots and Challenges in Western Thought, a major study of the intellectual history of the person. Professor Loughlin continues to contribute to international research networks and serves as a reviewer for European-funded academic projects.

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.