Our people

Mike Brownnutt obtained his first Master’s degree (MSci in physics) and his PhD (in experimental quantum mechanics) from Imperial College London, UK. He then worked at the University of Innsbruck for eight years, writing his habilitation on his research there, which developed scalable architectures for trapped-ion quantum computers. He completed a second Master’s degree (MA in theology from the University of Chester, UK) considering how faith is understood by various parties in discourse on the relationship between Christianity and science.

He spent seven years at the University of Hong Kong, serving as Associate Director of the Faith and Science Collaborative Research Forum, and researching framings for science and religion which do not pre-suppose Modernist assumptions. He now serves as Course Director of the Faraday Institute. In his spare time, he is working on a PhD (with University of Birmingham) on non-Modern philosophy of science and religion.

I am a postdoctoral fellow at the Wellcome Sanger Institute, specialising in drug resistance and diagnostic development for parasitic worms. My research uses advanced genomic and transcriptomic approaches to address key challenges in parasitology and improve disease control.

Dr Mona Suleiman is a postdoctoral fellow at the Wellcome Sanger Institute, specialising in anthelmintic drug resistance and the development of diagnostic tools for parasitic helminths. Her research focuses on using experimental evolution models to investigate the genetic mechanisms underlying drug resistance in the nematode Strongyloides and identifying selection pressures in populations undergoing mass drug administration. Additionally, Mona is advancing molecular barcoding techniques to develop a high-throughput sequencing assay for human-infective helminths, which will enable more accurate diagnostics in resource-limited settings. Mona completed her PhD at the University of Bath, where she explored the role of small RNAs in parasitism, contributing to a deeper understanding of host-parasite interactions. Her research has been recognised with numerous awards, including the William C. Campbell Award from the Irish Society for Parasitology and multiple Best Oral Presentation prizes from the British Society for Parasitology and ISP.

Beyond research, Mona has extensive experience in global health collaborations, working with researchers in Kenya, Ghana, and Bangladesh to enhance diagnostic capabilities for parasitic infections. She is committed to interdisciplinary research and actively engages in mentorship and university initiatives to support the next generation of scientists.

Academic Profile

My research explores intersections between neuroscience, experience and community wellbeing. Using a community-centred model, I apply evidence-based pedagogy to community learning experiences that cultivate not just knowledge, but skills and dispositions broadly in support of community wellbeing.

Dr Nancy Michael earned her doctorate degree in neuroscience from the University of Minnesota in 2012. Her doctoral studies were anchored in the field of behavioural neuroendocrinology where she explored questions of experience dependent plasticity – how experiences with the individuals and the world around us change nervous system structure and function. This curiosity led her to pursue postdoctoral studies in an adolescent development lab, further developing her ability to interrogate the ways in which experiences moderate brain structure, function and behaviour. Harnessing this background in experience dependent plasticity, Michael chose to devote her skills to undergraduate educational formation. She joined the Notre Dame faculty in 2014 to develop the newly created undergraduate program in neuroscience and behaviour. Over the years, her dedication to excellence, innovation in education and commitment to community wellness have earned her numerous teaching, advising and community awards, and currently serves as the Director of Education and Co-Director for the Neuroscience and Behaviour major at the University of Notre Dame. In addition to her work on campus, Michael partnership with multiple community organizations to develop and implement NEAR science approaches that aim to mitigate the impact of toxic stress and promote healing and resilience of individuals and communities. NEAR stands for Neuroscience, Epigenetics, Adverse childhood experiences and Resilience, and a NEAR-science approach uses a community-centred, general capacity building model to mobilize the evidence base of the NEAR sciences in support of practical skill development for individuals and community organizations.

Broadly, Dr Michael’s work collaboratively develops population-specific, NEAR-based strategies to support practical skill building for community healing and resilience efforts. Her work is published across a wide variety of platforms ranging from primary scientific journals, book chapters, to children’s books. Common themes across her writing centre around experience dependent plasticity and the critical role relationships play in human learning and well-being. In addition to her written works, Dr Michael takes a leadership role in designing and executing a wide variety of professional development opportunities to support individuals in the “helping professions” (e.g. educators, youth workers, mental health professionals, community health workers, medical professionals, etc.). Dr Michael is known for making very complex information accessible and actionable in practical contexts. The breadth of her productivity is indicative of her desire to not only participate in knowledge generation, but to support the translation of the neuroscientific knowledge base into practical skills, behaviours and habits of mind that become present in our daily living.

Academic Profile 

Publications

• Michael N, Chan-Deveare V, [Eifler and Wheeler (Eds)], Learning to Serve: A Neuroscience-informed Scaffold to Developing Students as Community Leaders, 2025, Beneath the Rage and Tumult: Promoting Radical Hospitality and Belonging in College Classrooms.
• Michael N. A Part, Not Apart: courageous curiosity reminds us of shared our shared humanity, 2024, Notre Dame Magazine
• Brown K*, Nisbet A*, Hammond R*, [Michael NA (Ed)]. No Snow Day for the Brain, 2020, Lulu publishing.
• Hollender M*, Michael NA, Short-Term Brain-Based Growth Mindset Pilot Intervention Indicates Potential of Diversion Programs for Early Offenders in the Juvenile Justice System, 2023, Internat J of Soc Sci and Human Research

Neville is the Director of the King’s Centre for Strategic Communications (KCSC), the leading global centre of academic expertise in Strategic Communications. He is Reader in Strategic Communications and Convenor of the Masters programme in Strategic Communications in the Department of War Studies, King’s College London. And he is Senior Fellow at SCERU, University of Tokyo. Bolt is Editor-in-Chief of Defence Strategic Communications, the peer reviewed academic journal of NATO Strategic Communications Centre of Excellence.

He has convened the Masters course Evolution of Insurgency and Counterinsurgency and the International Relations course Transnational Movements, Networks and Revolutionary Strategy. He supervises PhD students researching topics including empathy in international negotiations; trust in the revolutionary theatre; counter-conduct & democratic dissent; materiality of communication in urban space; Cold War metaphor of containment; strategic communications policies in Afghanistan; phenomenology of the information environment; constructing political memory; jazz diplomacy in the Cold War; memory construction in Latvian independence; influence networks in South Caucasus; Brazil’s Amazonia dilemma. He was the Teaching Excellence Award Winner 2017.

Much of his career was spent as a television journalist and producer-director at the BBC, ITV, and CBC (Canada). Working in news and current affairs, he specialised as a producer of war zone documentaries, covering conflicts in Africa, Latin America, the Middle East, and Indian subcontinent. Later he created strategic communications campaigns for Britain’s Labour Party; Amnesty International; the African National Congress (ANC)/Anti-Apartheid Movement. He served too as communications advisor to UEFA Champions League football.

His book The Violent Image: Insurgent Propaganda and the New Revolutionaries (Columbia UP) was published in 2012, 2^nd revised edition, 2020 (Oxford UP), winning the CHOICE ‘outstanding academic status award’. Unmapping the 21^st Century: Between Networks and the State (Bristol UP) was published in 2022. He is writing Strategic Communications: Information, Disinformation & The Human Condition, and producing a volume of field-defining Perspectives from Defence Strategic Communications journal to appear late 2022.

Dr Oliver Coates is Director of Studies in History and Politics at St Edmund’s College. He is also Associate Researcher at the Institut des mondes africains at the C.N.R.S., Paris. His research interests are in African history, with reference to Nigeria. His recent research has appeared in the International Journal of African Historical Studies, the Journal of Asian and African Studies, the Journal of African Military History, and Outre-Mers: Revue d’histoire, as well as contributions to the Oxford Research Encyclopaedia of African History, the Oxford Handbook of Nigerian History, the Oxford Handbook of Nigerian Politics, and the Routledge Handbook of the Global History of Warfare.

Dr Coates is a committee member of the Lagos Studies Association, University of Lagos, Nigeria, and a member of the African Studies Association of the U.S.A.

Parul Bhandari is a sociologist specialising in the study of social inequalities in the Global South. Her specific research focus is on gender and class identities and media and technology in South Asia. Parul Bhandari is Director of Studies (DoS) for Human, Social, and Political Sciences (HSPS), Bye-Fellow, and Associate Tutor at St. Edmund’s College, College Teaching Associate (CTA) and Bye-Fellow at Downing College, and external Director of Studies (DoS) for HSPS at Queens’ College. She contributes to teaching and supervising at the Department of Sociology and the Centre of South Asian Studies, University of Cambridge. She has published four academic books: Dissent with Love: Ambiguity, Affect and Transformation in South Asia (Routledge, 2024), Matchmaking in Middle Class India: Beyond Arranged and Love Marriage (Springer, 2020), Money, Culture, Class: Elite Women as Modern Subjects, (Routledge, London 2019), and Exploring Indian Modernities: Ideas and Practices (co-edited) (Springer, 2018). In addition, Bhandari’s research has been published in academic journals including Contemporary South Asia, Gender, Place & Culture, and South Asia Multidisciplinary Academic Journal (SAMAJ). Her works are accessible to non-specialists by way of her regular writings in popular outlets such as The Hindustan Times, The Conversation, Scroll.in. Her research been quoted in the BBC, CNN, and panel discussions and podcasts on NPR, Al Jazeera, The Conversation and NDTV.

Prior to joining University of Cambridge, she was Associate Professor of Sociology at O.P. Jindal Global University (JGU), India, and has held Guest Faculty positions at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Delhi, and the Department of Sociology, Delhi School of Economics (DSE), University of Delhi. She has been a Visiting Scholar at the Institute of Asian and African Studies, Humboldt University, Berlin, and the Centre of South Asian Studies (CSAS), University of Cambridge, and was a Post-Doctoral Fellow at the Centre de Sciences Humaines (CSH), Delhi (South Asia research unit for the CNRS). She was a student at St. Edmund’s College whilst pursuing MPhil and doctoral degrees.

I research how visual art mediates Christian faith, identity, and the divine. My work spans theology, fine art, and perception, exploring art practice as a method of theological scholarship. I publish and exhibit on topics such as visual arts and healing, female identity, symbolism, and the role of imagination in faith.

Pavlína Kašparová, also known as Sr Marie OP, is an artist and theologian and has been a member of the Czech Congregation of Dominican Sisters since 2006. She holds a PhD in Fine Art and Theology from Anglia Ruskin University. Currently, she serves as the Director of Studies and a Research Associate at The Faraday Institute for Science and Religion, where she actively engages in academic discussions and promotes interdisciplinary connections. Additionally, Dr Kašparová has been a Psychology Cross-training Workshop Fellow at the University of Birmingham since July 2023, where she continues her exploration of visual language in theology.

She is a Post-doctoral Research Associate at St Edmund's College, University of Cambridge, a member of the Cambridge Interfaith Research Forum at the Faculty of Divinity at the University of Cambridge and a Research Associate at the Margaret Beaufort Institute of Theology. Her research centres on the material and concrete expressions of religious identity as reflected in bodily appearance. Her interdisciplinary projects span across theology, with an emphasis on spirituality and soteriology, fine art incorporating photography and moving images, and psychology exploring perception and self-awareness.

Since 2020, she has served as a Council Member of the Czech Congregation of Dominican Sisters and was a Coordinator for Central and Eastern Europe for the Dominican Sisters International Confederation for four years (2019-2023). Previously, Dr Kašparová held the position of Director of Studies at The Cambridge Centre for Christianity Worldwide, where she lectured on Spirituality and the Arts. Her academic foundation includes two Master’s degrees in Catholic Theology and Art History, along with a Bachelor’s degree in Design, earned at Palacky University in Olomouc and University Hradec Kralove, the Czech Republic.

Academic Profile 

Publications

• Kašparová, P. (2022). Perception of Visual Art in Christian Churches. In: H. Alford, ed., Preaching and the Arts / Predicazione e Arte. Communitas 2021. Rome: Angelicum University Press, pp.33–42.
• Kašparová, P. (under review). Look! This Is My Faith: Healing Narratives in the Work of Christian Artists.
• Watanabe, S., Kašparová, P., Łazarewicz-Wyrzykowska, E., Perez, J., Tanton, T., & Waite, H. (under review). Voices in the (interdisciplinary) wilderness: Reflections from a psychology cross-training project for theologians.

Honours & Awards 

• Funding for 2-year research project Organisational development process of the Dominican Sisters in Central and Eastern Europe, 2024, Renovabis
• Funding for 1-year research project Material Rendering of Imagery of 'Divine' and 'Faith' of Practicing Christian Adults with Artistic Skills, 2023, John Templeton Foundation
• Funding for art research project The Women of the Book, 2020, Spalding Trust
• First Prize Presentation Award, 2019, Anglia Ruskin University
• Full-time PhD scholarship for 3.5 years, 2017, Renovabis
• Exceptional MA dissertation in Theology, 2015, Palacky University Olomouc

My research is focused on the application of complexity science to the solution of engineering problems. I've been working in using AI, particularly intelligent systems, to modeling and simulation of industrial processes, smart grids, and other systems.

Pedro was born in Ponce and raised in Coamo, on the island of Puerto Rico. After completing his Ph.D. in Telematic Engineering from Universidade de Vigo (Spain) in 2017 he returned to the University of Puerto Rico’s main campus (Río Piedras) as an Assistant Professor of Computer Science (2017-2019), where he had taught Computer Engineering at UPR-Mayagüez in 2008. He was an Associate Researcher and later a Postdoctoral Fellow (2020-2023) at the Center for Complexity Sciences (C3) of the National Autonomous University of México (UNAM), specializing in Self-Organizing Systems and Complexity-Based Telecommunications Systems, under the supervision of Prof. Carlos Gershenson García. His Ph.D. dissertation focused on the use of Probabilistic Boolean Networks and a means of modelling Manufacturing Systems, especially those under preventive maintenance. This dissertation obtained the prestigious Doctoral Excellence Award (Premio Extraordinario de Doctorado) and the ‘Doctor Internacional’ distinction. He has a professional experience spanning more than 20 years, that includes working for the aerospace, biopharmaceutical and other manufacturing industries, as an engineer.

Pedro holds a B.Sc. in Computer Engineering from the University of Puerto Rico at Mayagüez (2001), a Graduate Certificate in Project Management (University of Wisconsin, 2004), a M.Sc. in Engineering Management (University of Wisconsin, 2005), a Master of Telematic Engineering (2008), Diploma of Advanced Studies, (2008), and Ph.D. in Telematic Engineering (2017) from Universidade de Vigo, Spain, a Master of Computer Engineering (2021) and a Master of Telecommunications Engineering from Universitat Oberta de Catalunya (2022) and is working towards a Ph.D. in Biomedical Engineering from Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya. He is a licensed telecommunications engineer in Spain, and a member of the Official College of Telecommunications Engineers since 2018 (COIT). He collaborates with scientists from the US, Puerto Rico, Spain, Cuba, Mexico and Brazil.

Publications

• Rivera Torres, P.J., Chen, C., Macías, J.E., Rodríguez, S., Prieto, J., Llanes, O., Gershenson, C., Kanaan, S., A learning Probabilistic Boolean Network model of a smart grid with applications to system maintenance., 2024, MDPI/Energies, https://doi.org/10.3390/en17246399
• Rivera Torres, P.J., Gershenson, C, Kanaan, S. Fault Detection and Isolation in Smart-Grid Networks of Intelligent Power Routers Modeled as Probabilistic Boolean Networks, 2023, Wiley/Complexity, https://doi.org/10.1155/2023/6690805.
• Rivera Torres, P.J., Gershenson García, C., Kanaan, S. Reinforcement Learning with Probabilistic Boolean Network Models of Smart Grid Devices. 2022, Wiley/Complexity,
• Guerrero, D., Rivera Torres, P., Febres, G. L., Gershenson García, C. Towards a Measure for Characterizing the Informational Content of Audio Signals and the Relation Between Complexity and Auditory Encoding, 2021.

Awards & Recognitions

• Maria Skłodowska Curie Actions Fellow - University of Salamanca, Spain (2024 to present).
• 2020 Technical Sciences Award, National Academy of Sciences of Cuba. Research Team Member.
• Premio Extraordinario de Doctorado - 2017 Universidade de Vigo
• "Las 20 mejores de 2012" – Awarded #10 of 20 among the best musical productions of 2012 for the album “Café Colao Orchestra, Vol. 1”, by Fundación Nacional para la Cultura Popular de Puerto Rico, 2012.
• "Las 20 mejores de 2016" – Awarded #14 of 20 among the best musical productions of 2016 for the album “Yo no quiero… ser normal”, by Fundación Nacional para la Cultura Popular de Puerto Rico, 2016.

I am Assistant Professor in Second Language Education, with my research focusing on the intersection of second language acquisition (SLA), educational technology, and language education. 

Phung Dao is Assistant Professor in Second Language Education at the Faculty of Education, University of Cambridge, where he teaches MPhil/MEd courses in Research in Second Language Education (RSLE) and supervises PhD students. Before joining the University of Cambridge, Phung was a senior Lecturer in TESOL and Applied Linguistics at Manchester Metropolitan University (2018-2022), teaching undergraduate/postgraduate courses and supervising PhD students in TESOL/Applied Linguistics. He also taught undergraduate/postgraduate courses in Applied Linguistics at University of Queensland (Australia), Concordia University (Canada) and An Giang University (Vietnam). His research interests focus on instructed second language acquisition (ISLA), technology for language teaching and learning, peer interaction, learner engagement, Task-Based Language Teaching (TBLT), L2 pedagogy, and L2 teacher education. His publications appear in international peer-reviewed Applied Linguistic journals such as Modern Language Journal, TESOL Quarterly, Studies in Second Language Acquisition, Language Teaching, Computer Assisted Language Learning, Language Teaching Research, Applied Linguistics Review, TESOL Journal, System, Innovation in Language Learning and Teaching, Language Learning Journal, IRAL and among others.

His current research projects, funded by British Council and IELTS IDP Australia, investigate online English language teaching in Vietnamese public schools, IELTS impacts on stakeholders, and young learners’ engagement in L2 learning tasks in face-to-face and online classes.

Academic Profile 

Publications

• Dao, P. (2024). Learner Engagement in Online Second Language Classrooms. Palgrave Macmillan.
• Iwashita, N., Dao, P., & Nguyen, M. (2025). Understanding Interaction in the Second Language Classroom Context. Multilingual Matters.
• Dao, P., M. Nguyen, PT. Duong, V. Tran-Thanh. (2021) Learners’ Engagement in L2 Computer-Mediated Interaction: Chat Mode, Interlocutor Familiarity, and Text Quality. Modern Language Journal. https://doi.org/10.1111/modl.12737
• Dao, P., Bui, T. & Nguyen, XNCM (2024). Public primary school teachers’ perceptions and assessment of young learners’ engagement. Language Teaching Research. https://doi.org/10.1177/13621688241253546