Our people

Dr Gumber is a ‘Mountain Climate Scientist’ at the British Antarctic Survey, in Cambridge. He is also a Senior Member of St Edmund’s College, Cambridge. His focus is on high-resolution regional climate modelling, with an emphasis on understanding the role and future of mountain glaciers as a water resource, particularly in the Himalayas and Alps.

Before moving to the UK, he earned undergraduate and doctoral degrees in Chemical and Mechanical Engineering (cloud microphysics) in India. His PhD led to advances in understanding the transformation of vehicle-mediated particles into cloud droplets over congested and heavily urbanised Indian cities. This involved a collaboration with the Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology, Pune (Ministry of Earth Sciences, Government of India) under the aegis of the Cloud Aerosol Interaction and Precipitation Enhancement Experiment.

Outside research, he enjoys reading about the natural world and exploring ways to rethink our relationship with mountains and rivers as more than just landscapes.”

Dr Alexandra Urban studied German philology and Latin at LMU Munich (First State Examination, 2016) and went on to complete a Master’s degree in German Language and Literature with a specialization in medieval studies (2017). From 2016 to 2020, she was a research associate in the DFG research group 1986 “Nature in Political Conceptions of Order: Antiquity – Middle Ages – Early Modern Period”, where she completed her PhD, awarded summa cum laude, in July 2020. The book was published in 2021 by De Gruyter under the title Poetik der Meisterschaft in ›Der meide kranz‹: Heinrich von Mügeln auf den Schultern des Alanus ab Insulis (series Deutsche Literatur. Studien und Quellen). Since 2020, she has been a research associate at the Chair of Professor Kellner (LMU Munich).

Dr Sean Butler is an Emeritus Fellow at St Edmund's College. His main field of research is animal rights law.

Dr Sean Butler studied Law at Oxford (St Edmund Hall) and the LSE, London, as well as Genetics at Cambridge (CPGS) before taking his PhD in social science at Imperial College, London. He supervises Roman Law and lectures Animal Rights Law in the Law Faculty, and is Co-Director of the Cambridge Centre for Animal Rights Law.

Academic Profile

Dr Suzanne Paul is the Keeper of Rare Books and Early Manuscripts at Cambridge University Library. She is a Tutor, Fellow Librarian and Fellow Archivist.

Suzanne 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. A medieval manuscript scholar by training, she is particularly interested in the application of digital and scientific approaches to the study and curation of manuscripts.

She has collaborated on several large-scale manuscript digitisation and conservation projects, including the Polonsky Foundation Greek Manuscripts project. She currently a co-investigator on the Hidden in Plain Sight project, applying methods such as X-ray fluorescence, multispectral imaging and DNA analysis to the study of premodern books.

• Director of Studies: Law 

Matthew is a Fellow of St Edmund’s College and Director of Studies of Undergraduate 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 James Whitworth's 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 Anna Gannon is an Emerita Fellow of St Edmund's College.

She specialises in early medieval Insular Art. She is part of an international group working on early Irish reliquaries found in Italy, and co-edits a Medieval studies Festschrift. Current research focuses on the exegesis of evoked sacred landscapes, religious approaches to nature in the Insular world.

Her first degree was in Italy: she studied Modern Languages and specialised in German Philology at the Catholic University of Milan, where she was teaching as an ‘Assistente Ministeriale’ for four years. She subsequently read History of Art at the University of Cambridge, with a PhD on the iconography of Early Anglo-Saxon coinage, published as a monograph by Oxford University Press in 2003. She worked on coin-related projects at the Fitzwilliam Museum and then at the British Museum as a Curator in the Department of Coins and Medals and supporting the Portable Antiquities Scheme, identifying and recording ‘treasure’.

Dr Gannon began attending St Edmund’s Chapel as a student, c. 1995, but her academic connection with the College began in 2001, first as a Director of Studies, then as a Senior Member, and eventually she was elected Fellow in 2006. Her roles at St Edmund’s (as DoS (for 25 years), Tutor, Keeper of Art and serving on several other committees) were combined with and complementary to her other activities for the University. In addition to research and publications on Anglo-Saxon numismatics and art, and an academic role as affiliated lecturer in Early Medieval Art at my Department, she was single-handedly in charge of the professional development of all newly-appointed lecturers on probation across the University – something that could be described as a 'pastoral role’, but which made a huge difference orienteering many new-comers. She retired in 2019.

Her current research interests and publications deal with Insular art and culture, particularly in responses to Christianity. She is part of the international Research Project ‘Insular reliquaries in Italy: in the footsteps of Columbanus’ and is editing a collection of early medieval papers. Her interests have moved towards Theology and ecotheology: she is a regular contributor to the Visual Commentary on Scripture and is exploring the exegesis of imagined sacred landscapes through the sense of smell.

She is a committed Benedictine Oblate and attends Mass at St Edmund’s Chapel regularly. She is happy to report that she was the one behind the project of the new entrance to the Chapel, with the access ramp and the bench for St Edmund’s.

Selected publications:

• The Iconography of Early Anglo-Saxon Coinage (6th-8th centuries), Oxford University Press 2003.
• Sylloge of Coins of the British Isles, 63. British Museum.  Anglo-Saxon Coins. Part i. Early Anglo-Saxon Coins and Continental Silver Coins of the North Sea, c.600-760, British Museum Publications, 2013.
• ‘The Coins of the Irish Free State, 1928: are animals good to think with?’ in Le Molte Facce di una Moneta: Saggi in Onore di Lucia Travaini, M. Baldasssari, B. Cook and S. Locatelli eds, Milano University Press, 2025, 109-26.
• ‘Insular numismatics: the relationship between ancient British and early Anglo-Saxon coins ‘, in Barbaric Splendor: the use of image in Europe before and after Rome, T.F. Martin and W.A. Morrison eds. Archeopress Publishing 2020, 121-139.
• ‘Guarding the Sacred: early Anglo-Saxon cylindrical containers’ Atti del convegno ’Custodire il Sacro’, Vercelli, 11-12 Gennaio 2021, "Temporis Signa. Archeologia della tarda antichità e del medioevo", Fondazione Centro italiano di Studi sull'Alto Medioevo di Spoleto, number XVI 2021, 213-233.
• ‘Art in the round: tradition and creativity in early Anglo-Saxon coinage’, in Money and Coinage in the Middle Ages, R. Naismith ed., Brill, 2019, 289-321

Contributions to the Visual Commentary on Scripture (VCS), Ben Quash ed., King’s College, London:

• ‘Benedictus’ – Luke 1:67–80
• ‘The Prophet Anna’ – Luke 2:36-38
• ‘Salt and Light’ – Matthew 5:13–16
• ‘A Song of Thanksgiving: Psalm 147’
• 'Blessed is the Mother’ – Luke11:27-8’
• ‘The Altar of Incense’ – Exodus 30’

In his long and successful career as an entrepreneur and venture capitalist, Hermann has founded or co-founded companies in a wide range of technology sectors. These include Acorn Computers (where he helped spin our ARM), Active Book Company, Virata, Net Products, NetChannel and Cambridge Network Limited.

• Director of Studies: Human, Social and Political Sciences

Dr Sara Silvestri is interested in the contested meaning and multifaceted roles of religion in international relations, with particular attention to Islam and the Euro-Mediterranean region. Located at the intersection between IR, Politics, and Sociology, her research, publications and teaching are concerned with how religious identities, symbols and political theologies impact global governance; the way faith-based networks, social movements, and secular international institutions relate to each other; and the evolution of public policies responding to the challenges of migration, multiculturalism, Islamism, and terrorism.

Sara is based between London, where she is Senior lecturer in International Politics at City University, and Cambridge, where she undertook her PhD (at St John’s College) and ESRC Post-Doc. In Cambridge she is currently Bye Fellow and Director of Studies in HSPS (Politics) at St Edmund’s College and collaborates with the POLIS department and the Divinity faculty. Sara also held visiting positions at the Cambridge Muslim College, the University of Bristol, the Univ. of Padua, and was a Marie Curie Fellow in Paris.

After her first degree in Arts (La Sapienza University, Rome) and qualifying as a journalist, Sara went to the University of Cambridge to undertake and MPhil in EU affairs and PhD and Post-Doc on the Politics of and about Islam in Europe. She also specialised in EU migration policies at the ULB (Belgium). She then became interested in role of Christians (especially but not only the Catholic Church) in the governance of migration and refugee flows when she was a Research Associate of the Von Hügel Institute and a member of the Cambridge Centre for the Study of Global Human movement .

Dr Silvestri has collaborated extensively with the policy and media world in her areas of expertise. She has worked in the Cabinet of the EU Commission President, has been a Research Associate at Chatham House (London); she has served as an advisor to the Brussels think tank European Policy Centre and the Annal Lindh Foundation for Intercultural Dialogue (Alexandria, Egypt) and as a 'global expert' for the UN Alliance of Civilisations. Sara currently serves as a Trustee of the Centre for Catholic Social Thought and Practice and of the Council on Christian Approaches to Defence and Disarmament.

Her research has been funded inter alia by the ESRC, British Academy, British Council, Luce Foundation, FCDO, European Commission, Caritas Internationalis, the European Science Foundation.

Dr Phung Dao is Associate Professor in Second Language Education. His research focuses on the intersection of second language acquisition (SLA), educational technology, and language education.

Phung Dao is Associate 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

Dr Fiona Costello is a Bye-Fellow at St Edmund's College.

She is interested in the global movement of persons, Brexit and the legacy of EU free movement to the UK, wider UK Immigration law and policy and access to justice pathways available to vulnerable and minoritised communities living in the UK and EU.

Dr Costello works on various research matters at the Faculty of Law, Cambridge examining immigration issues in the UK post Brexit (particularly for EU citizens in the UK) and access to justice pathways for marginalised communities. Her work is part of a programme called ‘The UK in a Changing Europe’ (http://ukandeu.ac.uk), which is funded by the Economic and Social Research Council.

Alongside her academic work, Fiona also works with a charity in Norfolk called GYROS (www.gyros.org.uk) supporting refugee, asylum seekers and other migrant communities. Fiona has written extensively on the topic of migration to the UK. Her work has been featured in The Independent, The Times, The Conversation and BBC News among others. She has given evidence to both the House of Lords, EU Affairs Committee, and the Equality and Social Justice Committee in the Senedd, as well as to Parliamentary Staff in the House of Commons and to the APPG on citizen’s rights. Her work has been cited in reports by both the UK House of Lords and the Welsh Parliament.  She also blogs on Brexit matters, mainly for the http://ukandeu.ac.uk/. Her 2024 co-authored monograph ‘Low-Paid EU Migrant workers, The House, The Street, The Town’ was shortlisted for the SLSA Hart Book Prize 2025.

Fiona’s full list of academic publications can be found here: https://www.law.cam.ac.uk/people/f-costello/78811

Dr Merav Rosenfeld-Hadad is both a Bye-Fellow and Associate Tutor at St Edmund's College.

She is an historian musicologist who specialises in the history, culture, religion, and music of Jews from the Arab-Muslim world. She leads a project on 20th-century Judaeo-Arabic culture in Baghdad and Aleppo, collaborating and lecturing internationally, and publishing widely in leading journals.

Dr Merav Rosenfeld-Hadad (PhD, University of Cambridge, St Edmund's College) is a leading scholar in Judaeo-Arabic studies based at the University of Cambridge, and a Bye-Fellow and Associate Tutor at St Edmund's College. She is a historian musicologist who specialises in the history, culture, religion, and music of Jews from the Arab-Muslim world, examining Arabic music across Jewish, Muslim, and Christian societies, with a particular focus on its role in identity and interfaith relations. She currently leads a research project on the religio-cultural life of Jews in Baghdad and Aleppo during the first half of the twentieth century. She also collaborates with the Universities of Tübingen, Heidelberg, Ben-Gurion and Bar-Ilan on research projects that examine the literary, musical, and religious life of Jewish communities from the Arab-Muslim world. Additionally, in partnership with Professor Geoffrey Khan at the University of Cambridge, Merav is working on a project that explores the Jewish oral reading traditions of Biblical Hebrew. Merav also sits as a Trustee on the Board of The Cambridge Junction where she promotes values of coexistence through the arts. Merav's work has been published by leading publishers in the UK, US, Germany, and Israel. She has received multiple awards, both in the UK and abroad, including ORS, BA, Wingate, and Memorial Foundation for Jewish Culture, and she lectures internationally. Prior to her academic career, she worked in Israel as a senior economist in the investment banking and education sectors, and she is the author of music programmes for schoolchildren, designed to foster values of peace between Jews and Muslims in Israel.

Academic Profile 

Publications

• “The Bible in the Paraliturgical Song of Middle Eastern Jewry: The Making of Song as a Guardian of Jewish Faith and Identity.ˮ In Reworking the Sacred through Music and Poetry: The De/Sacralization of Texts, eds. Angelika Zirker, Matthias Bauer and Jan Stievermann, (LIT, 2025)
• “‘We Shall Sing Songs and Praise to the LORD Who Created Us Last in the World:’ Ḥakham Yosef Ḥayyim of Baghdad, Leadership with Poetry and Music.” In The Oxford Handbook of Jewish Music Studies, ed. Tina Fruhauf, 91-115 (Oxford University Press, 2023)
• Judaism and Islam One God One Music (Leiden: Brill Academic Publishers, 2019)
• “‘There on the Poplars [Arabs] We Hung Up [Rely On] Our Lyres [Jewish Music]’ Rabbi ‘Ovadyah Yosef’s Halakhic Rulings on Arabic Music.” In Muslim-Jewish Relations in Past and Present: A Kaleidoscopic View, ed. Yousef Meri, 172−205 (Leiden: Brill Academic Publishers, 2017)

• Director of Studies: History
• Director of Studies: History and Modern Languages
• Director of Studies: Foundation Year
• Associate Researcher at the Institut des mondes africains in Paris.

Dr Oliver Coates' 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 HistoDr 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.ry, 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.

• Director of Studies: Philosophy

Russell Re Manning is the Deputy Centre Administrator at CRASSH (Centre for Research in the Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities).

Russell joined CRASSH from Bath Spa University where he worked as Programme Leader and Reader in Religions, Philosophies and Ethics. He previously worked in various research and teaching roles at the Universities of Aberdeen and Cambridge and was a Fellow at St Edmund’s from 2004-2011.

Russell’s research interests are at the intersections of religion and culture, with a particular emphasis on the intellectual history of ‘natural theology’ and the work of Paul Tillich (1886-1965).

Russell holds an MA from the University of Oxford (Philosophy & Theology) and an MPhil and PhD (Philosophy of Religion) from the University of Cambridge, during which time he was a student at St Edmund’s (and one of the very first residents in the Richard Laws building!).

Dr Benjamin Woolf is a genetic epidemiologist who works on casual inference from observational data. His research focuses on using the inheritance of genetic variation to emulate randomised control trials, and thereby accelerate drug development.

Having failed to become a philosopher, Benji became a genetic epidemiologist. He currently works at the Medical Research Council Biostatistics and Integrative Epidemiology Units (at the Universities of Cambridge and Bristol respectively). His research leverages the random inheritance of genes to emulate clinical trials ('Mendelian randomization'), and thereby accelerate drug development for cardiovascular and respiratory conditions. His PhD research won the 2023 Cambridge Public Health Early Career Researcher award for developing a novel approach to assess the causal impact of intergenerational risk factors, such as familial second-hand smoke exposure.

In addition to being an Associate Tutor at St Edmunds, Benji is a tutor at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and has been elected a fellow of the Royal Society of Arts.

Publications