Our people

I was elected a Life Fellow at St Edmund’s in 2014, following 40 years of continuous service as a financial officer of the College. My current area of academic research is the history and philosophy of science, the history of cosmology since 1915. I am a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society.

Simon Mitton read physics at the University of Oxford (Trinity College). Then he headed to Churchill College for doctorate in physics at the Cavendish Laboratory in Martin Ryle’s radio astronomy group. From 1972–1978 he was a staff member of the Institute of Astronomy, initially as a postdoc with Fred Hoyle, followed by appointment as the departmental administrator 1974–1978. Cambridge University Press then engaged him initially as senior editor with responsibility for commissioning in the physical sciences. In 1984 he was appointed to the executive board of directors at the Press, with global responsibility for its academic book publishing programmes in the sciences. His major achievements in that context included winning the publishing contract for a succession of Reports from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in Geneva; overseeing a major expansion of the publishing programme in earth and planetary science; and persuading his friend and colleague Stephen Hawking to remove two dozen equations from the typescript of his popular bestseller, A Brief History of Science.
Following retirement from the Press in 2001, Simon started a third career based at St Edmund’s College for his research programme on the history of astronomy and cosmology in the twentieth century, with an emphasis on biographical presentations of the lives in science of major pioneers. He has published dozens of peer reviewed papers, reviews, books and monographs on the key pioneers: Fred Hoyle, Thomas Gold, George Gamow, and Georges Lemaître; The latter resided at St Edmund’s House (1923–1924) while working alongside Sir Arthur Eddington on Einstein’s general theory of relativity. Simon Mitton’s current project is a full biography of Lemaître, who is now noted as one the founders of the Big Bang theory of the origin of the universe.

Throughout fifty years of academic fellowship at St Edmund’s, Simon Mitton has worked tirelessly as a vigorous outreach promoter of astronomy, astrophysics and cosmology. He has worked in several media: as consultant and columnist for New Scientist (1970s); running educational courses for the public at Madingley Hall and evening classes sponsored by the University throughout the east of England (1970s, 1980s); as an astronomy lecturer on cruise liners, jointly with Dr Jacqueline Mitton, (2006-2017); giving presentations to university astronomical societies; script writer (with Jacqueline Mitton) for a 26-part tv series Destination Space; Editor-in-Chief for The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Astronomy (1977, Jonathan Cape London; ten foreign language co-editions); and co-author Young Oxford Book of Astronomy (1995). Simon is a strong supporter of the Catholic Chapel at St Edmund’s College, and its vibrant community of students, staff, academic visitors and members of the public. He enjoys popping into the College for congenial conversations with students and senior members alike on astronomy, the history of astronomy and the universe.

Personal Website

Publications

• O'Raifeartaigh, C; O'Keeffe, M; (...); Mitton, Simon, One hundred years of the cosmological constant: from "superfluous stunt" to dark energy, 2018, Physics in Perspective 20 (4) , Pp.318-341.
• Simon Mitton, Georges Lemaître and the Foundations of Big Bang Cosmology, 2020, The Antiquarian Astronomer 14 2–19
• Simon Mitton, A Short History of Panspermia from Antiquity Through the Mid-1970s, 2022, Astrobioiogy 22 1379–1391
• Simon Mitton, From Crust to Core, A Chronicle of Deep Carbon Science, 2021, Cambridge University Press
• Jacqueline Mitton and Simon Mitton, Vera Rubin a Life, 2021, Harvard University Press

Awards & Recognitions 

• 1980. The International Astronomical Union designated minor planet 4027 as "Minor Planet Mitton" in recognition of Simon and Jacqueline Mitton's contributions to popularizing astronomy through their book writing and lecturing.

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

Director of Studies in 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 Emeritus 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.

Dr Anna Gannon, MA, PhD Cantab, FSA, FHEA gained her first degree in Italy, where she studied Modern Languages and specialised in German Philology. She read History of Art at Cambridge, and her PhD was published as The Iconography of Early Anglo-Saxon Coinage (Oxford University Press, 2003; paperback reprint, 2010; Kindle edn. 2012). Dr Gannon worked for some years at the British Museum in the Money and Metal Department and in the Department of Britain, Europe and Prehistory, reporting on Treasure. She published the 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, 2013.

As Academic Consultant for the University, she was in charge of the professional development of newly-appointed probationary lecturers across the University. As Affiliated Lecturer in the Department of History of Art she taught her own Part II paper on Anglo-Saxon Art, as well as directing studies for five colleges. At St Edmund’s she was also a Tutor and contributed to a number of major Committees.

Her principal research interests and publications are in Anglo-Saxon coinage, Germanic and Insular art and culture, Late Antiquity and the artistic reworking of the heritage of Rome, the advent and spread of of Christianity. Her work spans archaeological and interdisciplinary methodological questions. Since her retirement she has pursued her interest in Theology, and has contributed entries to the Visual Commentary of Scripture on line, a project directed by Prof. Ben Quash, King’s College London.

Publications 

• The Iconography of Early Anglo-Saxon Coinage (6th-8th centuries), 2003, Oxford University Press .
• Sylloge of Coins of the British Isles, 63, c.600-760, 2013 B.M.P
• The Coins of the Irish Free State, 1928, 2025, in Le Molte Facce di una Moneta, Milano UP, 109-26
• Guarding the Sacred: early Anglo-Saxon cylindrical containers’ 2021, in Custodire il Sacro, Temporis Signa, XVI, 213-233
• Insular numismatics 2020, Barbaric Splendor, Archeopress 121-139.

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.

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)

Dr Thomas Graff's research explores how form and content interdepend in reflecting upon, authoring, and participating in the mystery of God. He focuses on Dante Alighieri’s theology and its Christological and Augustinian dimensions, expanding recently to developing a theology of (mass) incarceration in / beyond Dante.

Following study in philosophy, theology, and Italian literature, Thomas Graff pursued graduate research in theology at Trinity College, Cambridge. His doctoral thesis, ‘Dante, Augustine, and the Body of Christ in the Commedia’, investigates the ways in which Dante utilises Augustine to articulate a Christology of solidarity, or a vision of salvation in Christ as radically communal and interdependent, and what it might mean to read Dante's 'Inferno' in the light of such a Christological vision. Graff's research interests more broadly include Christian systematic theology, its relation to literary form, and the role of the humanities in the age of mass incarceration and 'organized abandonment' (Ruth Wilson Gilmore).

At St Edmund's, Graff is a Bye-Fellow, and Director of Studies in Theology, Religion, and Philosophy of Religion. He also serves as Adjunct Assistant Professor at the University of Notre Dame in England, and has taught in multiple prisons, including HMP Whitemoor (March, UK) and Westville Correctional Facility (Indiana, US).

Academic Profile

Dr Oliver Coates is Director of Studies in History and Politics at St Edmund’s College and Associate Researcher at the Institut des mondes africains in 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 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.

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 Carer 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