college news
New Fellows Jin-Chong Tan Jin-Chong joins the College as a tutorial Fellow in engineering science. He carried out both his doctoral and post-doctoral research in the Department of Materials science and Metallurgy at Cambridge. His research interests focus on the mechanical behaviour of advanced engineering materials useful for structural and functional applications, many of which operate under extreme conditions. Among the novel materials being developed are ultralightweight composite systems, multifunctional coatings, and a new class of nanoporous materials termed ‘Metal-organic Frameworks’, targeted at emerging areas linked to energy, sustainability, and biomedicine.
John-Paul Ghobrial John-Paul is Lucas Fellow and tutor in History. Also a university Lecturer and tutorial Fellow in early Modern History, he is primarily interested in exchanges between the Middle east and europe in the early modern period. His first monograph, forthcoming from ouP, explores the circulation of information between istanbul and europe in the late 17th century. this project led to a renewed interest in eastern Christians and their roles as intermediaries between europe and the east. He is at work on a second book called The Secret Life of Elias of Babylon, a microhistory of the adventures and writings of a 17th-century Chaldean traveller to the Americas.
William Jones
Concepción Naval Visiting Fellow and oliver smithies Lecturer (education), Concepción has since 1993 been Professor of educational theory at the university of navarra, where from 1996 to 2001 she directed the Department of education and where she was appointed Vice President in 2001. she is the author or co-author of various books, including Educación Retórica y Poética (1993), Educar ciudadanos (2000, 2nd ed.), and Gerontología educativa (2001). Concepción’s research while at Balliol will focus on new media literacy among primary and secondary school teachers, the social responsibility of universities, and museums as educational spaces.
Elena Lombardi elena joins Balliol as a tutor in italian. she was Assistant Professor in italian studies at McGill university from 2000 to 2005, and senior Lecturer in the school of Modern Languages at the university of Bristol from 2006 to 2012. Her undergraduate teaching focuses on Dante, early italian Poetry, and Medieval studies, her post-graduate teaching on Dante. Her research is on concepts of language and desire in the Middle Ages, medieval poetics, ideas of the book in medieval times, and the Renaissance epic-chivalric poem.
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Stefano Zacchetti stefano joins Balliol as the university’s Yehan numata Professor of Buddhist studies. He was Associate Professor at the international Research institute for Advanced Buddhology (tokyo) from 2001 to 2005, and he worked as a tenured lecturer (ricercatore) at the Ca’ Foscari university of Venice, Department of Asian and north African studies, from 2005 to 2012. stefano’s research focuses on the transmission of Buddhism from india to China, and on early Chinese Buddhist literature (particularly translations and commentaries). His publications include the monograph In Praise of the Light (tokyo, 2005).
FLoReAt D oMus BALLioL C oLLeGe neWs
William is Junior Research Fellow in the social sciences (Politics). He is currently a research officer at the Refugee studies Centre, working on a two-year project on political mobilisation and transnational exile networks in African diasporas (in particular, of Rwanda, eritrea, Angola, and Zimbabwe) as part of the Leverhulme oxford Diasporas Programme. He is the Convenor of the oxford Central Africa Forum, a regular seminar series presenting new research on the politics, history, and sociology of the Great Lakes region. He is also editor of St Antony’s International Review and a contributor to reports by the Commonwealth Human Rights initiative for submissions to the un Human Rights Council and African Human Rights Commission.
Matthew Robinson Matthew returns to Balliol, where he studied as both an undergraduate and a graduate, as tutorial Fellow in Latin Literature after 11 years as a lecturer at university College London. His primary research interests centre on Augustan poetry, though they also include Greek astronomy and astronomical mythology. His most recent book was a commentary on Book 2 of ovid’s Fasti (ouP, 2010); his current research examines the ways in which Augustan texts interact with various non-textual aspects of shared cultural experience, ranging from art and architecture to memory training and the movements of the night sky.