Fellows’ News

Dr Gareth Atkins (2003)

Dr Gareth Atkins (2003), British Academy Postdoctoral Fellow in History has been awarded the Julian Corbett Prize for Modern Naval History for his dissertation on ‘The politics of influence and the influence of politics: Evangelicals and the Royal Navy, 1778–1815’. This is a prestigious annual competition run by the Institute of Historical Research ‘for work not previously published and based on original (Ms. or printed) materials for Modern Naval History’. The dissertation, or a precis of it, will be published in the journal Historical Research.

Dr Brendan Burchell

Dr Brendan Burchell, Director of Studies and University Senior Lecturer, Faculty of Politics, Psychology, Sociology and International Studies has been awarded one of the University’s prestigious 2011 ‘Pilkington Prizes’ for Excellence in Teaching. The recipients of the Prizes, set up by the late Sir Alastair Pilkington, former Chairman of the Cambridge Foundation, have made outstanding contributions to the development of teaching in their departments. The benefits of their work have reached not only students at the University, but also other students and professionals world wide, and school pupils too. Dr Burchell’s recent projects and publications have included: the psychological consequences of unemployment, redundancy, work intensification and job insecurity; predictors and correlates of the transition into self-employment; managers’ and employees’ different perspectives on jobs, skills and opportunities; parttime work and gender differencesin working conditions and careers; pay satisfaction; telework; geographically distributed work teams and new statistical methods for analysing work histories.

Dr Antje du Bois-Pedain

Dr Antje du Bois-Pedainhas been teaching in Cambridge since 2001 and joined the College in 2004. She lectures in Criminal and Medical Law in the Faculty of Law and supervises students in Criminal Law and in Jurisprudence. She has been awarded a British Academy/Leverhulme Senior Research Fellowship for the calendar year 2012, to work on a book on “Paternalism and its limits: the analysis of two-party interactions in morality and law”.

MS Silke Mentchen

MS Silke Mentchen, Admissions Tutor (Recruitment), University Senior Language Teaching Officer and College Lecturer in German is part of a team which has organised a summer school for state school teachers of Modern Languages. The University and indeed the College are partnering the Prince’s Teaching Institute (http://www.princes-ti.org.uk/ SummerSchool/2011ModernForeign Languages/). Magdalene has been active in organising summer schools in other subjects such as English and History in the past but this year is a first for Modern Languages. Ms Mentchen organised the speakers for the project and is delighted that not only have all 60 available places been taken, but that there is a long waiting list.

Tim Robinson

Our current Parnell Fellow, Tim Robinson, reports on the 7th Roundstone Conversation, a small informal conference on the theme of Place and Story, usually held in the Robinsons’ home in the west of Connemara, which this year followed them to Cambridge and took place in Cripps Court on the 4th–6th of March. It opened with Tim reading the text of his recent Parnell Lecture, ‘A Land Without Shortcuts’, and Andrew McNeillie recounting the origins of his literary and ecological journal, Archipelago. Leslie van Gelder, originator and convenor of the conference, discussed her recent researches into finger marks made by children in the Palaeolithic cave of Rouffignac, France. Binta Masani talked about Jamaican women basket-makers and the lore they pass on down the generations as they work. Jennifer Bradner read from her autobiographical work, ‘Letters to Hagar.’ Nancy Owens spoke about the Northern Cheyenne American Indians and their struggle to prevent exploitation of their territory for coal mining. Sue Llewellyn shared her thoughts on Mending as it relates to her work in clinical psychiatry and to such practical tasks as mending broken field walls or darning socks. Patrick Curry addressed the subject of Enchantment, in relation to Weber’s concept of the disenchantment of the world. M.J. Williams linked that theme to the experience of jazz, and in a coffee break played her trombone for us. Leslie van Gelder read her essay ‘After the End of the World’, on the themes of Legacy and bereavement. Finally we saw Pat Collin’s film, ‘Tim Robinson: Connemara,’ which was premiered at the Dublin Film Festival a week or so ago. The Roundstone Conversationalists would like to thank Magdalene College for its generous hospitality.

Dr Alex Mullen

Dr Alex Mullen, Henry Lumley Research Fellow in Classics was awarded the University’s Hare Prize (for the best thesis on a Classical subject). She has been elected to a 5-year Postdoctoral Research Fellowship at All Souls College, Oxford, to start in October after finishing her Junior Research Fellowship here at Magdalene.

Dr Stefan Halper

Donner Senior Research Fellow in International Studies, Dr Stefan Halper, was asked by US Secretary of Defense Robert Gates to develop an analysis of the “End-Game” in Afghanistan. Dr Halper’s report, drawing on British military, diplomatic, intelligence and academic experts, and also on discussions with former Soviet military, political and intelligence figures, will be submitted in April to Mr Gates. It is hoped the report will stimulate discussions leading to a timely conclusion to the conflict.

Jonathan Hellyer Jones

The Director of College Music, Jonathan Hellyer Jones, joined the College in 2002 and has recently returned from leave which he spent in New Zealand and Australia. While there, he gave organ recitals in several cathedrals (Christchurch, Newcastle and Melbourne) as well as on the oldest organ in Australasia – dating from 1779, made in London by John Avery, and taken out to Auckland by Bishop Selwyn in the 19th Century. It also has the distinction of being restored recently by Goetze and Gwynn, the English firm that made our Chapel organ, and specifically by Edward Bennett who is the Partner who usually comes to tune our organ.

In Christchurch, Jonathan and his wife Jane narrowly avoided earthquakes, arriving after the first, substantial two and leaving before the most recent, catastrophic one in late February. In Newcastle, they stayed with former Chaplain James and Anna Rigney in the Deanery, and in Melbourne he met the cathedral organist, June Nixon, whose carol was performed by King’s Choir in their broadcast on Christmas Eve. All of the organs were made in Britain and had a familiar feel to them.

While in New Zealand, he had an opportunity to play the world’s longest piano (over 18’ long), made by a serious young New Zealander who had devoted three years of his life to this project. It was a remarkable instrument with especially sonorous and thin bass strings, which produced a sound unlike anything he had heard before – there being an unusual clarity to the texture.

His visit to Brisbane was timed for the week after the flood waters peaked, and a visit to the Great Barrier Reef was a week before much of the coast had to be evacuated prior to the arrival of cyclone Yasi. He likes to think that his schedule was evidence of a technique that musicians call timing.

Dr Simon Stoddart

Dr Simon Stoddart (1977) is Director of Studies in Archaeology & Anthropology and University Senior Lecturer in Archaeology and currently engaged in fieldwork in Lazio, Central Italy. He has facilitated the forthcoming Magdalene Choir Tour in Castel di Rigone, Perugia, Gubbio and Assisi (Umbria, Italy) between the 4th and 8th of July, centred around the Abbey of Santa Maria di Valdiponte. This abbey is also the focus of an archaeological field project run from the College investigating the frontier between Gubbio and Perugia and members of the College will be excavating an Etruscan fortress near the abbey between the 31st of July and the 21st of August. All alumni are welcome to visit both events/activities and can contact Simon Stoddart on ss16@cam.ac.uk if interested.

Magdalene Prize Competition in Thermodynamics

The Thomson Challenge

Dr Jeffrey Lewins, a Life Fellow and Deputy Praelector, has generously offered a £1000 prize for the winner of the Thomson Challenge. Dr Lewins’ field of research is the application and interpretation of mathematical methods to nuclear power problems. The focus is on understanding and exploiting variational and perturbation methods, leading to new optimising techniques. The scope ranges through reactor kinetics and control, in-core fuel cycle optimisation, heat transfer and thermodynamics; stochastic theory, reliability and safety. He was Editor of the annual review series Advances in Nuclear Science and Technology (Plenum) and is General Editor of the Research Studies Press series of Research Studies in Nuclear Technology.

The topic for the competition is to explain the anomalous nature of the Thomson coefficient in thermoelectricity where observed values in Group 10 of the Periodic Table are generally negative but are positive in Group 11. A satisfactory entry will enable values of the coefficient to be calculated from first principles with a view to predicting values in new materials. The competition will close on the 1st of July 2015.

Entries will be in the form of a manuscript submitted to the Journal of Non-Equilibrium Thermodynamics for publication in the normal way with a copy sent to the Senior Tutor. Manuscripts should be marked “Magdalene prize entry”. Acceptance for publication by the journal will be recognition of a valid entry. If there is more than one valid entry, the decision of the Editor-in-Chief (advised by the Editorial Advisory Board) will determine the winner or winners. The prize money will be shared equally between winners. Full details can be found here http://www.magd. cam.ac.uk/thermoprize on the College website.

www.magd.cam.ac.uk