Achievements and Activities of Senior Members

DR TOM ADCOCK’S year was dominated by his duties as Associate Head (Teaching) in Engineering Science—trying to stay on top of the latest COVID guidance and organise the departmental teaching. Despite these distractions his group has produced much exciting research with significant work on how rogue waves can occur in laboratories when this is not representative of the real ocean; on non-linear wave loading on offshore wind turbines which can lead to resonances with the structure; and on how the size of plastic pollution in the ocean alters the speed at which it moves.

Henry V with Royal Shakespeare Company actors and hosted an ‘in conversation’ with actor Akiya Henry about playing Beatrice in the RSC’s recent production of Much Ado About Nothing. She continues as chair of the Cameron Mackintosh Drama Fund Board and of the Electoral Board for the Cameron Mackintosh Visiting Professor in Contemporary Theatre, contributes to the work of Oxford’s Humanities Cultural Programme through its Advisory Board, serves as a government appointment on the Marshall Aid Commemoration Commission, and has been elected to the Council for RADA (The Royal Academy of Dramatic Art).

DR TIMOTHY CLACK convened his ‘Culture at War’ undergraduate option paper for the first time. He continued his other teaching and supervision of research students. As of Trinity Term, he also mentored a Visiting Fellow from the Somali Red Cross at the Changing Character of War Centre.

This year PROFESSOR JUDITH

BUCHANAN spoke at the University of Edinburgh on the classicism of Shakespeare’s late plays, at the National Film Theatre, BFI Southbank, about the work of ground-breaking silent-era film star Asta Nielsen, and at Sotheby’s New York to mark the occasion of the sale of a rare 1623 Shakespeare First Folio. At Sotheby’s invitation, she spoke about the significance of the Shakespeare First Folio per se and about the specifics of the particular copy for sale, complete with its marginalia (pertinent and diversionary) accrued down the centuries. The volume fetched $2.5m at auction. She ran an online masterclass workshop on

Professor Daron

BURROWS continued work on his three-volume critical edition of the Anglo-Norman Verse Psalter, an early thirteenthcentury metrical translation (often very loose) of the Gallican version of the Old Testament book of Psalms, and was particularly honoured to deliver the annual memorial lecture at Aberystwyth in honour of David Trotter, the sorely missed editor of the Anglo-Norman Dictionary.

In October, he had an article published in the British Army Review on threats to Iranian cultural heritage. In November, the Falkland Islands Journal published his write up of archaeological excavations at a British World War II camp outside of Port Stanley. In January, he wrote a piece for The Conversation on the security implications of climate change. Tim accepted invitations to speak at a number of events: a Defence Human Security Advisor course at Shrivenham on culture in conflict (October); Oxford’s Natural History Museum on climate change and conflict (November); a climate security session with COP President Alok Sharma MP (February); and a ‘Fields of Conflict’ conference in Edinburgh on the archaeology of the Falklands War (May). Tim directed fieldwork on Mount Tumbledown as part of the Falkland Islands Mapping Project (March/ April) and at the site of Battle of Waterloo in Belgium (July).

Professor Gordon L

CLARK, Halford MacKinder Professor of Geography Emeritus and Senior Research Fellow

at St Peter’s has published a number of papers over the past academic year including “Agency, sentiment, and risk and uncertainty: fears of job loss in eight European countries”. This paper draws upon a research program on precautionary behaviour with Zurich Insurance which used advanced statistical methods and bespoke surveys across 18 countries designed to understand responses to risk and uncertainty notwithstanding differences in underlying employment conditions across the world. As well, Professor Clark gave a number of major presentations including a keynote address to the global economic geography conference in Dublin. There, his presentation was devoted to the role of finance in giving effect to global economic and political objectives. His advisory work continues including chairing the IP Group’s ethics committee along with commitments to significant US FinTech start-ups. He is also a university-appointed trustee on the Oxford Staff Pension Scheme.

Biology of Genomes meeting at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, New York in May 2022. This was his first scientific conference since the lockdowns, and it proved a very welcome chance to interact in person rather than via Zoom or Microsoft Teams. Huw continues to work as Editor in Chief of the Journal of Medical Genetics

His other activities in the year have included work with colleagues on the completion of a new textbook on clinical genetics and genomics, to be published later this year. He also served on the nominating (appointing) committee for the next ViceChancellor, who will take up office in January 2023.

During 2021/22 PROFESSOR enquiry into the pandemic; and papers in journals on topics including current employment trends in academia (Geography), trends in homelessness, and in health more widely. He is also looking into the implications of the cost of living crisis and how the pandemic, austerity and Brexit has (and is) affecting the distribution of poverty and income in the UK. Thankfully public talks have resumed and so he can travel a little again to give these.

On 5 April 2021 PROFESSOR

After two very busy years as Vice Master, DR HUW DORKINS took a much-needed sabbatical year in 2021/22. Ongoing clinical commitments and the effects of the Covid pandemic meant that his plans for the year were inevitably constrained, but he managed to attend the annual

DANNY DORLING has continued to look into statistics about the pandemic. He has published several comment pieces on the possible implications of the continuing pandemic, and continues to believe that it is still too early to be at all sure of what its medium-term implications may be. He is not just interested in its health implications, but also in the social and economic effects of the worldwide slowdown in areas ranging from population movement and productivity to the number of children being born both worldwide and in the UK. Alongside his DPhil student, Lu Hiam, he has published a short editorial in The British Medical Journal on the terms of reference of the forthcoming

TOM EARLE made it to the age of 75. He was surprised and touched that, some time later, this anniversary, which he had thought was only important to him and to his immediate family, was marked by a special conference and a dinner, organized by his kind friends and colleagues in the Sub-Faculty of Portuguese. The conference was about Portuguese literary culture around 1500, a highly significant year not just because it marked half a millennium, but because in 1499 Vasco da Gama had returned from the first voyage to India. It was a moment when great things were expected, and it was especially gratifying that a number of scholars from Portugal were able to come to St Peter’s and talk about them.

More recently, at the start of July of this year, Tom travelled to Braga, in the north of Portugal, to be the opening speaker at a conference celebrating the 650th