FACULTY RESEARCH & ACHIEVEMENTS
share his work with historians of English law through papers he gave at Cambridge’s Centre for English Legal History and Oxford’s Legal History Forum. Allred is an expert in strategic management and international business and enjoyed the fellowship as an opportunity to focus his energy on research, with ample time to write and engage with scholars from other fields. His wife, Kristyn, found the environment particularly conducive for her own research on diversity and inclusion. His recent research explores anonymous shell corporations, which often are associated with criminal activity. His work investigates a wide range of issues, including the factors that influence their creation by corporate service providers and the ease with which they are created, despite efforts to thwart them though international agreements and laws. A presentation that Allred made to an audience of graduate students and fellows at Clare Hall, who hailed from around the world and from diverse disciplines, was among the most gratifying experiences of his time at Cambridge. “When I presented my research, there was not a single person from business who attended,” he recalls. “I had another fellow come up afterward and tell me that she had never really been interested in business and that my presentation had changed her perspective.” Both professors enjoyed lectures, seminars and special events hosted by Clare Hall and other colleges across the Cambridge campus. For Allred, Cambridge’s “Festival of Ideas,” a two-week series of presentation on hundreds of different subjects, left a lasting impression. McSweeney says, “I really learned to appreciate the Cambridge collegiate system while I was there, partly because there are a lot of mechanisms for fostering conversation between people in different fields. At Cambridge, you’re
affiliated with a department or faculty of the university, and those are divided by academic discipline, but you’re also a member of a college, and the colleges bring together students and faculty from all different fields.” Both professors agreed that it was around tables in the commons where they had some of their most memorable and enjoyable conversations. “Clare Hall created an amazing community experience, especially around lunch and dinner,” says Allred. McSweeney recalls being “seated next to a lawyer from Libya at one dinner and an education student from Kazakhstan at another.” During lunch, Brent and Kristyn Allred would try to meet different people each time they dined. In one instance, they sat next to a couple they did yet not know, only to find out that one of them was a vice president at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, where Allred was going to be spending the second half of his leave. It happened that the vice president’s area of responsibility included international scholars, so this was a perfect introduction. It is a small world, indeed. When asked about some of the happiest memories of his time at Cambridge, Allred mentioned how much he and his wife enjoyed casual get-togethers with newly made friends, which included, for instance, a celebration of Finland’s Independence Day. For McSweeney, it was the morning that his wife, Abby, and their two young children stopped to watch a university procession to Great St. Mary’s Church. “I read up on the Cambridge traditions before we went, so I pointed out the proctors carrying the leather-bound university statute books to the kids. I really think we need proctors carrying leather-bound statute books at William & Mary’s academic processions,” he jokes. “I will volunteer to do that.”
FALL 2020
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