Eagle Eye Magazine Issue 1 2023

EAGLE EYE
THE QUEEN’S COLLEGE | OXFORD ISSUE 1 | 2023

EAGLE EYE | ISSUE 1 | 2023
CONTENTS
3
FROM THE PROVOST
4
THE NEW LODGE
8
SPOTLIGHT ON SHAKESPEARE
12
HISTORY AT QUEEN’S
16
BIOLOGY: THE WHOLE STORY
18
DISTINGUISHED VISITORS
21
OCEANS COUNT
23
ENZYMES TO ELECTRICITY
26
THE EARTHLY
28
THE POWER OF CHANGE
30
COLLEGE CARBON COMMITTEE
32
EVENTS CALENDAR
Cover photograph by David Fisher

The Provost at the 2023 College Garden Party | Tom Weller
FROM THE
PROVOST
It is a delight to write that the College has been celebrating the
completion of a full academic year unaffected by pandemic
restrictions: the first one for four years. And it has been a
good year. September saw the beginning of the new outreach
initiative to support disadvantaged young people in the North
West of England with work actually starting in the classrooms
of schools in Whitehaven and Darwen. This project, as well as
being an important initiative in its own right, re-invigorates the
College’s historic links to the homeland of its Founder, Robert de
Eglesfield, and is entirely due to the generosity of Old Members.
A College like Queen’s, rooted in history, often finds itself taking
the long view both backwards and forwards. We own copies of
all four of Shakespeare’s folios and in Trinity Term we took part
in the country-wide celebrations to mark 400 years since the
publication of the First Folio in 1623. Meanwhile, the Choir were
delighted to sing at a service in St James’ Palace attended by King
Charles III and the President of Portugal celebrating UK-Portugal
650. The College also celebrated 100 years of the Harmsworth
Visiting Professorship in American History, which was set up by
Lord and Lady Rothermere in memory of their son Vyvyan, who
died in the First World War. Several of the former Harmsworth
Professors came back to Oxford for a weekend of events organised
by the Rothermere American Institute, and a gala dinner
at Queen’s.
Looking forwards, we elected our very first Visiting Professor
in a wholly new scheme, again established by generous Old
Members, to mark the centenary of the introduction of the
iconic Oxford PPE degree. The first holder of this, the Centenary
Visiting Professorship in PPE, to be based at Queen’s, will
be Professor Christina Davis, who will be joining us from
Harvard in 2024. Meanwhile, the College has continued its
investment in the Tutorial system, which is the heart of what
we do here, strengthening our presence in Law from one to two
Tutorial Fellows.
The College continued to become more porous, deepening its
connections with other places of learning and leading figures
outside academia. We welcomed the first arrivals under a new
Distinguished Visitor scheme, in James Unwin, a cosmologist and
Jacky Wright, the former Chief Technology Officer at Microsoft.
At the annual Provost’s Lecture, we had the pleasure of hearing
from Honorary Fellow and founder of the World Wide Web,
Sir Tim Berners-Lee, and his co-founder at the World Wide Web
Foundation, Lady Rosemary Leith.
Student musical and sporting activity returned in full force,
perhaps with even greater energy than before the pandemic.
Recently the College echoed to the annual Eglesfield Musical
Society performances. At least partly because we were able
to remove student subscriptions, the College had a record six
crews on the river this year and, with the Chaplain, I had the
pleasure of christening two new boats donated by Old Members.
At Torpids, the College broke another record when the women’s
first boat had its best performance ever, bumping six times. Last
year the men’s first boat had their best performance since 1840 so
we hope next year they will both break records at the same time!
This year’s most visible major improvement to the College’s fabric
is the elegant new Porters’ Lodge. The new Lodge replaces the
lean-to that had been in use for several decades and now provides
level access to the College from the High Street for the first time.
Finally, I would like to pay brief tribute to my predecessor but
one, Sir Alan Budd, whose memorial service was held in the
chapel at the start of Trinity Term. Sir Alan’s eminence as an
economist was demonstrated by the fact that both the current
and past Governors of the Bank of England attended. One of his
legacies to the College is, of course, the way in which he was the
first Provost significantly to reach out to Old Members and to
begin systematically to build the relationships that have meant
so much to the College since, and which have enabled us to do so
much more for students and Fellows than we otherwise could.
Dr Claire Craig
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EAGLE EYE | ISSUE 1 | 2023
THE NEW
LODGE
Photo: 4 David Fisher

At the end of Trinity Term 2023, we opened the doors to a new Lodge, which is the greatest
change to the College’s frontage in modern times. Above all, the new Lodge provides level access
to the Front Quad from the High Street for the first time.
We asked our architects for the new Lodge, Burd Haward, to talk us through the project.
From where did you take inspiration for the overall design of
the new Lodge?
Designs were developed following an initial design competition
in 2014 for a new Porters’ Lodge. Our aim was to create an
improved sense of arrival at the College by expanding the entrance
‘threshold’ and improving accessibility for all, while at the same
time making a new functional space for the porters.
The previous Lodge – a narrow, free-standing glass and timber
structure dating from the 1960s – occupied half the width of the
south loggia and protruded awkwardly into the entrance gateway.
We carried out detailed studies of the existing lodge functions
and associated social interactions at the entrance and explored
the architectural significance and qualities of the loggia and
the surrounding spaces. This provided the basis for us to think
creatively about potential new locations for the Lodge.
Locating the new Lodge at the south-west corner of Front Quad,
within the former Domestic Bursar’s office, offered a good
relationship with both the existing entrance route, other College
offices, and, significantly, gave an opportunity to connect into
Beer Cellar Yard. By lowering the floor level in this corner room
and adding a small lift in the Beer Cellar Yard, wheelchair access
could be provided from the High Street into the new Lodge and
through into Front Quad.
The design of the new Lodge is rooted in its context. The new
opening formed between the Lodge and Front Quad has been
detailed to respond to the profile of the existing stonework
and pilasters. Internally, the arrangement gives porters direct
line of sight to the main entrance, and the plethora of keys and
equipment of a modern-day lodge are discretely housed in new
built-in joinery. The fluted oak detail to the desk and partition
echoes the curved form of the stone aedicules on the High Street
elevation and the vaulted ceilings in Front Quad. The material
palette of stone, dark oak flooring, light oak joinery, and dark
metalwork follows that used elsewhere around College.
The patterning of the new metal gates at the High Street entrance
to the Beer Cellar Yard is taken from the distinctive vermicular
rusticated carving of the Doric columns located either side of the
main College entrance. This pattern was traced and abstracted
to create a laser-cut profile. By referencing the existing entrance
detail, the design is rooted in history, but its materiality marks it
as clearly of its time. Its semi-transparent nature retains a visual
separation between the shopfronts to the west and the classical
plinth of the College quad to the east.
What were the challenges of creating something new within
our site?
Much of the building fabric at Queen’s is Grade 1 listed, which
meant it was complex to initiate change. Great care was taken to
minimise damage to the historic fabric through careful detailing.
Removal of sensitive historic fabric as a result of forming the new
opening into the lodge was justified both by improvements to the
Photo: David Fisher
“By referencing the existing entrance detail,
the design is rooted in history, but its
materiality marks it as clearly of its time
5

EAGLE EYE | ISSUE 1 | 2023
Photo: David Fisher
architectural qualities of the quad as a result of removal of the
existing Lodge, and by the significant public benefits of providing
improved access for all.
Spatial constraints of the site have also been challenging, not just
in terms of design, but also during construction. The restricted
nature of spaces required careful survey and design work,
alongside tight fabrication tolerances, in order to achieve the new
wheelchair accessible route through the Beer Cellar Yard and
into the quad.
What traditional trades have been used in the restoration of
the Drawda building?
A key component of the works was the removal of a relatively
modern (1950s) external brick chimney from the Drawda
building, which projected into the Beer Cellar Yard and restricted
access to the new platform lift. Unfortunately, once the external
wall had been opened up it became apparent that the historic
timber frame behind had suffered from significant decay –
primarily due to moisture ingress and entrapment behind an
inappropriate cement render system.
Externally, all cement render was removed from the gable
elevation and replaced with a breathable, lime render on timber
laths – enabling the existing structure to begin to dry out.
New lead flashings and cast-iron rainwater goods were installed
to improve weathering. Behind the external render, substantial
repairs were carried out on the historic structure; sections
of decayed oak frame replaced and repaired using traditional
carpentry techniques. Internally, historic timber panelling and
lime plaster has been repaired. More noticeable perhaps are the
areas of new and repaired stone around the lodge opening and in
the quad, where new stone was carefully matched to the existing,
and elements of existing stone reused.
What’s your favourite element of the new Lodge?
The uninterrupted view both into and from the quad, achieved
by the removal of the old Lodge and opening up the south-west
corner, is one of our favourite elements. The new Lodge is the
culmination of a myriad number of small moves, and in many
ways appears modest architecturally, but opening up the loggia
has significantly improved the sense of welcome around the
entrance and has transformed the experience of the quadrangle.
Peeking through from the new Lodge
into Front Quad during the construction
works; Before the wall came down
What sustainability considerations have been taken into
account as part of the work?
The environmental strategy for the project followed a holistic
approach, striking a delicate balance between conservation of
historic fabric, improvement in energy efficiency, and thermal
comfort. Throughout the design process we have looked at
different ways the existing buildings and spaces could be put
into full use rather than building anew. Re-purposing the
existing office space to suit the functions of the Porters’ Lodge is
inherently sustainable – helping to minimise embodied energy
and carbon emissions.
Within the Lodge, existing sash windows have been refurbished
with new seals and secondary glazing has been added to both
reduce heat loss and improve acoustics. Thermal blinds have been
added internally to limit solar gain. Alongside the timber frame
repairs to the Drawda building and new lime render, breathable
sheepswool insulation has been fitted within the external walls to
reduce heat and energy loss.
Hard-wearing, durable, and renewable materials have been
specified to maximise their effective service life. Use of locally
sourced or reclaimed materials has helped to minimise embodied
energy. The timber joists and flooring in the lodge, for example,
are original – these were carefully removed during the works, then
reinstalled at a lower level and restored. Where the nature of the
works necessitated removal of materials every effort was made to
secure a suitable new home.
What’s happening to the old Porters’ Lodge?
The old Porters’ Lodge has been carefully dismantled and taken
away by a local architectural salvage company (LASSCO) for
re-use.
Nathan Ireland, Associate, Burd Haward Architects
6

THE OLD
LODGE
Photo: David Fisher
Governing Body (GB) and Buildings Committee
Minutes show that the old Porters’ Lodge was
constructed at some point shortly after 1906. Until
then, the main entrance to the College had been on
Queen’s Lane, likely a hang-over from the medieval buildings,
since the main gate had been on the east side of College at that
time, opposite what is now the entrance to Teddy Hall. This
set-up was deemed ‘unsatisfactory’ in a report presented to GB in
December 1906. The entrance on Queen’s Lane was henceforth to
be reserved for ‘servants, tradespeople, for luggage and goods, for
vehicular traffic, and for admission after Midnight’.
As you can see from old photographs from the early 1900s
(see Front Quad, Queen’s College, Oxford, Oxfordshire, 1903. Artist: Henry Taunt
on gettyimages.co.uk) the set-up in Front Quad was originally
quite different: while the small wooden structure appears to be
the same one that was tacked on to the end of the post room in
the old Porters’ Lodge, it was positioned directly under the cupola,
rather than to the west of the main entrance.
Size was a recurring issue with the old Porter’s Lodge: too
small for comfort or for sorting the post, but evidently large
enough that, in 1925, GB empowered the Dean to put up notices
forbidding undergraduates from loitering at the Lodge and ‘using
it as a waiting room’.
But the general unsuitability of the space was recognised more
implicitly in plans for building work from the 1950s onwards,
when it was listed (fairly near the bottom) on a proposed schedule
of work to be undertaken in College.
Photo: David Fisher
In the mid-1960s, after the new Provost’s Lodgings had been built
and when the work on the Queen’s Lane Annexe (i.e. Carrodus
Quad) was well underway, the College began to think more
seriously about rebuilding the Porters’ Lodge. We have a letter
from this period from the College organist who appealed to
the Buildings Committee for the Lodge to be rebuilt, citing its
unattractiveness and the impractically small space available to the
porters, especially for sorting the post.
The College engaged the architect Marshall Sisson, who had
recently overseen the redesign of the Queen’s Lane Annexe, to
offer proposals for a new Porters’ Lodge and for improvements
to the Night Porter’s lodgings near the entrance into College on
Queen’s Lane. Sisson proposed that two structures should be built
on the south side of Front Quad, one on either side of the main
entrance between the cloister wall and the supporting pillar of
the cupola, creating two separate spaces: one to house the porters
and another to serve as a space to sort the post. Nothing came of
this proposal, however. In 1970, there was some further discussion
by the Buildings Committee of altering the Lodge to expedite the
process of sorting post, and even of moving the main entrance
to College back to Queen’s Lane, although neither suggestion
was adopted.
After 1970, there were sporadic suggestions that the Porters’ Lodge
should be redesigned (and in 1980, the Clerk of Works drew up
another scheme for the transfer of the Lodge back over to the
Queen’s Lane entrance) but these never went very far. It looks
as though other building projects always cropped up which
overshadowed interest in the lodge project.
It’s perhaps surprising to note the Lodge’s relatively recent
relocation to the High Street but there is further confirmation
of this in an article from the 1938 Record, which ponders the
differences between ‘modern’ Queen’s and the College during
the 1880s:
‘It seems strange to us to think of the quiet Oxford of the 1880s, the Front
Quad with its gas-lamps, a gravelled Back Quad not yet floodlit, the porter’s
lodge not as now in the High, but at the side-door in Queen’s Lane, so that
you drew up your hansom there on the first day of term, paid off the driver,
and bundled your bags in through the narrow entrance way as you inquired
the way to your rooms.’
Amy Ebrey, Assistant Archivist
7

EAGLE EYE | ISSUE 1 | 2023
SPOTLIGHT ON
SHAKESPEARE
Photo: David Fisher
2023 marked the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare’s First Folio. Queen’s joined the
celebrations with a one-day exhibition of our First Folio in College on 23 April, and with a
special trip to London where it was on display at Stationers’ Hall for our London Reception
for Old Members. At the event, College Librarian Dr Matthew Shaw, Career Development
Fellow Dr Jen Edwards, and actor Alfie Enoch (Modern Languages, 2007) explored in a
panel discussion what a First Folio actually is, how we use our copy at Queen’s, and why
Shakespeare’s works have endured on stage. You can catch up on their insights here.
FROM PAGE TO STAGE
AN INTERVIEW WITH ALFIE ENOCH
(MODERN LANGUAGES, 2007)
Do you remember when you first encountered the work
of Shakespeare?
I was probably about seven. My father was in the opening season
at Shakespeare’s Globe. To celebrate Shakespeare’s birthday, they
organised walking tours from Westminster Abbey to the Globe
with actors performing sonnets along the route. Outside what
is now The Tate Modern, I performed a sonnet my father had
taught me. I think it was the first thing I ever performed.
What’s your earliest memory of going to the theatre?
I remember watching Henry V which opened that first season at
the Globe. I loved history as a kid and walking into that theatre
was like walking into the past; the costumes, the set... They even
had young men playing the female characters, as they had done
in Shakespeare’s time (although then they would have been boys).
And to top it off my father played the King of France. I think that
was the first time I saw him on stage. Afterwards, I asked my
mum to paint my room blue and put Fleurs de Lys on the cornice!
You recently played Orlando in a production of As You Like it at
the West End’s newest theatre. What excited you most about
this role?
I wasn’t sure about Orlando at first. I had seen a Globe touring
production of As You Like It in the Bodleian quad and loved the
play, but I didn’t think the part would be particularly interesting.
However, as always with Shakespeare, the more you dig into it,
the more you find to play with.
The production was interesting because the company had two
deaf actors, both of whom chose to play their characters as deaf.
(Rose Ayling-Ellis, who played Celia; and Gabriella Leon, who
played Audrey.) The introduction of deaf characters opened
up all sorts of possibilities on a creative front and led to many
discoveries in the playing. It also made the production more
accessible. There were subtitles throughout, which was good
for deaf members of the audience as not everyone was signing,
but also good for those who didn’t know British Sign Language,
for when people were signing. It created a bit of a level playing
field because it meant that almost everyone engaged with the
subtitles to some extent, and many people commented afterwards
how much the subtitles had helped them better understand
the language.
What do you enjoy most about performing
Shakespeare’s plays?
The richness of his work and the possibilities it affords. There’s a
great line in Long Day’s Journey Into Night by Eugene O’Neill: ‘I loved
Shakespeare. I would have acted in any of his plays for nothing,
for the joy of being alive in his great poetry.’
8

Why do you think we’re still engaging with Shakespeare’s work
400 years on?
Sometimes it’s for the wrong reasons. With Shakespeare
being widely regarded as the pinnacle of English culture, that
engagement can feel like an exercise in veneration, or worse; some
kind of vague, woolly nationalism. That’s a shame because it does
a disservice to the work. The plays really are extraordinary, but
we need to recognise the gulf between them and most people
in a contemporary audience. It’s not enough to go through the
motions on the basis that everyone agrees that Shakespeare is
wonderful. You have to make a case for the plays every time you
put them on.
“As always with Shakespeare, the more
you dig into it, the more you find to
play with.
Alfie Enoch (Orlando) in As You Like It at Soho Place | Johan Persson
Many people struggle with the language used by Shakespeare
and might find it a barrier to his humour or to enjoying the
issues and themes he explores. As a former student of Modern
Languages, in what ways can we use a similar approach
to understanding Shakespeare as those we use to study a
foreign language?
The language does represent a real challenge. I studied a lot of
Spanish Golden Age literature as part of my degree, and I’ve
often felt that 16th and 17th century Spanish is less alien to the
contemporary Spanish speaker than Shakespearean English is to
a contemporary English speaker.
On my year abroad, I attended classes with a Spanish actor who
stressed how important it is to pay attention to the grammar.
I’d never heard that piece of advice given to actors before, but
the point was to really make sure you understand what you’re
saying. It goes for contemporary as well as classical texts, but if
you’re dealing with a 400-year-old play where the vocabulary and
the syntax can be totally different to what we’re used to, then it’s
particularly important. We spend a lot of time in rehearsals
working out exactly what is being said.
As an actor, how do you help the audience overcome any
difficulties with understanding the language?
Clarity is key. It would be overly optimistic to imagine that
everyone is going to understand every single word, but as actors
we need to know what we’re saying to give the audience a chance.
If you’re new to tennis but you see two great players on the court,
you‘ll get a sense of what’s going on and it will be exciting to
watch. If you see two people who don’t really know the rules and
don’t know what they’re doing, then you wouldn’t stand a chance.
Similarly, we actors need to know what we’re saying (and why), or
people won’t be able to follow and will lose interest.
But it’s also important that striving for clarity doesn’t come at
the expense of nuance and detail, because then you’re left with
something inauthentic and uninteresting.
You have played a variety of roles on film and in the theatre;
which has been your favourite?
That’s like asking what’s your favourite cuisine; you might get
a different answer on different days. I’ve always loved doing
Shakespeare, and playing Romeo at the Globe was a real highlight.
Another highlight was a play called Red that I did in the West End
about the artist Mark Rothko. Alfred Molina played Rothko and I
played his assistant. It was just the two of us. I’ve always admired
him as an actor, so to do that with him was an absolute joy. But
there are many other parts that I’ve loved playing; on stage, on
screen, and on the radio.
How did you find balancing your degree work with being in the
Harry Potter films?
It was disruptive in the sense that I would sometimes have to
miss lectures or tutorials because of filming, but I think it was
probably more of a concern for my teachers and professors than
it was for me. After all, I had been balancing my work with my
studies from the age of 11. The worst bit was missing time from
my year abroad. I went to Seville but I was only there for five
months. If it had been up to me I would have spent double that
time there.
Did you have the opportunity to get involved with student
theatre while at Queen’s?
I was in more plays in Oxford during my final year than all the
others put together. I wish I could have done more but I couldn’t
really commit to a play knowing there was a chance I could be
away filming. By my final year the films were done, so I was able
to get more involved.
Can you think of a particularly memorable tutorial?
I can think of a memorable set of tutorials. They were on the
Argentinian writer Jorge Luís Borges with Professor Edwin
Williamson and a good friend of mine, who’s probably one of the
cleverest people I know. If I had my time again, I would be a little
more diligent with the work I did for those tutorials, but I did
enjoy them. It’s also thanks to Professor Williamson that I fell
in love with Don Quixote. I attended his lectures on the novel
before I had actually had a chance to read it. The lectures had me
hooked before I had even opened the first page. They really were
so good.
9

EAGLE EYE | ISSUE 1 | 2023
QUEEN’S
FIRST FOLIO
In June 1844, one of the first Great Western Railway trains
to arrive in Oxford halted at the newly-constructed station
in Grandpoint. Along with passengers, the train carried post
and packages including – it seems likely from contemporary
correspondence held in the College Library – a box of books
from Thomas Rodd, a London bookdealer. One of these, Rodd
suggested to the College, would ‘complete all of your series of
early editions’ of Shakespeare. The College took Rodd up on the
suggestion and agreed to pay him £100 for the 1623 edition of
Mr. William Shakespeares comedies, histories, & tragedies (roughly £10,000
in today’s money), adding this volume to the 1632, 1664, and 1685
editions of Shakespeare’s plays held by Queen’s.
Although the title of the volume explains its contents, it is better
known to us today as the First Folio. As such, it was the first
collected publication of Shakespeare’s works, containing 36
of Shakespeare’s plays, 18 of which would be unknown to us
otherwise, including The Tempest, Macbeth, and Julius Caesar. Published
seven years after Shakespeare’s death by his friends and fellow
actors, John Heminges and Henry Condell, the text also helped
to consolidate his stature as a dramatist. The ‘folio’ format was
typically reserved for important texts, such as editions of classical
works or religious texts. Prior to this, those plays that had been
published were done so in ‘quarto’ format, meaning the single
folio sheet of paper had been folded twice, making eight smaller
pages. The ‘folio’ format, with the large sheets of printed paper
folder in half to make the pages of the book, was a much more
impressive publication: prior to Shakespeare, only Ben Jonson had
been published in this way. We also owe to the Folio our image of
Shakespeare: his portrait engraved by Martin Droeshout (apart
from this image, the only other known contemporary image, the
more flattering Chandos portrait, is preserved at the National
Portrait Gallery).
In 1841, a donation by an Old Member, Revd. Robert Mason,
placed the College in the enviable position of being able to
purchase such a valuable and sought-after text. The son of a
wealthy mill owner, Mason bequeathed £30,000 to the College,
stipulating in his will that the sum was to be spent on books
within three years. He also donated a substantial collection of
Members of the public viewing the Folio on Folio Day
Photo: David Fisher
Egyptian and other
antiquities, and £40,000 to
Shakespeare’s portrait engraved
the Bodleian. In the end, it took
by Martin Droeshout
some 10 years to spend the bequest,
Photo: David Fisher
with much of the resultant Mason
Bequest collection now on display in the Upper Library (the more
valuable items, like the First Folio, are stored elsewhere).
The Folio had been up for a sale a couple of times. Its first, and
most significant, owner was the actor, playwright, producer, and
theatre manager, David Garrick, who purchased the Folio in the
mid-eighteenth century for £1 16s (the rough equivalent of £200
in today’s terms). Garrick left his collection of ‘English Plays’ to
the British Museum library, but his widow held on to this copy,
along with several other volumes. The Folio retains Garrick’s
bookplate, and it is possible that some of the annotations and
markings within volume belong to him. In many ways, there is no
better association copy to possess, given Garrick’s importance in
placing Shakespeare at the centre of the English canon.
Was the purchase worth it? Certainly, it can be justified on a
number of grounds. Mason’s enormously generous bequest created
perhaps the finest collection of any British college library in the
19 th century, and the First Folio cemented its reputation, as perhaps
the most famous book by the most lauded of English writers. Its
acquisition helped to establish the intellectual coherence of the
collection, as well as burnishing the College’s reputation: only
Wadham and, until it was sold to Paul Getty in 2003, Oriel
colleges could boast a First Folio on their shelves (the Bodleian holds
two copies). More importantly, the Folio has been used. For example,
one Fellow, Henry W.G. Markheim, appears to have consulted the
1623 copy in advance of his lectures in the late 19 th century.
More recently, the Folio has been examined by scholars, including
Oxford’s Professor of Shakespeare Studies. Excitingly, Prof. Smith
identified for the first-time printer’s proof marks on one page in
King Lear (for example, correcting ‘mads’ to ‘mad’), placing the
Folio in very select company indeed. Only five other copies are
known to contain proof sheets, which provide valuable evidence
on the production process: if you look at the copy in the Bodleian,
for example, these errors have been corrected by the time that
section came to be printed. The text is a valuable aid to teaching,
and is carefully brought out and inspected under supervision
by students in the English renaissance literature seminar, for
example. And this year, to mark the 400 th anniversary of
its registration at Stationer’s Hall, the Folio has had several
memorable outings at College events, as well as a particularly
special viewing by Old Members at Stationer’s Hall itself in a
vitrine next to the very register in which its publication was
recorded. It’s hard not be pleased that the College accepted the
delivery in 1844.
Matthew Shaw, College Librarian
10

TEACHING
WITH THE FIRST FOLIO
Career Development Fellow in English Dr Jen
Edwards* uses the First Folio in her teaching.
We found out more about how and why she
uses this treasure to inspire current students.
How do you use the First Folio in your teaching, and what do
you think this approach brings to the students’ understanding
and appreciation of the works?
I tend to hold my first class of the teaching term in the library
with Librarian Dr Matthew Shaw – it’s a bit of a literary
‘sweet shop’, where we look at Shakespeare’s Folio(s) and an
assortment of other early modern texts from the vault: religious
proclamations; anatomy books; pamphlets; poems. Beyond being
a real treat, looking at the Folio in particular is useful in helping
unsettle the idea of Shakespeare’s works as fixed, stable entities
from the get-go: the Folio was published after Shakespeare died,
the tripartite splitting of plays into categories of Comedy, History,
or Tragedy isn’t his, and some of the plays existed in different
versions before the Folio was printed. So, we start with this book,
looking at the famous image of Shakespeare (also done after he
died), the title page, some of the typos and annotations, and use
this to think about what exactly it means to study ‘Shakespeare’.
My hope is that students leave the room feeling that these works
remain ‘up for grabs’ and open to interpretation.
Shakespeare is unusual in that he has his own paper on the
English degree at Oxford, but I think it’s important that we don’t
just think about him in a vacuum, as being somehow separate
from other concerns and work of the time. What excites me as
a researcher, and as a teacher, are the crosscurrents between
Shakespeare’s work and those of his contemporaries – putting his
work in dialogue with, say, writing about medicine or philosophy,
can really bring the texts to life. We know Shakespeare borrowed
lots of material too so it’s useful to look at some of his sources
and see what he takes and what he changes. I guess I also don’t
agree with the idea that Shakespeare’s plays are just meant to
be performed and not read, which is something you hear often
but I have always found this a bit frustrating and reductive –
there is so much we can gain from reading these works and from
thinking about them as material, printed texts.
How do you think students today respond to Shakespeare?
One of the great things about studying Shakespeare at Oxford is
that students can approach the plays and poems from so many
different angles: there is no set way to read or think about these
texts, so responses to Shakespeare can be shaped by, for example,
an interest in gender studies, critical race, the environment,
politics, medicine, translation etc.. It is important for us to keep
asking ourselves about Shakespeare’s place in our canon (and to
note that our responses don’t necessarily need to be positive to
be productive), but each year I have found that students respond
to these plays and poems in ways that position these texts not as
out-of-date and stuffy, but as timely and urgent.
Do you have a favourite Shakespeare play and why?
Yes and no (I know that is cheating!). I have definitely had
favourites, at various points, but my favourite changes –
Othello was the first play I ever studied, ever saw, so it holds a
particular power for me, but Hamlet is probably the play I find
myself returning to and thinking about the most (surely, I can’t
say Hamlet is my favourite? How unoriginal!). I guess my honest
answer is that I just really enjoy whatever I am working on at
the time, and that that will likely be in contention for top spot
whenever I’m asked this question. Right now, that would be
The Comedy of Errors and the narrative poems – the latter aren’t plays,
obviously, but I want to plug them a little: the poems often get
overlooked, and Venus and Adonis was far and away Shakespeare’s
most popular work at the time, and it’s brilliant.
Can you tell us a bit about your project that looks at issues of
distraction at Shakespeare’s Globe?
This project began back when I was in post at the Globe in 2019,
where I led an oral history project that asked actors and directors
how they responded to distractions in the space (a question
informed by Hamlet’s line about ‘this distracted Globe’, as well
as the grumblings of a particular theatre critic). We tend to think
of distraction as a negative thing, but answers to this question
often veered towards the positive – yes, noisy planes, bad weather,
audience members wandering around can be a bit annoying, but
there was a keen sense that distraction could also constitute and
contribute to performance in this space in wonderful ways: that it
is part of the ‘liveness’ of theatre, a shared experience that brings
everyone in the space together during that particular show.
The project weaves together things like actor interviews, show
reports, and reviews, and pays attention to various distractions
like the weather, fainting audience members, the recent global
pandemic, and thinks about how those elements generate
meaning. My book on this – This Distracted Globe: Attending to Distraction
in Shakespeare’s Theatre – has just been published by Cambridge
University Press.
Jen’s tutorial with a Shakespeare First Folio | David Fisher
* Dr Edwards left her post at Queen’s at the end of the academic year 2022-23 to take up a post
as Assistant Professor in English and Theatre at the University of Warwick.
11

EAGLE EYE | ISSUE 1 | 2023
HISTORY
AT QUEEN’S
Jarrow, St Paul’s Monastery
Many Old Members who read History at
Queen’s will have been taught by Professors
John Blair and John Davis who both retired in
the past three years. Find out more about our
two new Fellows in History as we introduce
them in the following interviews.
FELLOW IN HISTORY
DR CONOR O’BRIEN
(THEOLOGY, 2010)
What first sparked your passion for history?
I was initially interested in English Literature but at the start of
my undergraduate study, I was fortunate to be taught by some
extremely charismatic people in the area of the Late Roman
Empire. Dr Jennifer O’Reilly showed us these old-fashioned slides
with gorgeous multi-colour close-ups of objects and illuminated
manuscripts and I was hooked. I knew nothing about this area,
but it all came to life for me very quickly. I had always enjoyed
studying the past, but it was then that I realised it’s also what I
really cared about.
How do architectural remnants of the past help us understand
the worldviews of medieval people?
I work in such an early period that there’s not much left that
people can actually see so it’s very special when we do have things
to look at. The UK is home to stone churches that were built
before the year 700. The oldest stained glass in the country can
be found in Jarrow. It’s an incredible place to visit. You can see
the history there matters a lot to the local community: they have
a very strong sense of being grounded in the past and a sense of
“I teach my students to be intellectually
empathetic and willing to incorporate
other, often very different, points of
view in our explanations. Too often
people assume those in the past
behaved and thought the way we do.
continuity that creates a firm regional identity. In York the Yorvik
Centre is incredibly popular and the Roman walls you can see
in the city provide ways for people to think about how the past
shapes their identity. In Oxford you can see a Romanesque door
just next to the big Sainsburys; it’s a completely unexpected ghost
of an earlier Oxford and you don’t have to be an academic to find
this juxtaposition fascinating and to be excited about the people of
the past who used that door. It makes real the humanity of those
who went before us.
To what extent does context matter when understanding
human behaviours and experiences in the past?
It matters a huge amount. One thing we want students of
History to be able to do is think about context in the sense of
Photo: John Cairns
12

understanding the whole connectedness of society and not just
learn about slices of things through time. Clearly, we have to
break things down into themes and topics to teach them, but we
need to look at context in order to bring it all back together. Life
was as complicated in the past as it is now, so we need to think
about people as individuals with specific experiences shaped
by who they met and their environments. We ask questions
about background to figure out the larger picture.
More broadly, the human element
in History as a discipline is the fact
that you are being forced to grapple
with other people: people who are
different and separated by time and
space. We ask our students to explain
why things happened the way they
did, and they don’t always think
about how people at the time might
have explained their own behaviour.
If people then did things that appear
strange to us now, to begin to explain
them, we need to work with the grain
of their thought to find out what’s
going on. All of this is good practice
for thinking about being a person
and dealing with other people. I
teach my students to be intellectually
empathetic and willing to incorporate
other, often very different, points of
view in our explanations. Too often
people assume those in the past
behaved and thought the way we do.
In a recent article you argue against
the popular view that people in the
early Middle Ages didn’t draw a
clear distinction between religious
and secular life; what led you to
Stained glass at Jarrow | The World According to Bede
this conclusion and what are the key
considerations when making this assessment?
The assumption that people didn’t divide religion and non-religion
before a certain period in time felt very generalised to me, as
though at some defined point a switch was flicked, and people
then did things a whole new way. I am always suspicious of grand
narrative theories and so I explored the possibility that things
were messier and more complicated than this. This was what I
saw reflected in the sources I read. People are adaptable: there can
be shifts in where the predominance of focus lies but this does
not preclude the idea that people have always used a distinction
between religious and secular life when it suited them to do so.
How have other disciplines influenced your research?
I started out as a Literature and History student, so I have always
been interested in reading source material. I am very open to
‘non-hard’ historical sources. We can get evidence from poetry
and cultural artefacts in general. I am interested in reading
anthropology and religious studies: my interest in religion means
there’s many disciplines to take into account. People everywhere
always talk about the past so there’s an inevitable blurring of
the lines between different disciplines. I am interested in human
society on a larger scale then just my specialist period so I want to
engage with bigger ideas about humanity and see what the study
of my period can contribute to the wider story.
What excites you about history at Queen’s?
Undergraduate teaching is at the core of what I do and, for me,
the tutorial system remains the most
rewarding and meaningful way of
teaching history. I joined Queen’s
in October 2020, in the middle of
a lockdown. It was a happy accident
that small-group teaching was
‘COVID-19 secure’ so we were able
to continue to a large extent. This
brought home to me how personal our
style of teaching is: we get to know
our students rather than teaching
them online in large groups. Each
year we think hard about the different
cohorts and how we can enable them
to flourish.
What do you enjoy about teaching?
Seeing people change. Students change
very dramatically between the ages
of 18 and 21: they change their minds,
and they change themselves. The
College community creates a special
relationship where you devote a lot
of time to individual students and
feel very connected to doing the good
work of teaching, helping students
find their niche and nurturing their
passions. You are teaching them, not
just teaching.
What will you be working on over the Long Vac?
After exam board, I will get back to my book, which is due
in September 2024. The book examines the rise of Christian
Kingship and is related to my earlier research on de-secularisation
in Europe in the Middle Ages. Essentially it asks: why did people
think you had to be a good Christian to be a good ruler?
What’s your favourite place in Oxford?
The Lower Reading Room in the Old Bod is a very special place.
It’s where I worked for my doctorate and after that on Saturdays
for my research. My primary sources are on the shelves there.
Apart from that, I like the green spaces: the meadows and the
parks. So, reading and then relaxation!
Can you give us a book recommendation?
The book I recommend to every undergraduate is The Dawn of
Everything by David Graeber and David Wengrow. It’s an energising
read that prompts us to think about big historical changes that
have led us to where we are today.
13

EAGLE EYE | ISSUE 1 | 2023
DR MELEISA
ONO-GEORGE,
BRITTENDEN FELLOW IN HISTORY
What first ignited your passion for history?
I’m not sure there was one thing – it was probably a series of
moments. One of these moments was when I was in Guyana,
in the Caribbean, with my parents at the age of about nine.
It was my first trip there and I was confronted with a level of
poverty I had never encountered before in Canada, where I am
from. A little boy about my age approached me outside a bank
begging. I remember how ragged he looked: he didn’t have any
shoes on, and his shirt was torn and dirty. I offered him the loose
change jangling in my pocket. But then the bank security guard
approached us and shooed him away by threatening him, not just
for being near the bank entrance but also for begging change from
me. My parents quickly moved me away, but the poverty and the
way in which this child was treated really shocked and upset me.
I also identified with him in some ways. My mum is from Guyana
and grew up poor. What I saw in that boy was a poverty that
I felt could have been my own. After that, I had a conversation
with my parents about the experience and listened to the way they
discussed the wider condition of the country, at least as much as
I could understand, basically the history and politics. I suppose
that was my first lesson in the way the past and present are
intrinsically connected.
What draws me to history is that it can provide an explanation for
why things are the way they are. I learned from an early age that
history is not just about dates and names, the kind of things kids
are often taught to memorise in school. I learned to look beyond
school. The only thing I learned about people of African ancestry
in school was that our ancestors were enslaved—the teacher
showed us the TV show, Roots. This was the eighties. That was
about it. I learned the vibrant and radical history of the Caribbean
and Black folks not from my teachers, but from my parents and
my community.
You have talked about history as a tool of change. Can you
explain what that means and how it motivates you as
an historian?
History has always been mobilised for a purpose. History is
not just a retelling of the past, it’s a constructed narrative based
on interpretations of pieces of archival records or testimony. I
always say that history is more of an art or craft then it is any
science. And the stories we craft, the history we produce, can
be used in all kinds of ways. How do we tell stories about who
we are and where we have come from? How do we tell stories
about what matters to us? It is also very political and can be an
incredibly powerful and divisive tool, as well as a way of bringing
folks together.
For me, I use history to challenge what people generally assume
to be normal and what we take for granted as the way things have
‘always been’. Part of the history that I do is focused on ideas
“I love teaching something I’m working
on: you get quite different responses and
views, and it feels like a real exchange, like
I’m also learning from them.
of “race” as a social construction, the cumulation of ideas and
practices that emerged in European colonial expansion, slavery, and
the Enlightenment. One of the things I’m looking at in my current
project is the ways in which ideas of both whiteness and blackness
were being refined and the boundaries of racial difference hardened
in the late 18 th century. The ways we think of racial difference
today, what it means to be a white person or a black person,
and even who we label as such, were not the same way folks in
the 18 th century thought about such categories and themselves.
So, the way we think about racial difference is something that is
constructed; part of my work is trying to unpick some of this to
show how the beliefs we have about racial difference in Britain
have been formulated and embedded over time.
Your current research focuses on the life of an Afro-Jamaican
woman in the late 18 th century. What interests you about her?
I am writing a book on Amelia Newsham, a woman born enslaved
and with albinism in Jamaica who was then brought to England as
a child so that she could be exhibited as a curiosity and studied by
anatomists, naturalists, and philosophers. More specifically, I’m
tracing the archival fragments of her life to talk about the ways
in which ideas of racial difference are being defined and refined
during this period.
For an enslaved woman in Georgian Britain, Amelia is very
present in the archives. I’ve been able to find details about her
everyday life that are often not recoverable in the archives of Black
British life during this period. For instance, I know that she liked
to sew, read, and sing. And that she had smallpox as a young girl
in London. Part of the reason I’ve been able to trace her life is
Photo: David Olds
14

ecause, unlike so many other people of African ancestry brought
to England as a curiosity, Amelia survives. And she survives at
least into her 50s. I know this may not seem like much, but you
have to understand that I am so often confronted with Black lives
cut short in the archives.
What can we learn about wider
social changes from examining the
everyday lives of individuals?
I am interested in the ways in which
people are able to live within social
structures that are very oppressive,
that are meant to keep them in a
subjugated position, that devalue their
lives. I am thinking here specifically
of Black lives, poor lives, the lives of
the socially marginalised. I’m also
interested in the legacies of these
structures and systems we assume to
have ended because there have been
changes in the law but are still present.
By looking at things on a macro level,
you think you can see big changes
but by looking at individuals you see
what those changes mean, or don’t
mean, and you start to see how little
might have actually changed. As a socio-cultural historian, it can
be frustrating to see this – you see how things are articulated
differently but the intrinsic ideas are still there.
What aspects of Caribbean research methodologies do you
draw upon in your work?
I’m particularly interested in a Caribbean research methodology
that draws on storytelling as a key part of the process and sitting
with multiple, sometimes contradictory, interpretations, different
ways of seeing and understanding. It puts me in mind of the
way my parents relayed history when I was young. It was told
almost parable-style with one message cloaked in another. They
were giving me and my siblings tools from the past to use in
the present. One of my forthcoming projects is to bring people
together from different generations to ‘lime’ (to chat) and share
stories or rather, their own interpretations of the past and its
legacies. It’s more than information-sharing, it’s also different
ways of communicating the feelings of the past, of what it meant,
and continues to mean. And in doing this, articulating what we
hope and imagine for the future.
What do you most enjoy about teaching history?
The joy of seeing someone encountering something for the
first time. It’s incredibly rewarding to see students develop
intellectually over the course of one term, let alone their whole
degree. As teachers, we make an investment in young people,
both intellectually and emotionally. I value giving them a tool
for understanding the world around them. The other thing I love
is teaching something I’m working on: you get quite different
responses and views, and it feels like a real exchange, like I’m also
learning from them.
What do you think of the new Netflix drama Queen Charlotte:
A Bridgerton Story, which follows the imagined life of Queen
Charlotte who was Queen Consort to George III and patron of
Queen’s in the 18 th century.
I’m a fan of the Bridgerton series. I think
it is fiction done well because it doesn’t
take itself too seriously. What a
series like Queen Charlotte show us is a
different way of using the past to talk
about the present. Questions around
Charlotte’s race are not new, but the
series raises interesting questions for
the public about what “race” was in the
18 th century and what could have been,
which I think is a useful conversation
to have.
Can you give us a book
recommendation?
I have two for you: In the Wake:
On Blackness and Being by Christina
Sharpe, which is an important text
for me in my research and in thinking
about the continued legacies of slavery
and the formulations of anti-blackness
A sketch of Amelia Newsham during the Enlightenment. It’s also
beautifully written and I have found myself moved to tears by
her writing.
My other pick is Babel: An Arcane History by R.F. Kuang, which
is classed as young adult fiction, but is still great! It’s a cross
between historical fiction and sci-fi, set in Oxford in the early
Victorian period. I found myself really drawn into the world
crafted by Kuang, a testament to good writing. It’s about empire
and the power of language, but also how we use the power and
privileges we have, even if they are limited, to do right.
If you would like to support the teaching of History
at Queen’s, you can do so by making a gift to the
John Prestwich Fellowship in History.
Thanks to the generosity of Old Members and
Friends, the Fellowship is currently at £2.5M of its
full endowment goal of £3M.
Once complete, the Prestwich Fellowship will join
with the Brittenden Fellowship (endowed in 2020
thanks to a legacy gift from Fred H. Brittenden
(1946, Modern History)) to ensure that the teaching
and study of History at Queen’s is safeguarded
in perpetuity.
To make a donation, please visit
https://bit.ly/485ofUG or contact
development@queens.ox.ac.uk
15

EAGLE EYE | ISSUE 1 | 2023
BIOLOGY
THE WHOLE STORY
“We desperately need scientists
to better explain their science in
a language that engages people.
I also think that knowing more
about biology can really enrich
your everyday experience. I always
see something interesting every
time I leave the house!
Spotted (variable) sea hare | iStock.com/Daniel Poloha
Michel Fellow and Tutor for Plant Sciences Professor Lindsay
Turnbull has just published a beautifully illustrated and accessible
book on the story of life on Earth. We asked her to tell us about
the book and why it’s indispensable both for students of biology and
anyone curious about how life works.
Your book Biology: The Whole Story is published in August 2023.
What was your motivation for writing this book?
When I arrived in Oxford in 2013, I had to give tutorials to
support the first year of our course. I’m an ecologist, so had to get
up to speed on a whole range of biological topics, but I absolutely
loved it! So, I had the idea to produce a book that covered the
whole span of biology but focussed only on the essentials. Biology
has grown enormously, and I noticed that
the students were a bit lost in the details
and lacked a big picture. This book seeks to
remedy that.
Who is the book for and what do you hope
readers will enjoy about it?
It’s really pitched at A level students or bright
GCSE students, but I hope that many adults
who stopped studying biology years ago might
enjoy it too. Biology is often presented as a
mass of unrelated facts, so I hope this book
helps people to see how different areas of
biology fit together. My main hope is that all
readers, whatever their age, enjoy reading it.
Science is too often presented in a dry way,
and I’ve tried hard to make it a fun read.
The book features beautiful illustrations by scientist and
artist Cécile Girardin. To what extent did you conceive of these
illustrations when planning the book and what was it like to
collaborate on this project?
The illustrations are a vital part of the book, but I only started
drafting them once the text was finalised. They are much simpler
than most textbook diagrams, which in my opinion are often
too complicated. In essence, they are the kind
of diagrams that a tutor might sketch on a
whiteboard – just the essentials that will make
the concept clear. But Cecile really took them
to the next level! She’s so talented and working
with her and the book designer, Katie Bennett,
was a hugely enjoyable and intense part of the
creative process.
You have also recently published a book
called Scientific Papers Made Easy with a focus
on teaching others to pass on knowledge
clearly to have impact on the wider world.
Why is accessibility of expertise a key theme
in your work?
Many of the greatest challenges facing
society are biological: antibiotic resistance,
16

the climate crisis, the biodiversity crisis, sewage in rivers, etc.
Yet misunderstandings persist and disinformation is rife. We
therefore desperately need scientists to better explain their science
in a language that engages people. I also think that knowing more
about biology can really enrich your everyday experience. I always
see something interesting every time I leave the house!
You’re leading a long-term study into the value of the
Ridgeway National Trail for conserving the biodiversity
associated with chalk grassland. Can you explain what
biodiversity means and why it’s so crucial?
Biodiversity is an overused word, but it’s just a shorthand for all
biological variation. Most people probably think only of species
diversity, but there’s important genetic variation within species
that needs to be preserved. For example, the red kite wasn’t
extinct in the UK, but the tiny remnant population in Wales was
incapable of spreading further. Once new birds were brought from
a large Swedish population, the population boomed, and it’s now
common to see them over the College. I don’t know for certain,
but I suspect that the new birds are in much better genetic health,
and that’s the main reason for their success.
What will be the focus of your work on this project over the
summer vacation?
On The Ridgeway we are trying to restore degraded chalk
grassland on the verges of the National Trail. When properly
managed, chalk grassland is one of the most species-rich habitats
on the planet. But if you don’t manage it properly, you lose all the
wildflowers and grass takes over. Grazing animals used to manage
it naturally but keeping animals on the trail isn’t compatible with
public access, as so many people have dogs. We have trialled a
mowing regime that takes place in late August, once plants have
set seed, and it’s been very successful. We are also sowing back
the species that have been lost. Now we want to scale up from
our small experiment and engage the farmers in the management
regime. In fact, we’ve already started doing this, so I hope that
in a few years, you will be able to see an incredible variety of
wildflowers along The Ridgeway, instead of a monoculture
of grass.
When you’re not teaching or doing research, you are also the
Garden Fellow at Queen’s. What has been your vision for the
College gardens?
A good garden is one with a particular atmosphere and at Queen’s
I think Andrew Timms (the current Bursar) sums it up when he
says we’ve gone for cottage garden on steroids! We’ve done a lot in
the past eight years. My first action was to plant the cherry trees
in Front Quad, which was quite contentious at the time, but I love
the way they change with the seasons. The area under the holm
oak has also been transformed and is now planted with shadeloving
shrubs (thanks to a comment from an Old Member!).
We’ve also thinned the canopy of the oak to reduce the shade it
casts, and to stop it encroaching on the buildings.
Restoring the Provost’s Garden following the New Library project
was probably the biggest challenge, but I’m very happy with the
outcome. The overall vision for the garden is to support biological
diversity, and therefore the local wildlife, but also to have a garden
that looks good all year round. On the wildlife front, we have
nesting blue tits, wrens, blackbirds, doves, and even ducks. We
also have solitary bees nesting in the bee boxes. An inter-collegiate
study found that we actually have the highest diversity of bees
across all colleges, perhaps because we don’t use any chemicals in
the borders and have such a high diversity of plants.
It’s also important that people can enjoy the gardens, so we
ordered more garden furniture, which is now used for picnics,
studying, teaching and some meetings (like this interview!).
What’s the best thing people can do in their own gardens to
support biodiversity?
One crucial way that gardeners can help is to support insects,
which have declined terribly and are essential food for other
animals, like birds. Insects are best supported by native perennial
plants – if you’ve got space for a small area of meadow – that’s
really the best. I’ve been amazed how many insects I get in my
own ‘meadow’, but it does look a bit untidy, so it’s not everyone’s
cup of tea. Otherwise, try to plant perennials, rather than bedding
plants, which normally produce little or no pollen. My top tip for
acquiring new plants for your garden: ask your neighbours to split
plants and share cuttings. Chances are, if it flourishes in their
gardens, it will in yours too.
Tell us what makes your favourite animal, the sea hare, special?
It’s hard to pick a favourite, but I chose the sea hare because,
although they can be found in the UK, they’re really quite exotic
and fundamentally strange. I’ve spent years hunting for them
in rock pools and it brings me a lot of joy to wonder at their
weirdness.
Greater Yellow-rattle
Photo: iStock.com/Toro Attila
And, since your full title is Fellow in Plant Sciences, do you
have a favourite plant as well?
I don’t really have a favourite, but I marvel at the yellow-rattle.
It’s hemi-parasitic and lives in UK grasslands, parasitising the
grasses but not the wildflowers. For this reason, it’s also known
as the meadow-maker, as it helps wildflowers to thrive among the
dominant grasses.
17

EAGLE EYE | ISSUE 1 | 2023
DISTINGUISHED
VISITORS
Queen’s has launched a new initiative to appoint one academic and
one non-academic Distinguished Visitor each year. Such visitors
are leading figures from academia and throughout the public and
private sectors. During their residency, it is expected that they
contribute actively to the intellectual life of the College at all levels:
undergraduate, postgraduate, Fellowship, and Old Members. Our first
two Distinguished Visitors spoke to us about their time in College.
Jacky Wright, Chief Technology and
Platform Officer at McKinsey and former
Chief Digital Officer at Microsoft:
non-academic Distinguished Visitor
(May 2023)
How has your curiosity shaped your career?
I have been curious from a young age. My dad bought me
a fabulous thick book of places all over the world and I
thought, when I grow up, I want to go to all of them. I loved
reading and I used to write my own stories. I would go to the
library every week. I think my curiosity was born from that,
nurtured by my family, and it has stayed with me through
life. It has made me travel and want to find out more about
different people and places.
Clearly one of the major digital innovations at present is
the development of AI and you have previously spoken
about AI as an augmenter. Can you explain what you mean
by this?
I am interested in both people and technology. When I started
my career, I automated a piece of my work and then taught
myself to code. I wanted to see how I could use the technology
to help people. AI is an augmenter in the macro sense. It
can help people to varying degrees: it could completely
replace humans for some tasks or augment some tasks. The
acceleration of its current development is at a rate that has not
been seen before. We need to keep abreast of it in thoughtful
18
From left: Ethnic Minority JCR Representatives Soumia Bouda and Angelica
Kanu, Jacky Wright, and JCR President Roisin Quinn in the Shulman Auditorium

and responsible ways and spend time
looking at different possible scenarios.
AI can be seen at the intersection
between people and technology. How
should we shape our ethics to make the
best of this relationship?
I am a firm believer in the necessity of good public and private
partnerships to solve problems. There are existential problems
contained in big issues such as AI and climate change so we need
to create partnerships between thought leaders and business
partners to shape ethical practices that can be globally applied.
These problems are disruptive to humanity across the board and
must be addressed collectively.
There is evidence to show that humans are prone to doing what
machines tell them to do in the context of decision-making
(e.g. we have moved from a garbage in/garbage out mindset to
garbage in/gospel out mindset). How can we make sure that
keeping humans ‘in the loop’ is managed effectively to produce
the best results?
In order for the ‘human in the loop’ approach to be effective, it
must be embedded into the development lifecycle of a project.
This means that the review process relating to the development
of models needs to have an ethical framework and expertise
from different fields (e.g. law, economics) embedded and set to
ask prompt questions, including around risk, at the right time,
every time. Only by having humans interjecting throughout the
development of technological models can we uncover unintended
consequences. And we need policies to make this happen.
Now that the technology is in the hands of everyday citizens,
we have to ask: how do we govern this? It is both exciting
and worrying.
“The most powerful thing
is that if people can see
something, then they believe
they can make it happen for
them too.
There was a recent piece from a
current student at Oxford about her
experience of what is being termed
‘eco-stress’, the feelings of anxiety
and sadness associated with major
environmental and climate issues. I
know many of us share these feelings.
How can we look to both people and
technology to give us hope?
Technology has engendered anxiety in a way never seen before.
In the past, humans had relatively limited exposure to things
based on what they read. Now it is pushed to us 24/7. This can
help with raising awareness of issues, but it also trains our brains
to look for instant knowledge. I think technology is completely
instrumental in creating the levels of eco-stress that we are seeing.
So, what do we do about it? I think we need to govern the use of
technology, we need to consider mental health aspects, perhaps
even require technologists to think about mental health as a core
part of tech evolution.
What key questions do you ask within a business setting that
would also be useful in an educational institution?
What is our purpose? How do we make our talent fit for purpose?
How can we make the best of generational differences? How do
our policies shape us? Do we have understanding partnerships?
How is our work shaping the world at large?
As an institution, how can Queen’s most effectively build trust
to attract as diverse a pool of talented applicants as possible?
Use storytelling. If your reputation differs from your brand, then
show people why the reputation is wrong. Pay attention to the
stories told about you and build external relationships so that the
stories you tell about yourself get heard.
In 2022 you were named the UK’s most influential person of
African or African Caribbean heritage by The Powerlist. What
does this accolade mean to you?
A year on, it means I am in the public eye a lot and, being an
introvert, that is hard. But the visibility means I can create a
platform for the good of all. The most powerful thing is that if
people can see something, then they believe they can make it
happen for them too. I have a responsibility to bring people along
– both people who look like me and people who do not. I am
humbled and honoured by it.
How can businesses make positive changes for the long-term?
I believe that in all settings, people have a responsibility to their
constituents, to those they work for, and to the greater good.
This needs to be considered when developing a brand strategy
in order to be successful and it needs to be communicated to all
employees and stakeholders so they know what they stand for.
To what extent does culture and purpose have to be engendered
from the top before it can be communicated more widely?
Grassroots efforts are important, but the tone absolutely has to be
set from the top.
How can older companies or institutions transform their
traditions by taking the best of what’s gone before and
moving forward?
Spend time identifying your core competencies and distinctive
features. What are you known for? Keep these. Then think about
what you need to bring in and build the new things around the
core identity. Boundaries, real and perceived, need to be removed
and process and rewards will help to drive changes.
Tell us about your time at Queen’s so far.
It feels like a community of deep thinkers! I met some students,
and they had some excellent questions for me. I can see it is a
place that engenders a diversity of thought. So, my question to
them is how can we harness the power of deep thinkers to help
both them and society? I hope my visit has encouraged College
members to think about how they can engage, adapt, and get their
voices heard.
For my part, I have seen the way that teaching is delivered here
in a highly personalised way through the tutorial system. This is
truly priceless. It has made me think about ways my own team
might benefit from Oxbridge’s unique approach.
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EAGLE EYE | ISSUE 1 | 2023
Looking out across the gardens towards the Radcliffe Camera on
a clear day, sitting by the fireplaces, enjoying a dinner in the hall,
and most of all talking to people who have deep knowledge and
great passion for their areas of expertise.
Can you tell us a bit about the questions you ask in your
research and the ideas you explore?
My primary research focus is at the intersection of particle
physics, astrophysics, and cosmology. In particular, I enjoy
working on topics in which new or upcoming experiments are
focused, which gives the opportunity for new discoveries or
mysteries. Our current understanding of the universe is very deep,
we can describe the constituents of matter at the smallest scales
and give the history of the universe back to the first few minutes
with remarkable success. However, many puzzles still remain,
such as the why the elementary particles have different mass ratios
and what comprises the so-called “dark matter” — being matter
that can be inferred from gravitational interactions but has not
been identified directly through experiment.
Prof James Unwin, Assistant Professor of
Physics, University of Illinois, Chicago:
academic Distinguished Visitor, 2022-2023.
Professor Unwin undertakes research related to new physics
beyond the Standard Model of Particle Physics at the intersection
of particle physics, astrophysics, and cosmology. He has worked
on a range of topics in theoretical particle physics, including
Supersymmetry, LHC searches for New Physics, and Grand
Unified Theories. In theoretical astrophysics and cosmology, he
is interested in exploring novel dark matter models with distinct
implications for experiments and observations.
What attracted you about coming to Queen’s as a
Distinguished Visitor?
Aside from the world-class researchers,
the quality that makes Oxford one of
my favourite universities to visit is the
college system. Being part of a college
provides an opportunity to socialise with
like-minded individuals and learn about
recent advances in fields beyond your own.
I consider myself extremely fortunate to have been invited as a
Distinguished Visitor and hope I will have the opportunity to
return in the future.
How have you found your time in College so far?
My enjoyment in college life has most distinctly come from things
that one can take for granted after spending several years at
Oxford, but when returning as a visitor they are fresh once more.
What’s the value of an interdisciplinary approach?
Some of the greatest advances in science have come through
interdisciplinary approaches. Indeed, communication between
mathematics, particle physics, and condensed matter physics
have led to some of the deepest insights in my own field. More
generally, I am interested in applying mathematical frameworks
to other types of problems and I have written papers in areas such
as politics, economics, and geography. I find that thinking about
research questions in other fields can be a refreshing change and
can lead you to find new applications of the tools with which you
are already familiar.
Tell us about the children’s book Reaching for the Stars that you
wrote during the COVID-19 pandemic and what inspired you
to do this?
We all needed some diversion during the pandemic, in particular
we had a newborn in 2020, so we were being especially careful
and rarely venturing outside. My wife and I had read hundreds of
books to our firstborn during this time and so we decided to try
our hand at writing our own books. My wife, Laura Schaposnik,
had a friend who was an aspiring illustrator and so we teamed
up to write this book Reaching for the Stars, while my wife wrote her
own series: Ene and the Magic…. I’m
very proud of how the book turned
“Queen’s, of course, is one of the
most beautiful colleges in the
city, and I was glad to learn it
was also extremely welcoming.
out and we even got 200 copies
printed as board books to donate
to Northwestern’s Lurie Children’s
Hospital in Chicago.
You were a graduate student at Oxford so no stranger to the
city; do you have a favourite place?
Oxford is one of my favourite cities in the world and still feels
like home. I especially love Jericho, which is always where I try
to stay when visiting. Places that I love to spend time include
Port Meadow (especially when it’s filled with horses), the rooftop
cafe of the Ashmolean, and punting along the quieter parts of
the Cherwell.
20

“The ocean makes up 70% of the Earth’s
surface area, yet the majority of species
inhabiting the ocean remain undescribed.
OCEANS
Racing against time to complete the
largest ocean census in history
COUNT
Photo: iStock.com/Nuture
Dr Denise Swanborn (Environmental Research, 2018) tells us about her
work with Ocean Census, the largest ever ocean survey.
You are part of a project called Ocean Census which aims to
accelerate the discovery of ocean life. Can you share a bit more
about the programme?
Ocean Census launched on 27 April 2023. It has been set up
by two founding partners, Nekton and the Nippon Foundation,
and has set the ambitious target of finding at least 100,000 new
marine species in the first decade. Oxford is the headquarters
of Ocean Census. The programme is a global open alliance
of partners, and we are actively seeking research institutes,
universities, and, in particular, taxonomists to partner with us.
Why is it important to do this now?
The ocean makes up 70% of the Earth’s surface area, and ocean
life is fundamental to all life on Earth. It produces the oxygen
we breathe, isolates carbon dioxide, creates food for billions of
people and is constantly providing vital scientific advances to fight
disease. Yet the majority of species inhabiting the ocean remain
undescribed, especially in the deep sea. Today, scientists believe
they have described little over 10% of the species that exist. Ocean
Census aims to significantly change this, as we cannot protect and
sustain what we do not know.
To conserve and sustain the life that you uncover in the ocean,
what measures are being taken as part of the project?
We set up a series of global expeditions to the ocean’s biodiversity
hotspots to find new life from the surface to full ocean depth
(10,925 metres). These expeditions will be run on vessels from
the philanthropic, government, academic, and commercial fleets.
We are deploying a combination of advanced subsea technologies
with divers, human submersibles, and remotely operated vehicles
(ROVs). As Expedition Manager, I work on the implementation of
these expeditions.
Specimens collected on expeditions will be sent to Biodiversity
Centres, where they will be analysed and described. All resulting
data will be uploaded into a database so that networks of
taxonomists will connect virtually to draw on the aggregated
data set created. This aggregated, open-sourced data is added to
a network of data centres globally and made freely accessible to
scientists, marine policymakers and the public.
How will you use machine learning and other new technologies
to analyse the data?
Recent technological advances in high resolution imaging,
DNA sequencing, and machine learning mean scientists can
now massively accelerate the process of species discovery and
description. Ocean Census will deploy high-precision sampling
tools to collect corals and other large organisms during
expeditions. This means that a small number of individual
samples will be collected and then preserved for further analysis
in museums or other laboratories. Sub-samples will be taken for
DNA analysis. Smaller organisms that live in sand or mud will be
collected as small samples of sediment, preserved and then later
extracted. We work with scientific and business partners for the
latest and most efficient technology to accelerate the process of
DNA analysis and species description.
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EAGLE EYE | ISSUE 1 | 2023
Denise Swanborn
with Prof Alex Rogers
Photo: Valentina Lanci
What is the purpose of the proposed Biodiversity Centres,
the first of which will be in the Oxford University Museum of
Natural History?
Specimens collected during expeditions will be sent to Ocean
Census Biodiversity Centres, where the main analysis will take
place. Taxonomists working in the Biodiversity Centres will use
technological advances across high resolution imaging and DNA
sequencing to analyse and describe the collected specimens and
upload the results to a virtual database. As more scientists and
partners get involved in high, middle-and low-income nations,
we aim to set up more centres globally.
Your recent trip to the Arctic Ocean was the first expedition
that Ocean Census participated in; what challenges did
you encounter?
Professor Alex Rogers, the Science Director of Ocean Census,
and I were very excited to join this expedition run by the Arctic
University of Tromso. We surveyed eight different sites in the
Barents Sea, collected a large number of biological, geological and
water chemistry samples and discovered the second mud volcano
in Norwegian waters. Unfortunately, we were hit with some bad
weather in the first days of the expedition, which is something
that is often beyond our control. This meant we had to deal with
changes in our expedition plan (and sea sickness…).
The analysis work will take place over the next few months, but
I can share that there were quite a few things we were not able
to identify!
Where will you be travelling to next?
We aim to run seven expeditions each year for the next 10 years,
focusing on marine biodiversity hotspots that have been little
studied. We have not announced yet where we will be going next,
but we’d encourage you to follow us and stay tuned!
How can we follow and support this work?
We welcome all partners from government, science, expeditions,
media, philanthropy, business and civil society to join the alliance
and be part of Ocean Census. Please contact us through the
website; there are a multitude of ways that different partners can
get involved, which are listed there: https://bit.ly/3Lo1ce1.
You can also find the latest news, films, content, and events across
our social media channels:
Instagram: @oceancensus
Facebook: /oceancensus
LinkedIn: /oceancensus
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@oceancensus
What was your most fascinating discovery?
We collected 400 samples, which have now all returned to
Oxford and are safely stored in the Natural History Museum.
22

“Research has shown how to create
hydrogenases for cleaner, accessible
energy sources.
ENZYMES INTO
ELECTRICITY?
Photo: iStock.com/Arthon Meekodong
Recent graduate Jack Badley (Molecular and Cellular Biochemistry,
2018) was part of a research team whose findings were recently
published in top journal Nature. The team discovered an enzyme that
converts air into energy.
Analysis of a hydrogen-consuming enzyme from a
common soil bacterium showed that it used low
amounts of hydrogen in the atmosphere to create an
electrical current. Here, Jack tells us more about the
remarkable discovery and the role he played on the team.
What started the research group thinking about the possibility
of using an enzyme from common soil bacterium to convert
air into energy?
Hydrogenases are enzymes which reversibly convert molecular
hydrogen into protons and electrons. These generated electrons
can be utilised by cells to produce energy, similar to how we
derive energy from glucose. Initially discovered in the 1930s,
hydrogenases and hydrogenase-containing bacteria have been
an invaluable resource for multiple biotechnological fields for
some time. These include wastewater management, hydrogen
production from cheap substrates like glucose, the direct
production of clean and reproducible electricity from hydrogen via
enzymatic biofuel cells, as well as cheaper and more eco-friendly
methods to produce biologically active compounds like medicines.
Despite the number of biotechnological processes that rely
on these enzymes, there has been a significant challenge in
utilising hydrogenases effectively. These enzymes evolved in
an era when the Earth’s atmosphere had significantly higher
hydrogen levels and very little oxygen. These two gas molecules
are very similar in terms of shape, size, and charge meaning most
enzymes have little means to separate them, which is a concern
as oxygen is capable of binding to the same metal centre that
normally converts hydrogen, but for a significantly longer period.
Sometimes this even produces bi-product like hydrogen peroxide
which can permanently damage the protein. Consequently,
modern hydrogenases are extremely sensitive to oxygen inhibition,
reducing or even halting their efficiency when exposed to air,
significantly hindering their practical application.
Since their discovery almost 90 years ago, countless research
groups have been working hard to modify or discover
hydrogenases that could function quickly and efficiently in
atmospheric conditions, while maintaining the ability to
specifically bind hydrogen strongly enough to source it from the
extremely low atmospheric concentration. However, while great
improvements were made, the level of discrimination between
oxygen and hydrogen required to function efficiently when
exposed to air was not able to come close to existing within
any characterised lineage or variant of hydrogenase. However,
in recent years, several high-affinity hydrogenase lineages have
been discovered that show remarkable functionality in aerobic
conditions with near-immunity to oxygen inhibition, efficiently
converting hydrogen even at concentrations lower than those in
our current atmosphere.
Importantly, up until this project, no such oxygen-tolerant
hydrogenase had been successfully isolated, making our group the
first to successfully resolve one of their structures, which is vital
in understanding how this immunity to oxygen is achieved for
future study and the production of more efficient hydrogenasebased
biotech. Grinter et al. successfully resolved the structure of
Huc Hydrogenase from M. smegmatis, to a resolution which at the
23

EAGLE EYE | ISSUE 1 | 2023
Figure 1: Huc hydrogenase - The large subunit
and small subunit are shown in lime and
orange respectively. Magnesium is shown as
a magenta sphere. The iron-sulphur clusters,
which transfer electrons to and from the active
site, are in translucent yellow, while the active
site itself is in a translucent blue-pink gradient.
Figure 2: High occupancy volumes, representing areas where A) oxygen and
B) hydrogen is present > 4% of the time during the simulations. Two major
cavities were found within the enzyme which are significantly involved in gas
transportation, show in red and blue respectively.
time was the second best ever achieved on any protein by CryoEM,
confidently allowing the structure-to-function relationship of the
hydrogenase to be determined for the first time, which is where the
computational protein dynamics work I did began.
Your research focused on molecular modelling and
simulations. How did this work fit into the overall
research project?
My work involved determining how the structure of the
hydrogenase could allow efficient discrimination between
hydrogen and oxygen, despite their similarity. This involved
establishing the different tunnels and pathways which allowed
the gases to diffuse closer to the reaction site. Along these paths,
I witnessed differences in how oxygen and hydrogen moved
between areas of the protein.
The diffusion pathway in Huc traverses multiple bottlenecks and
other points of selection where hydrogen, with weaker non-polar
interactions and a slightly smaller radius, can diffuse far more
easily than the bulkier oxygen. Most of the identified bottlenecks
were found to be caused by large branched apolar residues, simply
discriminating according to size. These specific residues have
been identified in other hydrogenase homologues with increased
oxygen, slowing the rate that oxygen accesses the active site
compared to hydrogen. However, since proteins are dynamic,
the channel changes shape and size over time allowing some
oxygen through, which is why hydrogenase up until this point has
retained oxygen sensitivity.
Crucially, I identified a selection point close to the active
site which was 100% efficient at occluding oxygen in all my
simulations, which hasn’t been seen in any other hydrogenases.
I then studied the effect of various mutations on the selectivity of
hydrogenase, to help determine which residues specifically within
Huc hydrogenase are responsible.
My further research, after submission of the paper, suggests that
a nearby residue at this site moves in response to the quadrupole
of the oxygen molecule, occluding the channel to prevent access
to the active site only when oxygen is present. This work
has confirmed that the effects of selection are due to specific
mutations with the gas channels, which was suggested by the
group and has determined residues likely responsible for selection,
aiding further research in vivo and in silico to create hydrogenases for
cleaner, accessible energy sources.
What was most challenging about this research?
Within molecular dynamics, one of the hardest hurdles to
overcome is the interaction of metal ions with proteins. Classical
molecular dynamics utilises simple Newtonian mechanics to
simulate the interactions between atoms. This essentially defines
the interactions within a system, including steric restraints like
distance and angles like a series of balls and springs, applying
greater force the further they are from an equilibrium position,
while also accounting for non-polar and charge-based interactions.
This method uses the position of all atoms in a system with
respect to each other to calculate a net force based on a set of
parameters which we help define.
The issue is that while this classical interpretation works well
for most atoms, the interactions between metal ions and protein
residues are far more complex, greatly relying on complex
quantum interactions involving the overlap of electron orbitals.
Defining quantum behaviour through purely classical means
to even a moderate level of accuracy is extremely difficult,
yet actually calculating these interactions would be far too
computationally expensive. For most simulations, the force on
each atom is normally calculated for every one 500,000 th of a
nanosecond, meaning that the time the supercomputer would
take to calculate simulations of the length required for studying
hydrogenase dynamics in a partially quantum system would likely
24

far exceed the short timespan I had for this project. Thus, I had
to compile a purely Newtonian set of parameters which could
reliably reproduce similar dynamics for each of the four metal
sites within Huc, which took hundreds of attempts.
The breakthrough discovery has been described as a ‘natural
battery’. Although it’s early days, can you describe how the
enzyme could be used in applications that support a more
sustainable future?
The potential green applications of an efficient oxygen tolerant
hydrogenase are widespread. Sustainable electricity is, of course,
key among these: recently it has been discovered that aerobic
bacteria such as M. smegmatis are responsible for oxidising
approximately 60 billion tonnes of hydrogen per year, which is a
huge untapped energy source.
Existing hydrogenase biofuel cells use hydrogenases to produce
electrons at an anode and couple this to an oxygen-reducing
oxidoreductase at a cathode to create an electric current fueled
only by the reaction of molecular hydrogen and oxygen into water,
producing no greenhouse gases or any other pollutants. These
systems have been highly constrained previously, since the entire
cathode would have to be placed in protected anaerobic conditions
and would require hydrogen to be pumped in manually from
sources which would carry some level of environmental cost.
However, with Huc hydrogenase, and similar variants immune
to oxygen inhibition, this issue will hopefully no longer exist.
Eventually, oxygen-tolerant hydrogenases could be used to create
cells which can be exposed to aerobic conditions and source
hydrogen directly from the atmosphere alone. This hydrogen
is pre-existing, produced from fermentation and other natural
processes happening across the globe. It is theorised that hydrogen
functions indirectly as a greenhouse gas, thus fuel cells removing
this from the atmosphere is potentially beneficial.
Of course, this is not the only way in which these hydrogenases
can be used towards sustainability. In another example, modern
enzyme technology allows the production of medicines and
other bioactive compounds via eco-friendly methods. However,
enzymes containing cofactors like NAD(H) and NADP(H) are
required for certain redox reactions. These cofactors and their
enzymes are expensive, and their ability to regenerate is key to
making sure that companies afford to use them rather than turn
to other methods which involve cheaper unsustainable reagents
with high carbon footprints and toxic by-products. Luckily,
hydrogenases can regenerate these cofactors relatively easily and
as a result of creating hydrogenases which require fewer controlled
conditions, less specialist equipment and no external fuel sources,
this incentivises companies to use these more environmentallyfriendly
methods.
What are you working on now?
My current work is looking into antibiotic resistance, specifically
towards the last resort drugs called polymyxins. These drugs
are normally only used when all other treatments have failed,
but increasing use in recent years has resulted in resistance
to even these treatments. Polymyxins are positively charged
lipopeptides which are proposed to kill bacteria via interacting
electrostatically with negatively charged lipid A, an endotoxin
located in gram-negative bacterial membranes, eventually leading
to membrane rupture. To combat this, many strains of multidrug
resistant bacteria, including nosocomial Salmonella, Pseudomonas and
Staphylococcus lineages, modify lipid A with specific chemical groups,
like positively charged sugars, which prevent the membrane from
being targeted by polymyxins via charge-charge interactions.
This project extends upon the techniques used during my masters,
creating computational structures of known Lipid A modifying
metalloenzymes, including MCR-1 and recently resolved
ArnT, allowing me to determine the chemical and structural
mechanisms behind each step of their respective catalytic cycles
through combined classical and quantum mechanics.
My current focus is on the use of emerging techniques to study
how the dynamics of these enzymes change over time in response
to perturbations such as pH or substrate binding, allowing
me to determine functionally important residues and track
the propagation of signals throughout the protein to identify
allosteric, therefore druggable, binding sites. Essentially, this
means that I can identify specific areas which could bind small
molecular inhibitors to prevent functionally important dynamic
changes, allowing me to potentially design lead molecules for codrugs
which could reverse polymyxin resistance.
Excitingly, this project will allow me to work in vitro so that I can
iteratively use my computational work to inform and design
tests on these enzymes in real life, studying specific mutants and
determining the chemical groups and conditions responsible for
certain mechanisms for each step of the cycle, which I can then
use to improve my work in silico. Multidrug resistance is currently
estimated to kill nearly 5 million people per year; my major aim
for this work is to allow significant progress in our understanding
of how we can treat the most severe cases of resistant bacterial
infections and to hopefully go some way to help develop medicine
which could be used to overcome this emerging crisis.
Antibiotic resistant bacteria inside a biofilm | iStock.com/Dr_Microbe
25

EAGLE EYE | ISSUE 1 | 2023
THE
EARTHLY
Current student Elyse Airey (Biology, 2021)
tells us about her drive to make optimistic,
accessible, and engaging climate
journalism the norm.
“Scientific research is paramount: conversations
about global problem solving must be centred
around scientific evidence. This is a pillar upon
which The Earthly was founded.
Elyse Airey | David Fisher
26

What motivated you to co-found The Earthly, a digital
publication examining climate issues?
The initial idea for a new climate-focused publication came
from Joe Tester, a third-year Biologist at Magdalen College.
I immediately jumped at the opportunity to get involved, and
together we developed what is now The Earthly. We identified three
key issues we wanted to tackle, and came up with our aims:
‘optimistic, accessible, engaging’.
Firstly, so much popular climate media is very ‘doom and gloom’,
which often precedes the sentiment that ‘it’s too late’ or ‘there’s
no point’ in fighting for action anymore (which is very much not
true). While we are dealing with serious and heavy topics, we
believe it is important to frame issues from a perspective which
will motivate rather than demotivate, hence, ‘optimistic’.
Secondly, a lot of climate writing is jargon-littered and difficult
for any non-expert to understand. As well as this, research
is often published in subscription-only journals, which are
not publicly available. The climate and biodiversity crisis is
something that will impact all of us, and so we wanted to create
a space where anyone can access climate information, and be able
to understand our articles without extensive prior knowledge.
Hence, ‘accessible’.
Thirdly, many articles dealing with climate issues are information
dense and difficult to digest. We wanted to make our articles are
short and as vibrant as they can be, hence, ‘engaging’.
What’s your main goal with The Earthly?
We post a regular flow of new articles with the aim to educate,
and through this, to inspire change. Each article deals with
a different climate-related topic, presenting an issue and
discussing potential solutions.
What do you think is the most
important approach when dealing with
issues of climate change?
I think that we should attack issues with equal amounts of
fervour and compassion. By fervour, I mean the urgency and
agency required to push for immediate and permanent change. By
compassion, I mean understanding the nuanced struggles that the
non-human and human inhabitants of the planet will face as a
result of the climate and biodiversity crisis and keeping empathy
for this at the forefront of decision making.
Significantly, I think problems will be best solved through
collaboration, between researchers in diverse disciplines, policymakers,
communities, and intergovernmental organisations.
“I think problems will be best
solved through collaboration
How do you balance your degree work with working on
the publication?
This year I’ve shared the role of Editor-in-Chief with our Founder,
Joe, which makes the workload a lot more manageable. We are a
fairly small publication with a relatively large team – The Earthly
really wouldn’t exist without the help of our committed editors.
Also, as a Biology student, things I learn as part of my degree
often inspire our articles, and in the same way, the research for
articles supports my degree. The skills I have gained through The
Earthly, in researching, writing, and organising, have been hugely
beneficial to my academic life as well.
How involved have other students at Queen’s been
with The Earthly?
We’ve had a really good amount of Queen’s involvement this
year – with students studying subjects from Biology, to History &
Politics, as well as Classics, becoming writers and editors.
How can other students take part next term?
We are always keen for new writers to take on commissions or
pitch articles to us. We have already put together our editorial
team for Michaelmas term, but we will be looking for new editors,
illustrators, and a new Editor-in-chief for Hilary term. Anyone
who is interested in getting involved in any way can drop us an
email at editors@TheEarthly.co.uk.
How important do you think local and individual measures
are versus the endeavours of top researchers and policy-makers
in the context of solving the world’s big problems?
I think global problems require global solutions, but local efforts,
if coordinated, can have huge positive benefits. Individual
measures are important - I believe we
all should do as much as we can to live
more sustainable lifestyles. But critically,
I think individual empowerment can drive
community mobilisation, which can, in turn, encourage large-scale
change from policy-makers, government, and industry.
Scientific research is paramount: conversations about global
problem-solving must be centred around scientific evidence.
This is another pillar upon which The Earthly was founded – to be
entirely scientific evidence-based.
What’s your favourite place in Oxford?
I really like the Botanic Gardens – students can go in for free, and
there is a bench right by the river where I love to sit and read or
just gather my thoughts.
What are the most interesting things you have learned so far as
a result of gathering content for The Earthly?
I’ve come to realise how interconnected and intersectional the
majority of climate and biodiversity issues are. The biosphere is
just a series of complex interactions, so it is very difficult to deal
with a single issue in isolation.
Can you recommend a book?
One of my favourite popular science books is Incredible Journeys by
David Barrie. It describes the fascinating ways in which animals
navigate. It’s actually the book that inspired me to apply for
Biology at Oxford!
27

EAGLE EYE | ISSUE 1 | 2023
THE
POWER OF CHANGE
Aerial shot of Biker Fen substation under construction in July 2022
Old Member Sara Habib (Mathematics and Philosophy, 1997) has
over 20 years’ experience at National Grid in a variety of roles, from
operational asset management to strategic corporate roles. Most
recently she has worked on the early East Coast Strategy, shaping
the policy and process requirements for Electricity Transmission
infrastructure to facilitate the connection of offshore wind.
She is currently focussed on the next regulatory price
control framework for National Grid Electricity
Transmission as Head of Future Price Controls. This
framework will be critical to facilitating the investments
required to reimagine the Transmission Network as part of a
decarbonised Energy System by 2035.
We spoke to her to find out more about her passion for her work
and the future of energy in the UK.
Your role at the National Grid is directly involved in enabling
the government to achieve its ambitious net zero targets for
2030 and beyond. How are you approaching the challenge of
this major upgrade?
At National Grid, I’m focussed on our electricity transmission
network. We build and maintain the big motorways of electrical
power that form the backbone of our energy infrastructure
and that backbone needs upgrading and reimagining. The
infrastructure we have was built for a very different type of
energy generation in the 1950s, ‘60s and ‘70s and we now need a
grid that can collect very different types of energy generation in
very different locations, and get it out to people when they need it.
How are you balancing the three priorities in energy provision,
namely energy security, affordability, and decarbonisation?
We’re coming to a very interesting period now where what we
term the ‘energy trilemma’ is converging. Having been in tension
with each other, suddenly getting to net zero and connecting green
energy sources is also a route to affordability because the cost
of that energy is much cheaper. We continually invest to adapt
and develop our network, around £1 billion each year, in order to
connect homegrown green energy which will help reduce energy
bills for everyone in the long-term. In time, it will also increase
our own energy security because we’ll be less reliant on sources of
energy from elsewhere, something which has felt very real given
recent geopolitical instability, and the crisis in Ukraine.
You have spoken about the importance of collaboration in
providing successful solutions. How are you working with
stakeholders outside of the energy sector?
I think this is so important. We work closely with Ofgem,
our regulator, because they decide the framework by which
our funding is set, and we need to ensure that we have the
right funding arrangements to build infrastructure and attract
investments. We work with Government, so we understand their
carbon targets, energy policies and what that means for the grid.
We work with local governments and authorities to understand
their regional decarbonisation aspirations.
We also work with much wider stakeholders than this to
understand what our customers need, how we can best serve
our communities by enabling them to understand why we need
to build infrastructure, engaging with them before and during
the infrastructure build, and explaining how they’ll benefit from
it. We also work with wildlife groups and NGOs so that when
we build, we enhance the natural world rather than simply not
damaging it. This concept of net gain means we leave more behind
than we take away. It’s vital that we think about the whole system
and look at the whole picture in terms of our investments.
How are you factoring in things like the impact of electric cars
and domestic solar panels?
When we look at what we need to build and what our grid will
need to look like, we think about this in the context of net zero
28

targets for 2035, and that includes electrification. This means
looking at the needs of solar farms and offshore wind farms,
as well as seeing that distribution networks are signalling that
they’re seeing growth in terms of connections, for example for
electric charging points at people’s homes or electrification of
domestic heating. We look at the information we have in front of
us today and alongside that, we are increasingly using scenariomodelling.
So, we take what is known and think about what is not
yet certain and try to understand what it means for our network
in the future and the investments we need to make today. We’re
focused on the concept of anticipatory investment and developing
our investments with the future in mind.
Today’s grid was built to facilitate a 275-kilovolt network so
people could have all the new household electrical appliances that
became available in the 1950s onwards but they built the grid to
be capable of carrying 400 kilovolts. It was built with upgrade
capacity; it was built with the future in mind. We need to do the
same thing now as we rewire the grid and build in an even more
anticipatory way than we have ever done before to support the
growth we predict is coming. This all means we need a change
to our regulatory framework. Our future way of working will
have to be different from the way we
have built things in the past couple of
decades when the focus has been on
least cost and building just what you
need, when you need it.
Wind and solar energy are very dependent on the weather and
time of day so can the grid store it to be used when we need it?
National Grid Electricity Transmission doesn’t own storage,
but we see storage (technology that acts like a battery storing
and releasing power when needed) playing a vital part in the
whole network solution in the future, both in managing system
operations and mitigating the need for infrastructure.
At Oxford, we are just down the road from JET, the world’s
largest and most advanced tokamak used to study fusion
energy. Where do you see nuclear power, fission or, further
ahead, fusion, fitting into the energy mix?
Nuclear is definitely part of the mix; our Hinkley Connection
Project will enable us to connect Hinkley Point C, EDF Energy’s
new nuclear power station in Somerset, along with other new
sources of low-carbon energy to homes and businesses. We will
need all sorts of renewable power solutions to get to net zero:
solar, batteries, onshore and significantly offshore wind, with
government targets of 50GW by 2030.
National Grid employees were some of the unsung key workers
during the COVID-19 pandemic. What did you have to do
during that time to keep the lights on for everyone?
One of the things we had to do was build a little impromptu
village on our core site. We have roles in our control rooms and
centres which have to be staffed 24/7. While we have a degree of
resilience in our shift teams, it was clear that we couldn’t afford
for a whole shift team to be unwell and/or isolating. We adopted
very stringent hygiene arrangements early on and segregated our
“We continually invest to adapt and
develop our network in order to
connect homegrown green energy
which will help reduce energy bills
24/7 workers from the rest of the workforce. As part of being
very cautious from the outset, we built on-site ‘glamping’ pods
so these key workers could be literally in a bubble. Many of
them heroically stayed on site away from their families for long
periods of time, making a sacrifice to ensure the running of this
crucial service.
It’s always good to see women in leadership positions,
particularly in industries where they are traditionally
underrepresented. What would you say to a young graduate
looking for a role in your sector?
It was very different when I started over 20 years ago. I was
laughing at an internal conference just last week that I actually
had to queue for the ladies’ toilets. I’m pleased to say that it
feels like a very diverse workplace now and I don’t feel like an
outlier. National Grid has very good flexible working policies and
provision for families. We have diversity in our people and also in
our thinking.
My advice would be, if you’re passionate about industry, which
I am because there’s nothing better than getting your hands on
stuff that really powers a nation, and
you’re interested in STEM, there’s
nothing to hold you back. If you want
a role with a real sense of purpose
in the energy industry then it’s a
brilliant place to be and there’s an
unbelievable transformation taking
place, which you can be a part of. We need more people to join
us: we need problem-solvers and policymakers so, although we
have many people coming from a STEM background, I also see
people coming to us from a multitude of other backgrounds, from
archaeology to the performing arts. You just need a passion for
problem-solving.
How did your degree in Mathematics and Philosophy prepare
you for the kind of creative and strategic thinking needed to
address the complex and urgent issues facing the industry?
I think it equipped me to walk into a role with a good problemsolving
mindset. I think the two subjects are often about
understanding and constructing good arguments and being
able to communicate those clearly. Often, we are trying to take
complex engineering solutions and translate them into something
people will find compelling in a wider social context, and I think
the process and approach of my degree has set me in good stead
for this.
What do you enjoy most about your work?
I love my role. It’s incredibly satisfying: I feel every day that I’m
having conversations about how we’re contributing to the running
of the UK and that keeps me very motivated. I think the thing I
enjoy most is how the work links so directly to something I deeply
value, namely the journey to net zero. I care passionately about
the environment and the fact that I can get up every day and do a
job that contributes in a tangible way towards helping it is great.
I also like the level of transformation we’re undergoing now: it’s
daunting at times, but I relish it.
29

EAGLE EYE | ISSUE 1 | 2023
COLLEGE
CARBON COMMITTEE
The College has had a Carbon Committee since 2019 to discuss and
recommend action that takes account of, and seeks to limit, carbon
production. Dr Richard Nickerson, Fellow in Physics and Secretary to
the Committee, tells us more about its role.
Photo: iStock.com/LukeP77
What were your goals in setting up the Carbon Committee?
Queen’s has been active in attempting to reduce its net carbon
footprint since 2012 when the first proposal for installing Photo
Voltaic (PV) panels on the College’s buildings was developed
and implemented. Since then, we have gone on to work on
waste reduction, recycling, food choices, reduction in energy
consumption, and other initiatives aimed at limiting the CO 2
production caused by the College, as well as (recently) putting in
place monitoring to allow progress to be assessed.
The College established its Carbon Committee in 2019 to build
on this work and to monitor its performance in terms of energy
efficiency (subsequently changed to carbon dioxide production).
The Committee was asked to bring proposals to the Governing
Body (GB) concerning measures to assist in reducing the College’s
carbon footprint to a proportionate minimum. In 2020, GB
approved a policy on greenhouse gas production.
Our Carbon Control policy calls for all College committees to
consider carbon production as part of its deliberations. Every
aspect of College operations is undertaken with carbon control as
part of normal considerations. Any new building or refurbishment
must consider carbon control, and other sustainability issues. For
example, the auditorium completed in 2011 has a ground source
heat pump for heating and cooling.
The Carbon Committee evaluates proposals for carbon control
initiatives to attempt to disentangle the hype from the reality;
unfortunately, a process that is becoming increasingly important.
Are you more in favour of carbon off-setting or a net zero
approach?
Views vary on this, even within College. My own view is that
this is not either or, and although we should all look to reduce
our carbon footprints to the extent we can, there is no way to get
to genuine net zero with our existing technology. The best way
for College to help therefore, is through our research. Alongside
this, and vigorous attempts to reduce local consumption, genuine
offsetting is an unavoidable component of a real net-zero. This
does not mean buying carbon credits, or other schemes of dubious
value, but investing in something which actively sequesters
carbon, possibly actively planting new trees, carefully, in a way
which actually reduces carbon.
30

ut unfortunately the reality is that they require time and effort
to use and those doing so are likely already converts to low
carbon lifestyle. The college has therefore decided to provide
information in a more ‘in your face’ way, something which
students at Queen’s have been supportive of: We are currently
creating a poster for each room to explain how much CO 2 people
cause on average per year and to provide some simple guidance
for how people can make efforts to reduce this number. Travel is
one element, but there are several other important contributors.
The College’s plan is to encourage consideration of an overall
budget, which includes travel.
A series of experimental trials were
conducted in Back Quad to assess the
effectiveness of double-glazing. Please
can you tell us about what was learnt
during this process and what the next
phase is?
A prototype double-glazing unit
(approved for Grade I listed
buildings) was installed in one of
the College rooms in Back Quad.
Below is a picture taken of the South
range of Back Quad in the near
infrared. The two windows circled
are the same room but one window
has been equipped with secondary
double glazing. The trials, which were
interrupted by Covid, suggested that
it would be an extremely good idea
to fit double-glazing to Back Quad.
In fact, the improvement is so good
that it requires further analysis to see
what other factors might be at play.
At the same time, we also trialled the
use of thermostatic radiator controls
(TRVs) that allow remote monitoring
and local thermostat control.
Thermal imaging of Back Quad
showing the benefit of double-glazing.
The GB has asked the Clerk of Works to develop a detailed plan
to secondary glaze main College with double glazing panels and
installation of TRVs. It is highly likely that the GB will approve
this work when the plan is available.
Some organisations have a carbon budget for their travel; do
you think the concept of a carbon budget or calculator could
work in College too?
The College thinks it’s a good idea for every individual to
have a commitment to, and a plan for, reducing their carbon
budget. A lot of great calculators are available online already,
How do we check if seemingly sensible schemes have the
impact we want and avoid supporting or instigating greenwashing
measures?
One of the founding goals of the Carbon Committee was to do
just that: separate the wheat from the chaff and advise people
accordingly. It takes time to analyse proposals. These issues are
highly complex and even the experts
debate and disagree. We always ask
for the data. For example, we were
asked by the City Council to join a
local delivery scheme here in Oxford
designed to reduce CO 2 production
but when we asked for the evidence
for, and carbon goals of, the project,
there were none: it was simply
assumed to be a good course of
action. We then undertook our own
analysis and found it probably does
not help with carbon production, and
so we did not join as it is expensive.
What ideas do you have for
next steps?
Our biggest contribution to reducing
the impacts of climate change (and
reducing biodiversity loss) remains
through research and education.
However, in addition to the small
local improvements we must continue
to make on site, double glazing,
further energy efficiency gains,
further reduction of waste etc, and
to building carbon control into any
building and refurbishment plans, the
Carbon Committee is now exploring what the College can do in a
more global way.
Educating ourselves seems to be key in all these matters so do
you have any recommended reading on the climate crisis?
It would be great if education was all it took; that we could do.
At our first Carbon Committee meeting I recommended How Bad
are Bananas? by Prof Mike Berners-Lee. The book details the
carbon footprint of a wide range of activities and helps guide
people towards less carbon-costly lifestyle options. It’s also
quite fun and there are copies in the Senior, Middle and Junior
common rooms.
31

EAGLE EYE | ISSUE 1 |
THINKING
2023
OF WRITING
YOUR WILL?
Could you make a legacy gift to
help Queen’s provide a world
class education for our students:
the innovators, problem-solvers,
experts, and creatives of the future?
Legacy gifts are used to support our
students achieve their ambitions and
prepare for their futures.
WANT TO KNOW MORE ABOUT LEAVING A GIFT TO QUEEN’S
IN YOUR WILL?
• Request our legacy giving leaflet: oldmembers@queens.ox.ac.uk
• Check out our webpage: www.queens.ox.ac.uk/support-queens/leave-a-gift-in-your-will
• Contact our Legacy Giving Officer, Catherine House: +44 (0) 1865 279218
THANK YOU FOR YOUR SUPPORT BOTH NOW AND IN THE FUTURE
Photo: Gareth Ardron
32
EVENTS CALENDAR
14 OCTOBER 2023
Jubilee Matriculation Gaudy Lunch (1953,
1963, 1973) | The Queen’s College
12.15 – 4 pm
15 OCTOBER 2023
Choir of The Queen’s College at the Oxford
International Song Festival | The College
Chapel | 7.30 pm | https://oxfordsong.org/
events/shakespeare-byrd
19 OCTOBER 2023
The Taberdars’ Society in London
Timings and venue to be announced
1 DECEMBER 2023
Choir of the Queen’s College perform Handel
Messiah | The Sheldonian Theatre | 7 pm
https://bit.ly/45P3V8C
4 DECEMBER 2023
Queen’s in the US: Miami | Fisher Island Club
Timings to be announced
5 DECEMBER 2023
Queen’s in the US: LA
Timings and venue to be announced
7 DECEMBER 2023
Queen’s in Canada: Toronto | The University
Club of Toronto | Timings to be announced
15 DECEMBER 2023
Carols from Queen’s | The College Chapel
7.30 pm | https://bit.ly/48qZkLJ
16 DECEMBER 2023
Boar’s Head Gaudy (1998 & 1999)
The Queen’s College
Timings to be announced
17 DECEMBER 2023
Carols from Queen’s | The College Chapel
2.00 pm | https://bit.ly/48qZkLJ
6 JANUARY 2024
Needle and Thread Gaudy (2006 & 2007)
The Queen’s College
Timings to be announced
Holywell Press
Editor:
Emily Downing,
Head of Communications
Design & Print:
Holywell Press, Ltd., Oxford
GET IN TOUCH
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