St John's College Alumni eNewsletter - April 2025
Founder's Lecture 2025
This year's Founder's Lecture, taking place on Tuesday 13 May at 5pm, will be delivered by Professor Sarah Knott (Hillary Rodham Clinton Chair of Women's History), on 'Care in the Fifties: A Story of Women and Psychoanalysis'. Register for your place here. This is a free event and you are welcome to bring guests.
Rohini Pande Appointed Visiting Professor of Business and Development 2025
We congratulate Professor Rohini Pande on her appointment as the Sanjaya Lall Visiting Professor for Trinity Term 2025. She will be an Associate Fellow at St John's for the tenure of her professorship. Rohini Pande is currently the Henry J. Heinz II Professor of Economics and Director of the Economic Growth Center as well as faculty director of Inclusion Economics at Yale University.
St John’s supports Open House for Schools at the Oxford Playhouse
The pilot project Open House for Schools was launched by The Oxford Playhouse in response to the nationwide decline in primary-aged children’s attendance at live theatre events and the scarcity of affordable creative learning opportunities for schools. Recognising the importance of early years creative arts education, St John’s partnered with the Playhouse in 2024 to fund a series of drama initiatives for local children aged 5–11.
Nikolaj Lübecker awarded Leverhulme Research Fellowship
Professor Nikolaj Lübecker, Tutorial Fellow in French, has been awarded a one year Leverhulme Research Fellowship for 2025–26. During his Leverhulme Research Fellowship, Professor Lübecker will explore the idea of the universe as a cognisant, sensing system or organism: a ‘world brain’ – as H.G. Wells called it in a collection of essays from 1937.
Dr Anna Dewar wins Early Career Investigator Award
Dr Anna Dewar (Career Development Research Fellow in Biology) has won the American Society of Naturalists' Early Career Investigator Award 2025. The ASN Early Career Investigator Award was established in 1984 to recognise outstanding and promising work by early-career researchers in the fields of Ecology, Evolutionary Biology, Behavioral Ecology, and Genetics.
Alumni News and Publications
We congratulate four St John's alumni who have recently been appointed to King's Counsel: Laura Poots KC (Jurisprudence, 2002), Alex Barden KC (BCL, 2005), Matthew Morrison KC (Jurisprudence 1997) and Anton Dudnikov KC (Jurisprudence, 2003). This title (KC) is awarded by His Majesty the King to those who have demonstrated particular skill and expertise in the conduct of advocacy.
Essays in Honour of Ervand Abrahamian (Modern History, 1960)
Some former students and colleagues honoured Professor Abrahamian with a surprise Festschrift titled 'Political, Social and Cultural History of Modern Iran', published by Edinburgh University Press in March 2025. This collection addresses 'hitherto understudied topics in Iranian political, social, and cultural history from the early twentieth century to the present'.
Speaker Opportunity:
SJC Women's Leadership Programme (WLP)
The SJC Women's Leadership Programme (WLP) is looking for women, transfeminine, or otherwise significantly female-identifying individuals interested in being a speaker for the programme this year.
The WLP is a programme supported by the SJC Women’s Network that brings together St John’s alumnae, students, academics, and other incredible female leaders through several discussions and workshops during Trinity term. Each session focuses on a different area of leadership, where the respective alumna(e)/academic panellist(s) gives a short introduction about their background and career path followed by an open discussion with current students.
The WLP organizers are looking for speakers to discuss their career trajectories, leadership experiences, challenges overcome, etc. Being a panellist requires a commitment of around 1.5–2 hours for the session itself, after which we will head into Formal Hall or brunch as a group (which is optional, but is a wonderful time for more informal conversations and is covered by the WLP!).
If you are interested in being a speaker, or if you have any questions, please let the alumni office know or reach out to this year’s co-presidents of the WLP, Rachel and Yara, at wlp@sjc.ox.ac.uk.
Calling All Alumni in the Finance Sector!
St John's College JCR Career Talk Opportunity
The JCR is seeking alumni to participate in an upcoming careers talk for SJC undergraduate students, taking place in May. If you have experience working in the Finance Sector, we would love to hear from you!
In this short session, you will be able to share insights into your career journey, the skills you have developed, the experiences you have gained, and offer valuable advice by answering questions from current students. This will be an hour's talk followed by dinner in Hall. To find out more, please email alumni@sjc.ox.ac.uk.
Calling All Alumni in North America!
This Summer, a St John's student will be travelling across North America having been awarded the Duveen Travel Scholarship. Find out more about Kieran and how you might be able to help below:
Kieran Didi (2024, Computer Science) is a first-year PhD student who will be visiting the US in July to meet with academics and industry professionals to learn more about AI and its impact on the natural sciences, especially biology and chemistry in the context of protein design. He will be in San Francisco at the start of July and then travel along the coast to Seattle where he will be in the latter half of July. In his spare time he enjoys playing handball (and all other sports that involve a ball like tennis or squash), writing, reading and playing the guitar. He would love to hear from any alumni that are interested in sharing their experience working and living in the US (especially the tech sector).
Please email us if you would like to be put in touch with Kieran.
Alumni Events
Tuesday 13 May 2025
Friday 27 June 2025
Friday 4 July 2025
Torrance Society Medical Reunion 2025
Friday 3 October 2025
Alumni can check availability, book and pay for rooms within Alumni House online. The booking system can be found on the Alumni Benefits page of our website. Rooms for 2025 are now available.
To make a booking, you will need to enter a promotional code to identify yourself as an alumnus/a and this can be found in the monthly e-newsletter:
Promotional code for 2025: 1555SJC
FAQ’s
Please click here to find answers to frequently asked questions, along with further details about the Alumni Guest Rooms. Any further questions please email us.