New Honorary Fellows
Our new Honorary Fellows are highly distinguished in their respective fields. They join the College's other Honorary Fellows who represent a very wide variety of achievements and experiences. We look forward to welcoming them back to St John's and to their participation in College life.
Professor Sarah-Jayne Blakemore FBA FRSB (Psychology, 1996)
Professor Sarah-Jayne Blakemore is Professor of Psychology at the University of Cambridge, an honorary Professor of Cognitive Neuroscience at UCL and leader of the Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience Group.
She has published over 140 papers in scientific journals and has won multiple major awards for her research and academic work. She was named in The Times Young Female Power List 2014 and was one of only four scientists on the Sunday Times 100 Makers of the 21st Century 2014.
Her work on teenage brains has brought her into the public’s consciousness in a variety of ways. She has written a number of books including: The Learning Brain: Lessons for Education with Professor Uta Frith in 2005 and Inventing Ourselves: The Secret Life of the Teenage Brain in 2019.
Professor Blakemore’s research has won many awards including the British Psychological Society Presidents’ Award, the Jacobs Prize and the International Union of Psychological Science Quadrennial Major Advancement in Psychological Science Prize.
Professor Elleke Boehmer FRSL FRHistS FEA (English Language and Literature, 1985)
Professor Elleke Boehmer FRSL FRHistS FEA is Professor of World Literature in the English Faculty, University of Oxford, and Director of the Oxford Centre for Life-Writing at Wolfson College. She is a founding figure in the fields of colonial, postcolonial and world literature studies in English, and was a Rhodes Scholar 1985-88 (South Africa-at-large and St John’s). Recent work includes Postcolonial Poetics: 21st-century readings (2018) and Indian Arrivals 1880-1915: Networks of British Empire (2015), which won the European Society for the Study of English (ESSE) prize 2015-16. Her biography of Nelson Mandela (2008) has been widely translated, as has Colonial and Postcolonial Literature (1995, 2005), which was first gestated at St John’s. Other work includes Empire, the National and the Postcolonial: Resistance in Interaction (2002), and Stories of Women (2005).
Elleke Boehmer’s fiction includes To the Volcano (2019) and The Shouting in the Dark (2015), co-winner of the English Academy of Southern Africa (EASA) Olive Schreiner Prize for Prose, 2018. Her first novel, Screens Against the Sky (1990), shortlisted for the David Higham prize, was also gestated in College. To the Volcano was commended for the Australian Review of Books Elizabeth Jolley Prize, 2019.
Elleke Boehmer was awarded a British Academy Senior Research Fellowship 2020 for ‘Southern Imagining’ —a project exploring understandings of the world from the Global South. Elleke also works on the UKRI funded ‘Accelerate Hub’ project (2019-2023), based at the University of Cape Town and at Oxford, on which she researches how storytelling practices underpin and impact our understanding of ourselves within the contexts we inhabit.
Professor Boehmer was the Director of The Oxford Research Centre in the Humanities (TORCH) 2015–17, and she directed the Mellon-funded TORCH Global South Fellowships programme in 2018–19. She holds an honorary doctorate from Linnaeus University, Sweden, and is a Rhodes Trustee.
David Flood (Music 1977)
After graduation, David Flood’s first employment was as Assistant Organist in Canterbury Cathedral. Subsequently Organist and Master of the Choristers at Lincoln Cathedral, he was appointed back in Canterbury as Organist and Master of the Choristers in 1988, where he led the musical foundation until his retirement at the end of 2020, having served a sequence of five Archbishops of Canterbury.
David Flood has been awarded the honorary degree of DMus from the University of Kent and an honorary Fellowship from Canterbury Christ Church University.
Sir Michael Jacobs FRCP (Physiological Sciences – Pre-clinical Medicine, 1982)
Michael Jacobs is an Infectious Diseases specialist at the Royal Free London NHS Foundation Trust. After studying medicine at St John’s and St Bartholomew’s Hospital Medical School, he trained as a physician in General Medicine and Infectious Diseases in London and Cambridge. He completed a PhD in Molecular Virology at Imperial College London and was awarded a Wellcome Advanced Fellowship for postdoctoral research. He was subsequently appointed as Consultant in Infectious Diseases at the Royal Free Hospital and later as Clinical Director of Infection, helping to establish an internationally recognised centre of excellence. His main clinical and research interests are the most serious viral infections and medical countermeasures to combat them. He also has a major interest in medical education and has had several leadership roles in postgraduate training programmes and examinations.
Sir Michael is Warden-elect of Keble College from 1 October 2022
Sir John Kingman KCB (History, 1987)
Sir John Kingman KCB FRS has been Chairman of Legal & General plc since 2016. He is also Chair of Tesco Bank and Deputy Chair (twice Acting Chair) of the National Gallery.
From 2016-21 he was the first Chair of UK Research and Innovation, which oversees Government science and innovation funding of c£8bn a year. He was elected an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Society in 2021 “for his unwavering support for science throughout his career”.
At the Treasury, where he was Second Permanent Secretary, he was closely involved with the response to the 2007–9 financial crisis, leading on the nationalisation of Northern Rock and the £37bn recapitalisation of RBS, Lloyds and HBOS. He was also particularly involved with science funding, leading on five spending reviews which prioritised science and in 2004 leading the cross-Government 10-year science and innovation framework.
In 2018 he undertook a highly critical review of the Financial Reporting Council, recommending wholesale reform of the FRC and ending self-regulation of the major audit firms.
John is also a World Fellow of Yale University.
Professor Pratap Bhanu Mehta FBA (PPE, 1985)
Professor Mehta has held the posts of Professor at NYU School of Law, Visiting Professor of Government at Harvard University, Associate Professor of Government and of Social Studies at Harvard, Professor of Philosophy and of Law and Governance at Jawaharlal Nehru University, and Vice-Chancellor of Ashoka University. He has published widely in political theory, constitutional law, governance and political economy, international affairs, and on society and politics in India. His current research interests include constitutionalism in modern India, ideas of god and religion in modern Indian intellectual history, and populism and the university in comparative perspective. He is also a former President and CEO of leading Indian political think-tank, the Centre for Policy Research, as well as being a prolific columnist for several papers and Contributing Editor at the leading national daily, the Indian Express. Prof. Mehta has served on many Indian government committees, including the National Security Advisory Board, the Prime Minister of India’s National Knowledge Commission, and a Supreme Court-appointed committee on elections in Indian universities. His honours include the 2010 Malcom S. Adiseshiah Award and the 2011 Infosys Prize for Social Sciences — Political Science.
Professor Mehta is currently Laurence S. Rockefeller Visiting Professor for Distinguished Teaching at Princeton University
