St John’s – Clarendon Academic Excellence Summit
On 28 April, St John’s hosted an academic excellence summit, organised jointly by students in the College’s MCR and Clarendon Scholars from across the collegiate university. As the College's Vice-President, Professor Philip Maini said in his opening address, this event offered a wonderful opportunity to share and celebrate outstanding interdisciplinary postgraduate research and intellectual curiosity.
Five St John’s students presented their research in a variety of imaginative formats, including three-minute ‘lightening’ talks, 4-Minute TED-style presentations, and creative performances. Talks ranged widely across a variety of topics, from the use of orbital data to translate complex satellite technologies into grounded forms of protection for affected communities, to self-reflexive explorations of how strategies of remaining uncaptured can themselves become forms of power.
Students from St John’s College were recognised with several prizes. Jen DeNike (DPhil Fine Art) received the Creative Scholarship Prize for her performance Moon River, a live interdisciplinary work emerging from Venus Time. The piece moved between invocation and dialogue, weaving together musical expression with a compelling meditation on imaginative flight.
Nick Parak (DPhil, Chemistry) was awarded both the TED-Style Talk Prize for his presentation on the “Land of a Thousand Hills” in Rwanda and the Audience Choice Award, reflecting his ability to engage and captivate a broad audience.
Meanwhile, Clarendon Scholar Vida Long received the Three-Minute Thesis Prize for her incisive presentation, The Slippery Beast of Aotearoa New Zealand Literature, which distilled complex literary analysis into a clear and engaging format.
The research presentations were followed by a black-tie dinner in the hall and drinks at the Lamb and Flag, providing opportunities for informal, interdisciplinary conversation.
Congratulations to all those who participated in this inaugural summit, and special thanks to Charden Pouo Moutsouka (DPhil Geography and the Environment), Magdalena Blincoe-Deval (DPhil Geography and the Environment), and Sophia Andresen (Lady Margaret Hall, DPhil in Social Intervention & Policy Evaluation) for organising and hosting such a successful event.
We hope that this will be a regular event in the College's calendar and look forward to next year's summit.
