New Year Honours 2009
31 Dec 08
Four Oxford University academics
have been recognised in the New
Year Honours, announced on 31
December.
Professor Duncan Gallie,
Professor of Sociology and
Official Fellow of Nuffield
College, is made a CBE for
services to social science.
Professor Tony Venables, BP
Professor of Economics, Director
of the Oxford Centre for the
Analysis of Resource Rich
Economies and Fellow of New
College, is also made a CBE. He
is the former Chief Economist at
the Department for International
Development.
Mrs Rosemary Thorp, Reader
Emeritus in the Economics of
Latin America and Emeritus
Fellow of St Antony’s College,
is also made a CBE. Mrs Thorp
was Director of Queen Elizabeth
House, the University's
Department of International
Development, in 2003-2004.
The
founding Director of the Nissan
Institute for Japanese Studies,
Professor Arthur Stockwin,
receives an OBE for services to
academic excellence and the
promotion of UK-Japanese
understanding. He is an Emeritus
Fellow of St Antony’s College.
Christmas lectures help pupils explore
science
10 Dec 08
Hundreds of school children are visiting the
University Museum of Natural History this week to
discover the best tactics to survive on a game show,
how to make chemistry experiments go with a bang and
tales of filming TV natural history programmes.
The thirteen and fourteen year old pupils from
schools in Oxfordshire, Milton Keynes and
Buckinghamshire are taking part in the University of
Oxford’s annual science lectures where University
scientists aim to entertain and inspire with their
insights into science.
The series of three lectures began on Monday
with Professor Marcus du Sautoy, Professor for the
Public Understanding of Science, using maths to
unlock ‘The Secret of the Winning Streak’. Marcus
has recently been presenting The Story of Maths on
BBC Four and his lecture looked at how maths could
help optimise your chances of success in Christmas
games.
Tomorrow (Thursday), Dr Hugh Cartwright and Dr
Malcolm Stewart are presenting The Cool and Crazy
Chemistry Show, where bright colours, bangs and
whizzes, alongside Dr Cartwright’s specialism in how
to use Artificial Intelligence to solve scientific
problems, should bring chemistry to life.
Dr George McGavin will give the final lecture
on Friday. Dr McGavin is an author, lecturer,
television presenter and explorer who has recently
appeared on our TV screens in The Lost Land of the
Jaguar on BBC 1. He will be sharing tales of his TV
experiences alongside his fascination for the world
of bugs and a taste for fried insects.
After each lecture the school pupils have the
chance to explore the Museum of Natural History with
a Christmas quiz, which they are pictured doing
here.
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Duke of Gloucester to open international architecture conference
09 December 2008
Duke of Gloucester is to open an international architecture
conference hosted by Oxford Brookes on Friday 12 December 2008.
Two hundred and twenty five delegates from all over the world will
attend the conference, which marks the 20th anniversary of The
International Association for the Study of Traditional Environments (IASTE).
Organised in collaboration with the University of California, Berkeley,
this is the first time that IASTE has held its conference in the UK. The
event is held bi-annually in locations around the world, including most
recently Hong Kong, Dubai and Bangkok.
The four day conference brings together specialists working in the
fields of traditional architecture, historic conservation,
sustainability, heritage management and architectural regeneration.
Delegates will have the opportunity to visit Oxford’s regeneration
projects such as Oxford Castle, where the closing ceremony will be held
and sites in the Cotswolds such as Filkins where weaving workshops and a
stone masonry have brought new life to converted barns. Delegates will
also visit one of Europe’s biggest urban regeneration project at
London’s Kings Cross.
The conference will address international issues including how
fundamentalist regimes use traditional architecture to achieve their
aims; it will explore whether after disasters such as the Tsunami,
survivors need tradition in architecture to make sense of their world.
The conference aims to unite the often warring architectural factions of
modernists and traditionalists. Dr Marcel Vellinga, Senior Lecturer in
Vernacular Architecture in the School of the Built Environment at Oxford
Brookes commented: “Architecture is very much focused on the
contemporary and modern, while conservation architects are of course
interested in historic buildings. The conference aims to show the
importance of the issue of regeneration; to use what we have already and
give it a new function combining the modern and the traditional, not
opposing the two. It is more sustainable to build on what we have than
to knock it down and build anew.”
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Wednesday
28 January 2009
18:00 to 19:30
Dr Metcalfe will argue the importance to the UK of
developing our researchers and improving the status of research
as a profession. |
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Wednesday
04 February 2009
18:00 to 19:30
Mr Taschini will be speaking about the challenges this new
digital age brings with it. |
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Wednesday
04 March 2009
18:00 to 19:30
This lecture will explore the concept of attention,
attempt to describe the varieties of attention-deficit and
suggest some strategies available to learners and teachers to
strengthen and sustain attention. |
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Wednesday
11 March 2009
18:00 to 19:30
This lecture will take the form of an artwork, combining
images and music. Andrew Holmes’ subject is the biggest
structure, at 46,000 miles long, ever designed as a single
element, the American Interstate Highway system |
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