studies

St John's College - Talks, lectures and seminars

Lectures

The new album 'This Is All Yours'
Available on iTunes here: smarturl.it/TIAYitunes
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Listen on Spotify here: smarturl.it/TIAYPlaylist

Breezeblocks (RZA Remix)

Laura Bates, who founded the Everyday Sexism Project draws attention to the sexism still routinely experienced by women. 

The Project, which was set up to catalogue instances of sexism experienced by women on a day-to-day basis, has become a global phenomenon, carrying thousands of stories from women around the world, and with some 124,000 people following its Twitter feed.

The Everday Sexism Project website can be found here http://everydaysexism.com/.


Everyday Sexism Project

Professor Graeme Barker discusses how recent archaeological research is transforming our understanding of how Homo sapiens became the dominant species on Earth. 

As well as a Fellow of St John’s College, Barker is Disney Professor of Archaeology at Cambridge and Director of the McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research. Since 2000, much of his research has focused on two sites where the remains of early, anatomically “modern” humans have been found. These are the Niah Caves in Borneo, and Hauah Fteah, in Libya.

In both cases, large teams of researchers from different disciplines have been using tiny fragments of evidence to piece together a picture of how occupation of the sites developed, and how the landscape and environment shifted over time. This deeper understanding of the interaction between humans and their environment is changing what we know about how humans emerged from Africa and spread across the world. 

These migrations may date back to as long ago as 125,000 years before the present day, but the process itself was by no means as linear as we once thought. Relatively recent studies have shown that Homo Sapiens found itself in competition with other species, including not just Neanderthals, but the likes of Homo floresiensis, the so-called “Hobbit” discovered in 2003. Remarkably, the dispersals themselves also occurred against a backdrop of rapid climate change. How our ancestors coped with this, and why they did so more successfully than other species, is becoming clearer as a result of work at sites such as the Niah Caves and Hauah Fteah. 

“We are beginning to realise that, instead of the idea that we somehow developed as a fully-rounded species and sprang out of Africa fully-formed, much of what we are and who we are developed as part of the journey,” Barker suggested in his talk. “People also tend to see this past as a record of success, but our work shows that people took choices – wise choices, and sometimes foolish choices – and there are cases of extinctions in these caves as well as successes.”

Barker’s next project, commencing in a few weeks, will involve similarly extensive work at Shanidar Cave, in Iraqi Kurdistan – one of the few sites which, at different times, is known to have been occupied by both Homo Sapiens and Neanderthals. 

His presentation was part of a series of monthly talks, given by Fellows and College Research Associates at St John’s College, in which they provide an overview of their academic research. 


Tale Of Two Caves

The absorbing, colourful, and sometimes mysterious history of the oldest manuscript in St John’s College, Cambridge – the Southampton Psalter – is the subject of this talk by Professor Patrick O’Neill. His presentation offers a brisk tour through centuries of history, as it tracks the origins, likely uses and journey of the book from its beginnings in early medieval Ireland, through to its arrival at the College in the 17th century. 

The Story of the Southampton Psalter

Bob Parker, a Johnian and industry expert who has been working in the sector for over 30 years, gave alumni his expert insights into investment and market trends at an event last week. The networking evening at Canary Wharf on May 15 was held for Johnians working in the financial services sector. During an entertaining talk, Mr Parker summarised his thoughts on traps and opportunities for their investment portfolios, including an analysis of recent trends in the global capital markets. Bob Parker came to St John’s College in 1970 and received his BA in Economics in 1973. He is on the Development Committees of St John's College Cambridge and King's College School.

Bob Parker at the Johnians in Finance Networking Event

Dr John Slight, research fellow in History at St John's College, discusses the College and the First World War. This talk was first given at the St John's Donor Day in May, 2014. 

From New Court to France and the wider world

Dr Hannah Joyce is College Lecturer in Engineering at St John’s, and University Lecturer in Electronic Devices and Materials. In this short introduction to one aspect of her work, she discusses what nanowires are, how they are made, and in particular their importance as semiconductors. Measuring between 10 and 100 nanometres across – a tiny fraction of a human hair – these remarkable structures offer huge promise for the development of all sorts of devices, including photodetectors, lasers and solar cells. Fabricating them and controlling their properties requires extensive research and precision techniques, however, and developing commercially viable processes that will make nanowires commonplace in a range of technologies remains a holy grail aspiration for scientists and engineers working in this field. 

Tiny And Mighty Nanowires As Building Blocks For Future Electronics

It could be argued that over the last 20 years climate science has become synonymous with global warming, but there is so much more to climate science than just climate change. At its roots it is about understanding how the various components of the climate system – the atmosphere, oceans, land surface and ice – work together to give us the regional climates we experience around the world. This lecture will present a personal perspective of how climate science has evolved from meteorology and oceanography, through the application of theory, observations and modeling, to deliver the understanding we now have of how our climate system works and why climate change is arguably one of the greatest challenges facing us in the 21st century.

Biography

Julia Slingo became Met Office Chief Scientist in February 2009 where she leads a team of over 500 scientists working on a very broad portfolio of research that underpins weather forecasting, climate prediction and climate change projections. Since joining the Met Office Julia has sought to integrate the UK community in weather and climate research to ensure that the UK receives maximum benefit from its science investments. She has strengthened the NERC /Met Office Joint Weather and Climate Research Programme to secure the UK’s national capability in observations, modelling and supercomputing, and set in place a unique Academic Partnership with leading universities including Exeter University to advance cutting edge research and bring more of their science through to impact. Before joining the Met Office Julia was the Director of Climate Research in NERC ’s National Centre for Atmospheric Science, at the University of Reading. In 2006 she founded the Walker Institute for Climate System Research at Reading, aimed at addressing the cross disciplinary challenges of climate change and its impacts. Julia has had a long-term career in atmospheric physics and climate science, working at the Met Office, the European Centre for Medium-range Weather Forecasts, and the National Center for Atmospheric Research in the USA . Throughout her career she has brought innovative approaches to understanding and modelling weather and climate. She has developed and used complex weather and climate models to deliver new insights into how the atmosphere and climate system works, as well as significant advances in predictive skill. Her special interests are in tropical weather and climate variability, understanding their influence on the global climate system and their role in monthly to decadal climate prediction.

Tiny And Mighty Nanowires As Building Blocks For Future Electronics

University of Cambridge