St Cross announces arrival of seven new Fellows

St Cross is proud to announce that we have seven new Fellows, arriving from the four corners of the world and working within a wide spectrum of subjects. 

The Faculty of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies announced the appointment of new St Cross Fellow Professor Nandini Chatterjee as their Chair in Indian History and Culture starting in Michaelmas term 2024. Prof. Chatterjee is a historian of South Asia, who works on law and cultural exchanges in the British and Mughal empires - with particular attention to religion and family. She was previously Professor of South Asian History at the University of Exeter and prior to that the Director of the Exeter South Asia Centre.  

Prof. Chatterjee has studied in universities in India, the Netherlands and the UK, completing her first degree in History from Jadavpur University, Kolkata, India; then studying in Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. She did her PhD in history at Cambridge, with a brief interlude at the University of Amsterdam. She is currently directing a project called Cast in Stone, which examines colonial memorials, especially public statuary in Britain and France, and has worked as historical consultant to an important community engagement and reinterpretation project at St. Paul's Cathedral, London.

Also joining us as a new fellow this term is Dr Umberto Bongianino, who is the Samir Shamma Associate Professor of Islamic Numismatics, Epigraphy and Material Culture.  Dr Bongianino has recently been appointed director of the Khalili Research Centre, which is the University’s centre for research into the art and material culture of the Islamic societies of the Middle East and of their non-Muslim members and neighbours. The main aim of his research is to debunk outdated perceptions of, and narratives around, the arts of the Islamic West and their position vis-à-vis the Islamic East and Christian Europe. Speaking of his arrival at St Cross Dr Bongianino said:

I'm thrilled to be joining St Cross as part of its small but vibrant community of academics from the faculty of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies. I'm particularly looking forward to meeting my new advisees, using the college's facilities for seminars and events about Islamic art, and making the most of the delicious meals in hall.

Joining us following his work as Assistant Professor in Mechanical Engineering at the Stevens Institute of Technology is Professor Johannes Weickenmeier. Now Associate Professor of Brain Health in the Department of Engineering Science at Oxford University, he is part of the Podium Institute and leads the efforts on Brain Health. He obtained his PhD from the ETH Zurich in 2015 and trained as a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at Stanford University for three years.  
Discussing his association with St Cross College Prof Weickenmeier said:

I am thrilled to move my research group to Oxford with the expectation to broaden our clinical impact by collaborating with brain health experts across the university. Our group combines multiphysics modeling and mechanics-informed medical image analysis to uncover prevalent neuropathological mechanisms of brain aging, neurodegenerative diseases, and traumatic brain injury. I am also excited to actively engage with the St Cross community to support and mentor our inspiring graduate students on their journey towards academic success and personal growth.

One of the three new Junior Research Fellows joining St Cross is Dr Sara Maleubre Molinero. A Beecroft Fellow in Cosmology at the BIPAC and a lecturer in physics at St Peter's college, her research focuses on the formation of large-scale structures (LSS) in the Universe, for which she runs and analyses N-body simulations. Dr Maleubre Molinero discussed how she felt about joining St Cross:

I’m very excited about starting as a JRF and getting to experience a graduates’ only college with a very horizontal hierarchy between members, which is quite special among Oxford colleges. I’m also looking forward to meeting new people within the community.

Also joining the College Fellowship are Junior Research Fellow Dr Giovanni Italiano from the Mathematical Institute, Junior Research Fellow in Experimental Psychology Dr Chloe Chessell and Dr Lakshanie Wickramasinghe who joins us as Knoop Junior Research Fellow in Ophthalmology. 

We hope you will join us in welcoming our new fellows to the St Cross community and look forward to many enjoyable conversations with them over the coming year.