Meet the Fellowship

The following article was first published in June 2020 under the title 'Your Fellowship' in this year's edition of The Wheel, the College's annual newsletter. 

The Master, Official Fellows and Professorial Fellows of St Catharine’s make up the Governing Body and are College trustees. They undertake all the important pedagogical, research, pastoral and senior administrative work of the College. The Governing Body runs the College through its various officers and committees, with many Fellows providing significant time and expertise to ensure its smooth operation, both for our community today and to ensure our College is well positioned for generations to come.

Around 60 in number, the size of the Fellowship has remained steady for at least the last quarter century. Historically, certain Colleges would focus on particular subject specialisms. Since the 1950s, Colleges such as St Catharine’s have taught the full range of undergraduate subjects. Our Fellowship size in part reflects this, with Fellows directing studies in each subject.

For the purposes of our statutes, there are three types of College Fellowship: Official (currently 47), Professorial (currently 16) and Research (currently 3). Professorial Fellows hold professorships in the University, while Official Fellows typically either hold lectureships or readerships in the University or are employed by the College in academic and/or senior administrative posts. Less than half of our Fellows (28) are salaried by the College, with the other Fellows salaried by the University.

The Governing Body also elects Emeritus Fellows, Honorary Fellows and Fellow Commoners. Emeritus Fellows are former long-serving Official or Professorial Fellows, while Honorary Fellows are chosen for their academic or other distinction.Among our Honorary Fellows are former Masters; former Official, Professorial and Research Fellows; and distinguished alumni. Fellow Commoners are chosen for their significant voluntary contributions to the life of the College and the majority of these individuals are alumni.

Dr River Chen (2017)

I joined St Catharine’s College Fellowship as the Bevil Mabey College Lecturer in Economics, having received my BA from Peking University and MPhil and PhD in Economics from the University of Cambridge. I have enjoyed the life at Catz very much, especially the opportunities for conversation with all the Members of the College.

My research interests include labour economics, urban economics and micro-econometrics, focusing on the impact of minimum wages on income inequality and unemployment, and the agglomeration and sorting of human capital. I also investigate models of city structures that highlight the rise of the sharing economy, and the application of machine learning techniques in econometrics.

Advanced tools and models help us better understand and further predict the trend of these crucial economic figures. For example, an increase in the minimum wage could support those who are currently working for low earnings, but equally, it could lead to higher unemployment, reducing the potential gain. The development of the sharing economy could also have a profound impact on local land use and land price.

I share the role of Director of Studies in Economics with other Fellows and I supervise Macroeconomics, Labour and Public Economics. It is a gratifying process, and I enjoy the supervisions and teaching a lot. Since all our students are intelligent and sharp, our discussions span the debate on labour income taxation and capital taxation, to long-run economic growth and short-run policymaker inconsistency. I prefer to call it an opportunity to learn together, rather than teaching.

In addition to serving on various College committees and the Governing Body, I support our undergraduates as a Tutor, which gives me the unique opportunity to celebrate their happiness and share their sorrows. I really appreciate all the events and stories I hear at the various tutorial meetings. I think that is the most valuable part of College life, because Catz is not just a workplace, but a treasure chest full of gems, from the past to the present and the future.

Professor Eilís Ferran (1980)

I am currently seconded from my ‘day job’ as a Professor in the Law Faculty to the University senior leadership team. My portfolio as Pro-Vice-Chancellor has two distinct parts: institutional and international relations. On the institutional side, I have strategic responsibility for initiatives that seek to help the University attract and retain the world’s most talented staff, and on projects that seek to strengthen an inclusive culture. A highlight has been the adoption of long-overdue reform of academic promotion. On the international side, I am currently leading on the adoption of a more strategic approach to international engagement. Given the changing global landscape for universities, it is imperative for the University to articulate clearly its goals, priorities and direction.

My longstanding research interest has been the institutional design of financial regulation: from the establishment of the UK’s Financial Services Authority at the end of the 1990s through to its breakup in the early 2010s, and the evolution of the European regulatory landscape. It has been fascinating to contribute to parliamentary inquiries on these topics, as specialist adviser or expert witness.

My interest in how countries defer to each other’s legal and regulatory systems in order more effectively to regulate global financial markets predates Brexit. I was among the first to write about how ‘equivalence’ would (or would not) work as an effective basis for future UK-EU financial services activity.

Another research interest that has become quite salient is the basis on which we attribute knowledge to companies. I was prompted to write about this topic after a controversial decision in 2009 of the House of Lords on the attribution to a company of a fraud conducted by its director and sole shareholder. The recent collapse of the Serious Fraud Office’s prosecution of Barclays and its senior executives for actions taken to stabilise the bank’s position during the financial crisis has shown that shortcomings in the law on corporate criminal liability that I identified in my article are still present.

Professor Jeff Dalley (2007)

Many pharmaceutical companies, in recent years, have walked away from the mental health sector, claiming that developing drugs for mental illness is too hard, too risky, and too expensive. Consequently, in many cases, treatment options for mental illness rely on drugs licensed well over 50 years ago, a disheartening prospect that only worsens if one considers the blunt classification methods used presently to diagnose depression, schizophrenia and other mental disorders.

Arguably, the only way to improve our understanding of mental illness, and to treat it effectively, is to accept that mental illness is rooted in the structure of the brain, the intricacies of its neural networks and chemicals, and – most importantly of all – the rich and often reciprocal connections that the brain makes with the body.

As a neuroscientist, I look for explanations grounded in brain biology – with particular interests in understanding the biological mechanisms of endophenotypes (or traits) linked to mental illness, including impulsiveness, anxiety, cognitive biases, memory and attentional impairment. This approach has the potential to help us discover novel mechanisms and much-needed treatment approaches. My research uses ultra-high-field magnetic resonance imaging of the brain, coupled with techniques to explore how the environment (e.g. stress) influences the genome and, consequently, behaviour and cognition.

Since arriving at Catz, I have had the immense pleasure of teaching neuroscience to dozens of students – hopefully, inspiring some of them to consider a career in academic research. In addition to my departmental responsibilities (I am Rosalie Canney Professor of Behavioural Neuroscience), I am also the College’s Director of Studies in Neuroscience and Psychology (Part II).

In my spare time, I am the Editor-in Chief of Brain and Neuroscience Advances, the flagship journal of the British Neuroscience Association.

Read more articles from the 2020 edition of The Wheel.