New Heads of house

Linacre College

Dr Nick Brown, lecturer in Plant Sciences and a fellow and senior tutor at Linacre, took up the office as Principal of the college on 1 October. Dr Brown’s research interests range from the microscopic and local to international policy concerns. He is currently working with the Woodland Trust to assess changes in woodland cover in the UK and is also investigating the best methods for restoring ancient semi-natural woodland. He works with the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) Post Conflict Assessment Unit to investigate the environmental impacts of conflicts and pre-existing chronic environmental problems. This work has taken him to countries such as Iraq and Rwanda, and he was also a member of a UN taskforce investigating the environmental impacts of the Boxing Day 2004 tsunami in the Maldives. He is also keen to promote public understanding and engagement with science, and has often featured on BBC Radio 4’s Home Planet.

Corpus Christi College

Professor Richard Carwardine, FBA, Rhodes Professor of American History at Oxford and Fellow of St Catherine’s College, took up office as President of Corpus Christi on 1 January 2010. Professor Carwardine read Modern History at Corpus between 1965 and 1968, and obtained his DPhil at The Queen's College, Oxford. Prior to his appointment as Rhodes Professor, he was Professor of History at Sheffield University. Professor Carwardine specialises in nineteenth-century American history. His biography of Abraham Lincoln won him the prestigious Lincoln Prize (awarded annually since 1991 for the best non-fiction historical work on the American Civil War). He is now working on a study of religion in American national construction between the Revolution and the Civil War. In 2006 he was elected a Fellow of the British Academy.

St Peter’s College

Mark Damazer, Controller of BBC Radio 4 and Radio 7, took up office as Master of St Peter’s College on 1 October 2010. Mr Damazer was appointed to his role with the BBC in 2004, having been Deputy Director of BBC News since 2001. He was previously Assistant Chief Executive of the News Division and, before that, he was Head of Political Programmes, responsible for the BBC's news and current affairs journalism from Westminster. Mr Damazer took his first degree at Cambridge, where he obtained a Double Starred First in History. Following this, he was awarded a Harkness Fellowship at Harvard University. He is a Board Member of the Institute of Contemporary British History, a former Vice-Chair of the International Press Institute Executive Board, and a Fellow of the Radio Academy.

Keble College

Sir Jonathan Phillips, KCB, formerly Permanent Secretary at the Northern Ireland Office, took up office as Warden of Keble on 1 October 2010. Sir Jonathan comes to Oxford following a career in Whitehall which spanned many aspects of public policy. After 25 years working mainly in economics departments, he moved, in 2002, to the Northern Ireland Office as its political director. He has supported two prime ministers and four secretaries of state in the Northern Ireland political process and was appointed Permanent Secretary in 2005. He left that role after the successful devolution of policing and justice powers to the Northern Ireland Executive in June 2010. Sir Jonathan was educated at Queen Mary's Grammar School in Walsall. His was the first generation in his family to go to university – he read history at St John's College, Cambridge, after which he completed a doctoral thesis on the campaign for government funding of Catholic higher education in Ireland in the late nineteenth century – one of the elements of the Irish home rule question.

Merton College

Professor Sir Martin Taylor, FRS, Professor of Pure Mathematics at the University of Manchester and past Vice-President and Physical Secretary of the Royal Society, took up office as Warden of Merton College on 2 October 2010. Professor Taylor was a professor of pure mathematics at Manchester since he moved from Trinity College, Cambridge, in 1986. Most recently his research has led him to study various aspects of arithmetic geometry: in particular, he and his collaborators have demonstrated how geometric properties of zeros of integral polynomials in many variables can be determined by the behaviour associated L-functions. Professor Taylor read Mathematics at Pembroke College, Oxford before gaining a PhD at King's College London. In 1982 he was awarded the London Mathematical Society's Whitehead Prize and the Adams prize (shared) in 1983. He became President of the London Mathematical Society in 1998, and in the same year was given an EPSRC Senior Fellowship. In 2003 he received a Royal Society Wolfson Merit award and became Chairman of the International Review of Mathematics (Steering group).

Somerville College

Dr Alice Prochaska, FRHists, University Librarian at Yale, took up office as Principal of Somerville College on 1 September 2010. Dr Prochaska received both her BA and her DPhil in Modern History from Oxford, where she studied at Somerville. She has pursued an extensive career in research and academic administration, from museums and the National Archives and the University of London’s Institute of Historical Research, to Director of Special Collections at the British Library. Dr Prochaska has chaired the Rare Books and Manuscripts Standing Committee of the International Federation of Library Associations, the National Council on Archives, and the Board of the Center for Research Libraries, and recently became Chair of the Winston Churchill Archives Trust. Her research interests include the history of trade unions in Britain and sources for modern British, American and Irish history. Her current special interest is in the stewardship of primary sources and international collections, and the history and ethics of cultural restitution.

Green Templeton College

Sir David Watson, Professor of Higher Education Management at the Institute of Education, University of London, took up office as Principal of Green Templeton College on 1 October 2010. He has contributed widely to developments in UK higher education, including as a member of the Committee of Inquiry chaired by Lord Dearing in 1996–7. More recently Sir David chaired the Commission of Inquiry into the Future for Lifelong Learning, which reported in September 2009. He was Vice-Chancellor of the University of Brighton (formerly Brighton Polytechnic) between 1990 and 2005. His academic interests are in the history of American ideas and in higher education policy and he has written numerous books, including Managing Strategy (2000), Higher Education and the Lifecourse (2003), Managing Institutional Self-Study (2005) and The Question of Morale (2009). He is currently a trustee of the Nuffield Foundation and President of the Society for Research into Higher Education. In 2008 he was awarded a National Teaching Fellowship.