Oxford profiles

Meet some of the talented people behind Oxford’s world-class research. Pushing forward the boundaries of knowledge, their work solves real world problems and creates a positive impact on our societies, economies and health.

Oxford Politics Professor Ben Ansell: the 2023 Reith lecturer. Photo credit: Fran Monks

Professor Ben Ansell

Everything is political, says Ben Ansell, as he is named the new Reith lecturer

Professor Daniel Freeman

Using virtual reality (VR) treatments to bridge the gap between science and therapy

We need to help create a future we cannot predict

Professor Soumitra Dutta and AI, education and exciting times

Professor Irene Tracey

Oxford’s Vice-Chancellor discusses her own research into chronic pain, and how collaboration is key in tackling some of the world’s great challenges

Professor Zoltán Molnár

Mental health is not written in the stars – but some conditions can be determined even before birth

Professor Mina Fazel

Professor Mina Fazel and her team are revolutionising the way mental health services are delivered to children

Professor Marian Knight

Director of the National Perinatal Epidemiology Unit, Professor Marian Knight is driving national change

Professor Russell Foster

Can improving our sleep help us improve our brain and mental health?

Professor Belinda Lennox

The Head of Oxford’s Department of Psychiatry is shedding light on the complexities of mental illness

Professor Andy Przybylski

Meet the Professor of Human Behaviour and Technology uncovering the impact of social media and gaming on mental health

Professor Cathy Creswell

Professor Cathy Creswell on establishing effective ways to help children with mental health issues

Professor Yaacov Yadgar

The dangers of asking questions and of not asking questions

Professor Carlos Vargas-Silva

I’d never been in a category before leaving my own country

It is often said, something has come full circle, even when it has not. In the case of Robert Hannigan, this could not be more apposite. A Classics student at Wadham in the mid-1980s, he returned to college nearly 40 years later as Warden.

From Wadham to GCHQ and back

Robert Hannigan on cyber crime, spying and the AI tsunami coming our way

The Coronation is based on 3,000-year old Biblical tradition

Professor George Garnett on kings, crowns and ... communism

I don’t think anyone in our faculty would say we should be throwing out the old. A lot of us are interested in diversifying and decolonising the curriculum. But that is not about throwing texts out, it’s bringing more texts in

Professor Marion Turner

Chaucer's Wife of Bath is saying women should be listened to, many people found this threatening

Professor Carolyn Hoyle, academic, advocate, campaigner

'The death penalty is not ok anywhere.'

Professor Andrea Cipriani

The search for a revolution in mental health treatments - and an organ to play

is under no illusion about the enormity of the problem – with five multi-billion-dollar companies dominating the space, it is a challenge to see change occur, that is sustainable and responsible

Professor Marina Jirotka

The accidental computer expert, and the battle to make tech ethical, sustainable and fair

She also works with theatre companies. And she writes books, which people read. Plus, she has an impressive catalogue of podcasts and broadcasts about literature, in general, and Shakespeare, in particular. So, staring at the goings-on in the street below

'Of course' Shakespeare should be taught

Professor Emma Smith and the importance of studying Humanities

It’s a beautiful moment in the year, when we give gifts and try to be nice to others,’ says Professor Ward, with emphatic pleasure. ‘If that’s what giving a day or a few days in the year can do, it seems to me, it’s a good thing, wherever you’re coming fr

Does it matter if Christmas isn't Ho Ho Holy?

Graham Ward on secular festivities and his long road to Oxford

From running COVID-19 trials to researching respiratory diseases

Professor Daniela Ferreira discusses her journey from Brazil to Oxford

Professor Bonsall leads the Mathematical Ecology Group in Oxford’s Department of Biology and could easily appear in a recruitment video – for Biology

It's Biology's time now

The enthusiastically scary Professor Mike Bonsall talks aliens, bio-threats and cool science

It’s perfectly possible to remove CO2 from the atmosphere

Professor Myles Allen, the physicist behind net zero

Professor K J Patel

The Director of the MRC Weatherall Institute of Molecular Medicine on his appointment as the new Chief Scientist of Cancer Research UK

If there were a first prize for coming first

Professor Brenda Stevenson would surely be in the running

There is no such thing as Trussonomics

Sir Dieter Helm on strong opinions, prime ministers and making an impact

'My mother always said I overdid things'

Professor Ngaire Woods, the founding head of Oxford's Blavatnik School of Government

From OPEC to Net Zero and still optimistic

Professor Nick Eyre on 34 years as an environmentalist

Creating statistical models for infectious diseases is challenging

COVID modeller Professor Christl Donnelly on making a difference

In 2021 Professor Byrne was elected a Fellow of the Academy in recognition of his research contributions to offshore wind

Oxford Professor, award-winning innovator, cricketer

Byron Byrne gets things done

It was a mistake to write off the Russians

International Relations Professor Neil MacFarlane takes a long view

Master and Companion

Dame Valerie Amos and her journey from Guyana to the Garter

Throwing open Oxford's digital doors

Bodley’s Librarian Richard Ovenden on transforming scholarship, protecting democracy and Man U

In academic Disneyland

Social Sciences head Professor Timothy Power talks politics, power and his road to Oxford

From Tony Benn intern to Oxford history professor

Now William Whyte is steering a new future for universities - among other roles

A photograph of Professor Chas Bountra at the Old Road Campus, Oxford University

The glass half full man

Professor Chas Bountra and Oxford's innovative future

Dr Vlad Mykhnenko: To some extent, the failure of Russian post-communist transition, our collective failure to help transform the Russian society, to prevent the former Communist elites - the KGB, for god’s sake! - from grabbing power, is all part of a mo

Myths, mistakes and Kremlin revenge

Dr Vlad Mykhnenko and the devastating invasion of his Ukraine home

Having a workplace nursery at St Anne’s College was a major factor, she says, in being able to conduct academic work and produce the amazingly successful parenting advice. But she points out, ‘There are no part time professorships here.’

Women academics don't realise how amazing they are

Says the in-demand (and amazing) Professor Lucie Cluver

Prepared to change

Professor Dan Grimley at the helm of Oxford's Humanities

For a China expert, Professor Henrietta Harrison is a lot like a Classics professor: rigorous, enthusiastic and politely accustomed to wild-but-common misconceptions about her subject

Journeys in the East

Professor Henrietta Harrison and the hidden histories of China

He had the right hair, he acquired the hat; he has gone on to have a 40-plus year career at the forefront of modern archaeology and is, rather hesitantly – and not really – going into retirement from Oxford’s School of Archaeology later this year

The dead grateful Professor Mark Pollard

Why archaeology is not all treasure, trowels and Indiana Jones

Although he left his teenage atheism behind him, Professor McGrath has no animosity towards atheism. He says, ‘I can understand why someone might be an atheist, although I am not one myself any more.’

Religious people need to explain and debate better

Professor Alister McGrath on faith, CS Lewis and Christmas

If we did the right thing, we did it by accident

Professor Dominic Wilkinson talks COVID, ethics and the next pandemic

Genocide, mass murder...and Oxford

Professor Dapo Akande, the very genial new UN law expert

Geomorphology explains landscape development, but once you put plants and animals in the mixture, it becomes biogeomorphology

(The) Heather Viles on ...

ruins, rocks, rubble and winning a certain gold medal

Picture of Professor Sir Charles Godfray for Find an Expert

No wonder he relaxes with wasps

Sir Charles Godfray and the enormous challenges of climate and feeding the world

Exceptional people make a difference

Sudhir Hazareesingh on heroes...and villains

Is she a workaholic? A future prime minister (mentioning no names)? ‘I don’t consider myself a workaholic at all – and I have no political ambitions. I’m passionate about what I do, so it’s not hard.’ Not for hard her, perhaps.

Bad COP, Good COP?

Oxford law professor Lavanya Rajamani and why climate talks matter

Professor Aditi Lahiri

From punk rock to plants

Robert Scotland argues we need hard science to 'save' the natural world

Professor Williams almost became an academic by accident. She never imagined becoming a Professor of English and, she says, she would have liked to go into advertising, except ‘she hadn’t really seen any adverts on television’, so did rather poorly in the

The accidental academic

Professor Abigail Williams on Dead Poets, dangerous novels and her love for literature

Restoring the rainforest and nature can’t solve climate change, but it can make a substantial and real contribution, while bringing all the many other benefits of a thriving natural world

Where the wild things should be

Yadvinder Malhi and why rainforest diversity is critical

Not a tea lady

The prime of Professor Dame Kay Davies

Deadly heat

The pleasantly terrifying Dr Fredi Otto talks extreme climate events

Philip Stier, is now at the forefront of climate science, as a leading researcher into clouds. He was very much ahead of the curve, but is the complete antithesis of the eccentric academic

Beautiful clouds, Mr Bond

Philip Stier and why you shouldn't look up the same way again

Professor Mills admits, ‘I didn’t realise our approach was going to be so valuable....But national and international governments, organisations and businesses contact us now. And our work has energised and attracted a lot of young researchers. We hear fro

Call me Spock

The dedicated and disruptive Melinda Mills takes a (quick) break

Oxford’s professor of Environmental Economics comes across more like...well an economist or a successful entrepreneur (he laughs) rather than a clichéd protestor

Putting the eco into economic

Cameron Hepburn: More Skippy than Crocodile Dundee

Professor Landray credits the strength of the medical community at Oxford for much of his success. ‘We are very fortunate in Oxford. There is huge strength and depth. There are the people at Oxford who have written landmark papers, the headline people fro

A million reasons for talking to ...

Martin Landray, co-leader of the Covid RECOVERY trial, estimated to have saved a million lives

Nathalie had to drive solo across Madagascar in an ancient ex-military Land Rover, she had transported by boat from Southampton. It might have been better had it never arrived as she spent more time trying to repair it than collecting data

From a forest track to the corridors of power

The wild lives of Nathalie Seddon