Hertford welcomes new Academic Visitors

13 September 2019

We are delighted to announce that Hertford will be welcoming three new Academic Visitors for the year ahead:

Professor Judith Herrin, winner of the Heineken history prize in 2016, is a British archaeologist and academic of Late Antiquity. She will be researching how the early maps of the world were assembled for successful navigation use.

Dr Pingtjin (PJ) Thum is a Singaporean historian, and founder and Managing Director of New Naratif, a movement for democracy, freedom of expression, and freedom of information in Southeast Asia. He is also a Hertford alumnus (History & Politics, 2002). His academic work centres on decolonisation in Southeast Asia, and its continuing impact on Southeast Asian governance and politics.

Dr Susie Orbach is a renowned psychotherapist, journalist and writer. Over the course of the year she will be undertaking research at Hertford in preparation for her next book: applying the psychological framework of sorrow analysis at a national level, in particular how we come to terms with end of the post-war settlement.

The Principal commented: “Judith is a phenomenal historian of Byzantium, Susie one of our leading therapists and thinkers about therapy and PJ a political scientist whose analysis of the short-comings of South East Asian democracies is honest and brave. They are a trio of wonderful intellectuals who we look forward to simulating us – as we hope to stimulate them.” 

Thank you also to last year’s Academic Visitors, Kumar Iyer and Sir Martin Donnelly, who did much to enrich the social and academic community at Hertford. Martin has taken on a new role as President of Boeing Europe and Managing Director of Boeing UK & Ireland, while Kumar has been appointed as Chief Economist for the Foreign Office.