New Honorary Fellows elected

2 February 2018

We are delighted to announce the election of seven new honorary fellows:

Professor Sir Jeffrey Jowell, KCMG QC, Jurisprudence 1961

Sir Jeffrey is one of the UK’s most eminent lawyers. He is leading authority on public, constitutional, and administrative law, and has also worked extensively in the human rights field. He was knighted in 2011 for services to democracy, human rights and the rule of law in Europe.

The Very Reverend Dr Jeffrey John, Classics and Modern Languages 1975

Ordained in 1978, Jeffrey John was chaplain at Brasenose College and latterly Dean of Divinity at Magdalen College during the 1980s. He was a central figure in the promotion of Catholic practices and teachings within the Anglican tradition. He was created Dean of St Alban’s in 2004, a position he still holds and is a leading advocate for same-sex marriage within the Church of England.

Dr Nancee Oku Bright, DPhil Social and Cultural Anthropology 1983

Nancee Oku Bright is Chief of Staff of the Office of the Secretary-General’s Special Representative on Sexual Violence in Conflict. She served in the Democratic Republic of the Congo as Chief of the Humanitarian Affairs Section of the UN peacekeeping mission. Nancee has also worked as a journalist, and directed and produced the PBS Documentary, “Liberia: America’s Stepchild,” which examined the cause of Liberia’s long-running civil war.

Mr Soweto Kinch, Modern History 1996

Soweto started learning the saxophone at the age of nine and developed a love of jazz music while a teenager. He is one of the UK’s most successful jazz musicians, having won numerous accolades, including, in 2002, the Rising Star Award at the BBC Jazz Awards and the White Foundation world sax competition. In 2003 and 2007 he won the MOBO Award for Best Jazz Act, and in 2003, his debut album Conversations With The Unseen was nominated for the Mercury Music Prize.

Mr Paul Manduca, Modern Languages 1970

Paul Manduca has spent his career in the financial sector, becoming CEO of Rothschild Asset Management in 1999 and latterly European CEO of Deutsche Asset Management from 2002 to 2005. He joined the board of Prudential in 2010 and was named chairman of the board in 2012.  He is also Chairman of Henderson Diversified Income Limited, an independent global asset management fund, and in 2015 he became Chairman of the Templeton Emerging Markets Investment Trust.

Professor Martin Bridson, Mathematics 1983

Martin Bridson read mathematics at Hertford before completing his PhD in 1991 at Cornell University. After teaching posts at Princeton, the University of Geneva, and Imperial College, London, he is now Whitehead Professor of Pure Mathematics at the University of Oxford. Specializing in geometry, topology and group theory, Bridson is best known for his work in Geometric Group Theory. His honours include the Whitehead Prize of the London Mathematical Society (1999), the Forder Lectureship of the New Zealand Mathematical Society (2005), and a Royal Society Wolfson Research Merit Award (2012). Professor Bridson was elected a Fellow of the American Mathematical Society in 2015 and was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS) in 2016.

Dr Stephanie West, Tutor in Classics 1966-2005

Stephanie West was a student at Somerville College, where she read Classics before completing her DPhil. She was Hertford’s Classics tutor from 1966 to 2005, and Fellow Librarian from 1990 to 2005. She was elected a Fellow of the British Academy in 1990 and a Foreign Member of the Polish Academy of Arts and Sciences (PAU) in 2012. Stephanie’s main research interests are Homer, Herodotus, and Lycophron.