Catch up on the latest Trinty events on demand using the links below.
If you’d like to listen to an episode on the go, you now can on our Spotify page.
Trinity Engineers’ Association at Google, London
Hear the keynote speech on regulation and policy of Ai from Lord Tim Clement-Jones (1968) and the panel discussion concerning the use of AI in industry between Amanda Talhat (2006), Robert Shearme (2014), Natalia Koupanou (2012) and Ashok Thillaisundaram (2010).
PROFESSOR PETER SARRIS – Justinian: Emperor, Soldier, Saint
Professor Peter Sarris read Modern History at Balliol College, Oxford (1990-2003), after which he was elected to a Prize Fellowship (by examination) at All Souls College, Oxford. In 2000, he came to Cambridge as a University Lecturer and was elected a Fellow of Trinity. He is currently a Professor of Late Antique, Medieval and Byzantine Studies and has published extensively on the history of the Early Middle Ages and Byzantium. He is also a leading authority on the ‘Age of Justinian’ more generally.
In this talk, Professor Sarris presents his newest work: a modern biography of Justinian that radically reassesses the life of a man who rose from humble beginnings to become one of the world’s most powerful rulers in history. This vibrant retelling of Justinian brings the emperor to life and paints an intimately complex picture of how he was, in many ways, a very modern Emperor.
Professor Sarris’ talk was recorded on 14 December 2023. Click here to watch on YouTube.
DR KASIA WARBURTON – The Fluid Dynamics of Antarctica
Kasia is an applied mathematician studying the dynamics of ice sheets and glaciers. She originally came up to Trinity to read Maths as an undergraduate and has been drifting closer to Earth Sciences ever since. After finishing her PhD, she moved to Dartmouth College in the US to take up a postdoctoral fellowship. Her work focusses on the flow of water and sediment beneath the ice in Antarctica. She uses ideas from fluid dynamics to understand observations from both present-day and long-extinct glaciers.
This episode was recorded on Wednesday 11 January 2023.
DR HENRY LEE-SIX – From Normal Cell to Cancer
Henry came up to Trinity in 2011 to study medicine. As an undergraduate, he spent summers working in the labs of Professor Rebecca Fitzgerald, Dr Paul Edwards, and Professor Patrick Maxwell, which convinced him to apply for the MB/PhD programme. He interrupted his medical studies to spend his PhD at the Wellcome Sanger Institute in the labs of Dr Peter Campbell and Professor Mike Stratton, working on the earliest stages of cancer evolution. Thereafter, he returned to finish medical school. He graduated early in April 2020 and worked in Intensive Care in Harlow for much of the pandemic. He is now finishing his Foundation Programme training at Addenbrooke’s hospital. He plans to attempt to combine further research as a Junior Research Fellow on the evolution of paediatric cancers with clinical training in histopathology.
In this talk, Henry explores features of early stage cancer evolution in the human colon and blood.
Henry’s talk was recorded on Wednesday, 13 April 2022. Click here to watch on YouTube.
DR RITA TEIXEIRA DA COSTA – Stability of Kerr Black Holes in General Relativity
Dr Rita Teixeira da Costa, originally from Portugal, now works in Mathematical Physics sharing her time between the Princeton Gravity Initiative in the US and the Center for Mathematical Sciences at Cambridge. During her time at Trinity, Rita has studied several problems arising in Einstein’s theory of General Relativity. Her biggest focus is on the stability properties of black holes, one of the most (in)famous predictions of this theory.
In this talk, Rita explains how mathematical tools from Geometry and Analysis can help us shed some light into these dark objects.
Rita’s talk was recorded on Wednesday, 16 March 2022. Click here to watch on YouTube.
DR BENJAMIN MARSCHALL – Analytic Philosophy
Dr Benjamin Marschall is a Junior Research Fellow working on the history of analytic philosophy, metaphysics, and the philosophy of language. In his recently completed PhD thesis he tackled these issues by investigating the philosophy of mathematics of the Vienna Circle philosopher Rudolf Carnap. Carnap put forward a radical and iconoclastic position, according to which much of the philosophical work done on the foundations of mathematics is based on misguided assumptions. Unsurprisingly this has led to a divisive reception.
In this talk Benjamin will argue that Carnap’s position is indeed too radical to be viable. Everyone needs to make sense of facts about syntax: if certain axioms and inference rules are accepted, then it is fixed whether a sentence is derivable from these or not. Drawing on an underappreciated argument by the Dutch logician E. W. Beth, we will see that Carnap struggles to meet this important demand.
Benjamin’s talk was recorded on Thursday, 17 February 2022. Click here to watch on YouTube.
DR OLIVER JANZER – Introduction to Graph Theory
Dr Oliver Janzer received his PhD in 2020, after completing his undergraduate and postgraduate studies at Trinity. He has since been a postdoctoral researcher at ETH Zürich and a Junior Research Fellow at Trinity. His research focuses on Discrete Mathematics, more specifically Graph Theory.
Graphs are mathematical objects that can be used to describe networks such as Facebook. In this talk, Oliver will give a gentle introduction to Graph Theory and discuss one of the most central problems in the field.
Oliver’s talk was recorded on Tuesday, 2 February 2022. Click here to watch on YouTube.
DAME SALLY DAVIES – Antimicrobial Resistance
Former Chief Medical Officer for England, and Senior Medical Advisor to the UK Government from 2011-2019, Dame Sally is a leading figure in global health. In November 2020, she was announced as a member of the new UN Global Leaders Group on AMR, serving alongside Heads of State, Ministers, and prominent figures from around the world to advocate for action on AMR.
Dame Sally’s annual Chief Medical Officer report on infectious diseases, in 2013, first highlighted the scale and complexity of AMR as a public health threat. This report underlined the impact of AMR on clinicians and spurred Dame Sally on to bridge the research and policy gap – speaking nationally and globally on the subject. She has since secured funding for the UK to pioneer data-driven surveillance in 24 countries across Africa and Southeast Asia, which is contributing to global understanding of and action on AMR.
Sally’s talk was recorded on Tuesday, 23 November 2021. Click here to watch on YouTube.
DR JITKA ŠTOLLOVÁ – Shaping Richard III After Shakespeare
In her research, Dr Jitka Štollová (2013) examines the different ways in which Tudor and Stuart writers interpreted lessons of medieval English history. In her case study of the portrayal of Richard III during the Stuart period, she challenges the narrative that this notorious king was seen solely as an epitome of tyranny, as he was portrayed in Shakespeare’s influential play. His example demonstrates that attitudes towards the boundaries and limitations of royal power were constantly in flux and depended on external circumstances.
Jitka’s talk was recorded on Thursday, 8 April 2021. Click here to watch on YouTube.
DR ROHIT CHIKKARADDY – Atoms, Molecules and Bonds Vibrations Coupling to Light
Hailing from India, Rohit did a PhD in Physics at the Nanophotonics Centre, Cavendish Laboratory, where he is currently continuing research as a Junior Research Fellow.His current research focuses on manipulating the physical and chemical properties of matter to help understand complex quantum processes such as photosynthesis. In this talk, he will discuss the how and why of the vision of sustainable energy management using light-controlled nanoscale machinery for sensing and point-of-care diagnostics applications.
Rohit’s talk was recorded on Wednesday, 24 March 2021. Click here to watch on YouTube.
DR ALED WALKER – Structure versus Randomness: a dichotomy in number theory
Dr Aled Walker received his doctorate in 2018 at the University of Oxford, under the supervision of Professor Ben Green. In his thesis, Aled looked for new ways to use techniques from a relatively young mathematical field — known as ‘additive combinatorics’ — to understand classical questions about prime numbers.
In this endeavour, it turns out that the following is a central question: is the collection of whole numbers that one is studying ‘structured’, or is it ‘pseudorandom’? In his talk, Aled will describe the meaning of these notions from first principles.
Aled’s talk was recorded on Thursday, 25 February 2021. Click here to watch on YouTube.
DR EWAIN GWYNNE – Random Curves and Surfaces
Dr Ewain Gwynne started his Junior Research Fellow in Trinity in 2018. During his time at Trinity, Ewain studied certain random curves and surfaces which are expected to model various real-world phenomena. In this talk, he gave an introduction to the mathematical theory of these random objects, aimed at a general audience with no mathematical or scientific background assumed.
Ewain’s talk was recorded on Thursday, 28 January 2021. Click here to watch on YouTube.
DR HANNAH STERN – Quantum Light From Atomically Thin Materials
Originally from New Zealand, Dr Hannah Stern now works at the Cavendish Laboratory, within the Quantum Optics group headed by Mete Atature. During her Junior Research Fellowship, Hannah is working on localised excitations in wide bandgap materials that are of interest for quantum applications that require single photons. In this talk she will introduce how material science discoveries have been central to our development through the ages, and how a new 2D material revolution could be emerging.
Hannah’s talk was recorded on Thursday, 3 December 2020. Click here to watch on YouTube.
DR DUNCAN HARDY – The rise of nation-states? Alternative pathways of political change in late medieval and early modern Europe
Hear from Duncan Hardy, whose first book, Associative Political Culture in the Holy Roman Empire: Upper Germany, 1346-1521, was published in 2018 and includes discussion of the European models of state formation. In this engaging Trinity Research Talk, Duncan will discuss aspects of his academic research career so far as well as current approaches to historical research.
Duncan’s talk was recorded on Thursday, 19 November 2020. Click here to watch on YouTube.
DR ALYCE MAHON – How Art Can Break Down Barriers: The Marquis de Sade and the Avant Garde
In this talk, Alyce Mahon introduces the ideas of the notorious Marquis de Sade (1740–1814) and explains how his libertine ‘philosophy of the boudoir’ inspired the surrealists and other avant-garde artists to explore terror, challenge oppressive political regimes, undermine restrictive codes of sexuality and gender, and imagine the unimaginable. Please note that, due to the subject matter, some of the artworks discussed are of a sensitive nature.
Alyce’s talk was recorded in September 2020. Click here to watch on YouTube.
PROFESSOR GREG HANNON- Lessons from Studies of Tumour Heterogeneity
Professor Hannon is Director and Senior Group Leader at the Cancer Research UK Cambridge Institute. In this talk, he will be sharing some of his observations from a career in oncology where he has made fundamental contributions to our understanding of small RNA biology and its role in cancer development. His discoveries, including Dicer, the content and mechanism of action of RISC, and the first small RNA oncogene, are just some of the innovative directions in which cancer research is progressing.
Greg’s talk was recorded in September 2020. Click here to watch on YouTube.
PROFESSOR REBECCA FITZGERALD – Catching Cancer Early: How Long is a Piece of String?
Professor of Cancer Prevention at the University of Cambridge, Rebecca directs a multi-disciplinary programme for the early detection of cancer. She is best known for her work to develop the Cytosponge and related biomarker assays for detection of Barrett’s oesophagus and associated dysplasia.
Rebecca’s talk was recorded in August 2020. Click here to watch on YouTube.
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