̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge - Gilly Carr

̽��ֱ��Cambridge Awards 2024 for Research Impact and Engagement

zs332 — Mon, 03 Feb 2025 10:27:01 +0000

Meet the winner of the Cambridge Awards 2024 for Research Impact and Engagement and learn more about their projects.

Cambridge talent recognised in 2025 New Year Honours

ps748 — Mon, 30 Dec 2024 22:30:00 +0000

Former ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge Vice-Chancellor Professor Sir Leszek Borysiewicz, an Honorary Fellow of Wolfson College, Homerton College and St Edmund's College, is made Knight Grand Cross (GBE) for services to cancer research, clinical research, medicine and to charities.

Professor Ijeoma Uchegbu, who has been President of Wolfson College since October 2024, becomes a Dame (DBE) for services to chemical sciences and inclusion and diversity. Professor Uchegbu is a renowned expert in the field of pharmaceutical science and was most recently Professor of Pharmaceutical Nanoscience at ̽��ֱ�� College London. Her research has focussed on methods that can be used to help drugs reach their target more effectively and reduce the likelihood of uncomfortable side effects. While at UCL she spearheaded a project to improve outcomes for both staff and students from under-represented ethnic groups. She is is a Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences and an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry.

She said: “I’m absolutely thrilled. I wouldn’t say I’m humbled – I know people say that, but when I saw the letter at the Porters’ Lodge what I felt was an overwhelming sense of gratitude and pride. In my wildest dreams I never believed I would get such an award.”

Professor Ashley Moffet, Professor of Reproductive Immunology, is made Companion of the Most Distinguished Order of Saint Michael and Saint George (CMG) for services to reproductive health. A Fellow of King's College, she is the foremost international authority on the immunology of human reproduction and her work on genetic research has helped explain high rates of pre-eclampsia and maternal mortality in Ugandan populations. She is a Fellow of both the Academy of Medical Sciences and the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists.

She said: "I am delighted by this honour that is a tribute to the hard work and dedication of my many colleagues both here in Cambridge and in Uganda who are working together so tirelessly to support women in the field of maternal health."

Professor Gilly Carr is Professor of Conflict Archaeology and Holocaust Heritage and receives an OBE for services to Holocaust research and education. Professor Carr, a Fellow of St Catharine's College, is a member of both the UK delegation of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) and the academic advisory board for the UK Holocaust Memorial Centre. Professor Carr has a particular research interest in wartime incarceration, internment and imprisonment. 2024 saw the publication of her latest book, 'A Materiality of Internment', which drew on over 15 years of research and interviews with more than 65 former internees.

She said: “I am absolutely thrilled for my research and teaching to be recognised in this way. I've been working hard on behalf of victims of Nazism and the Holocaust for 15 years and for this to be seen as nationally important and worthwhile encourages me to continue my work with vigour.”

Professor Rachel Oliver, who also receives an OBE, is a materials engineer, inventor and commercial spinout founder. A Fellow of Robinson College, she is currently Director of the Cambridge Centre for Gallium Nitride and Chief Scientific Officer of Poro Technologies Ltd (Porotech). Her research is in understanding and engineering the small-scale structure of semiconductor materials to enable new technologies to develop. Professor Oliver is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Engineering and is a passionate advocate for equality, diversity and inclusion in science and engineering.

She said: “I am delighted to receive this honour and it is vital that I acknowledge the fabulous teams that I work with both in the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge and at Porotech, a company that spun out from my research group. I hope I can encourage more people to get involved in semiconductors in the UK. ̽��ֱ��semiconductor ecosystem has been an exciting place to work throughout my career, but never more so than right now, with both research and industry rapidly growing and stepping up to address some of the most pressing challenges we face.”

Dr James Biddulph, former headteacher of the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge Primary School, has been awarded an MBE for services to education. Dr Biddulph was the inaugural headteacher of the school from 2015 until 2023, and under his leadership it attained an Outstanding Ofsted rating in 2018.

Eleanor Sharpston KC, an Emeritus Fellow of King's College, has been made Dame Commander of the Order of St Michael and St George (DCMG) for services to Justice and to the Education of Law in the UK and Europe. Dame Eleanor has combined a career as a barrister (specialising in European Union and European Convention on Human Rights law) with an academic career first at ̽��ֱ�� College London and then at the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge where she continues as a Yorke Distinguished Visiting Fellow at the Law Faculty. She was also Arthur Goodhart Visiting Professor in Legal Science from 2023 to 2024.

Academics and staff at both the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge and Colleges feature in the 2025 list, which recognises the achievements and service of people across the UK.

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̽��ֱ��Channel Islands' victims and survivors of Nazi persecution

fpjl2 — Wed, 24 Jul 2019 09:23:59 +0000

A decade of research reveals the harrowing experiences of Channel Islanders persecuted by the Nazis during the Second World War.

Exhibition highlights the untold story of Nazi victims in the Channel Islands

sjr81 — Thu, 19 Oct 2017 11:18:26 +0000

On British Soil: Victims of Nazi Persecution in the Channel Islands, opens today at the Wiener Library for the Study of Holocaust and Genocide, London, and seeks to highlight the stories often omitted from the British narrative of ‘standing alone’ against Nazism and celebrations of the British victory over the Germans.

̽��ֱ��exhibition draws upon the Library’s wealth of archival material, recently-released files from the National Archives, personal items belonging to the victims themselves and current research from Dr Carr.

“For anyone who wants to come and learn about the last untold story of the German occupation of the Channel Islands, this is the exhibition to visit,” said Carr, a senior lecturer in archaeology at St Catherine’s College and the Institute of Continuing Education (ICE).

“ ̽��ֱ��Islands were the only part of British territory to be occupied and the victims of Nazism are almost entirely overlooked by those who prefer (incorrectly) to see the islands as a hotbed of collaboration. There are so many heart-breaking stories. We think of the Holocaust or Nazi persecution as something that happened only on the continent – but it happened on British soil. British citizens experienced the most horrific concentration camps, and Jews were deported from British territory to Auschwitz.”

From the experiences of a young Jewish woman living quietly on a farm in Guernsey and later deported to Auschwitz and murdered, to those of a Spanish forced labourer in Alderney, and the story of a man from Guernsey whose death in a German prison camp remained unknown to his family for over 70 years, the exhibition highlights the lives of the persecuted, and the post-war struggle to obtain recognition of their suffering.

Other exhibits going on display in London include a Christmas card made by a little girl and given to Frank Tuck from Guernsey as he suffered in Neuoffingen hard labour camp and a key of a prison cell from the notorious Cherche-Midi prison in Paris, belonging to Henry Marquand, deported for his role in sheltering two British commandos to Guernsey.

“ ̽��ֱ��search for these unknown stories continues,” added Carr. “ ̽��ֱ��exhibition coincides with the launching of a new website https://www.frankfallaarchive.org/ which is dedicated to finding and reconstructing the full journey of all deported Channel Islanders through various Nazi prisons and concentration camps. Theirs is the last untold story of the German occupation of the Channel Islands.”

Frank Falla, the Guernseyman after whom the archive is named, was a former prisoner and survivor of Frankfurt am Main-Preungesheim and Naumburg (Saale) prisons. In the mid-1960s, Frank took it upon himself to help his fellow former political prisoners in the Channel Islands get compensation for their suffering in Nazi prisons and camps.

In 2010, Frank’s daughter gave Gilly her father’s extensive archives – the most important resistance archives to ever come out of the Channel Islands – and the project was born. Falla’s briefcase, used to collect the testimony of those persecuted by the Nazis is also on display in London from today.

“I’ve been writing the background stories for the website of islanders deported to Nazi prison, concentration and labour camps,” added Carr. “So far I’ve written 75 out of 200 plus. Every story is a labour of love. I see each as a form of ‘rescue’. While I can never go back and rescue any of these people from their camps and prisons, I can rescue their story and experiences for their families and for the Channel Islands.”

Carr says the experience of researching these stories brings about a strangely bonding experience with her subject matter as she becomes a co-witness to the horrors they faced – and responsible for making their stories more widely known.

“Each person whose story I trace becomes a kind of ‘friend’ in a strange way. You get to know them so well and I have been lucky enough to meet many families of those deported. I feel I can be a link between the living and the dead and tell the living what the dead were never able to.

“I’m interested in hearing from anyone in the Channel Islands or further afield who had a family member sent to a Nazi prison or concentration camp from the Channel Islands to help supplement the journeys we have reconstructed from archival materials. Please contact me via the website with photos, documents and stories. I'd love to hear from you.”

On British Soil: Victims of Nazi Persecution in the Channel Islands until 9 February 2018, has been supported by the Heritage Lottery Fund.

̽��ֱ��untold stories of slave labourers, political prisoners and Jews who were persecuted during the German occupation of the Channel Islands during the Second World War will be revealed from today at a new exhibition co-curated by Cambridge’s Dr Gilly Carr.

Each person whose story I trace becomes a kind of ‘friend’ in a strange way. You get to know them so well.

GIlly Carr

Marianne Grunfeld was born in Poland to a German-Jewish family before taking a farm job in Guernsey in 1939. She was deported in 1942 and was murdered in Auschwitz

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Winners announced in the inaugural Vice-Chancellor’s Impact Awards and Public Engagement with Research Awards

jeh98 — Tue, 21 Jun 2016 09:58:54 +0000

On Monday 20 June, the Vice-Chancellor and Pro Vice-Chancellor for Research presented two sets of inaugural awards; the Impact Awards run by the Research Strategy Office, and the Public Engagement with Research Awards run by the Public Engagement team in the Office of External Affairs and Communications.

Research at the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge has had profound effects on society – it is a formal part of the ̽��ֱ��’s mission.

̽��ֱ��Vice-Chancellor’s Impact Awards have been established to recognise and reward those whose research has led to excellent impact beyond academia, whether on the economy, society, culture, public policy or services, health, the environment or quality of life.

In this, its inaugural year, there were 71 nominations across all Schools. Nominations were initially judged by School, with one overall best entry selected by external advisor Schlumberger. A prize of £1,000 was awarded to the best impact in each School, with the prize for the overall winner increased to £2,000.

̽��ֱ��winners were announced at an award ceremony on 20 June 2016, hosted by Professor Sir Leszek Borysiewicz. These winners, although very diverse, illustrate only a small part of the wide range of impact that Cambridge's research has had.

This year’s winners were:

Dr Mari Jones (Faculty of Modern and Medieval Languages)

Norman French has been spoken in Jersey for over 1,000 years. Today, however, this language (Jèrriais to its speakers) is obsolescent: spoken by some 1% of the population. ̽��ֱ��research of Mari Jones has sought to preserve Jèrriais and has helped raise the profile of the language within Jersey and beyond, with impacts on local and national media, language policy and education, and cultural identity and development.

Dr Gilly Carr (Department of Archaeology and Anthropology)

̽��ֱ��Channel Islands have long had great difficulty in coming to terms with the darker side of the German occupation. ̽��ֱ��aim of Gilly Carr’s research is to increase awareness of Channel Islander victims of Nazi persecution through creation of a plural ‘heritage landscape’ and via education. ̽��ֱ��creation of this heritage is a major achievement and will be of significant impact for the Channel Islands.

Professor Steve Jackson (Wellcome Trust/CRUK Gurdon Institute)

Olaparib is an innovative targeted therapy for cancer developed by Steve Jackson. In 2014 Olaparib was licensed for the treatment of advanced ovarian cancer by the US Food and Drug Administration and the European Medicines Agency. ̽��ֱ��following year, NICE made the drug available on the NHS in England for specific ovarian cancer patients. 2015 saw promising findings from a clinical trial in prostate cancer and Olaparib received Breakthrough Therapy Designation earlier this year. Olaparib is currently in clinical trials for a wide range of other cancer types.

Professor John Clarkson and Dr Nathan Crilly (Department of Engineering)

It is normal to be different. ̽��ֱ��demographics of the world are changing, with longer life expectancies and a reduced birth rate resulting in an increased proportion of older people. Yet with increasing age comes a general decline in capability, challenging the way people are able to interact with the ‘designed’ world around them. ̽��ֱ��Cambridge Engineering Design Centre has worked with the Royal College of Art to address this ‘design challenge’. They developed a design toolkit and realised what was by now obvious, that inclusive design was simply better design.

Dr Nita Forouhi and Dr Fumiaki Imamura (MRC Epidemiology Unit)

Identifying modifiable risk factors is an important step in helping reduce the health burden of poor diet. Forouhi and Imamura have advanced our understanding of the health impacts of sugars, fats and foods, through both scale and depth of investigation of self-reported information and nutritional biomarkers. They have engaged at an international level with policy and guidance bodies, and have used the media to improve public understanding with the potential for a direct impact on people’s health.

In 2015, the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge received a one-year £65k Catalyst Seed Fund grant from Research Councils UK to embed high quality public engagement with research and bring about culture change at an institutional level.

̽��ֱ��Public Engagement with Research Awards were set up to recognise and reward those who undertake quality engagement with research. 69 nominations were received from across all Schools.

This year’s winners were:

Dr Becky Inkster (Department of Psychiatry)

Dr Inkster’s work work explores the intersection of art and science through the prism of mental health research. Dr Inkster has successfully collaborated with ̽��ֱ��Scarabeus Theatre in a performance called Depths of My Mind and founded the website HipHopPsych, showcasing the latest psychiatry research through hip hop lyrics. Her approach has allowed her to engage with hard-to-reach teenage audiences, encouraging them to reflect on their own mental health. Beyond this work she has explored the use of social media to diagnose mental illness, and has gathered patient perspectives on ethics, privacy and data sharing in preparation for research publication.

Dr Paolo Bombelli (Department of Biochemistry)

Dr Bombelli’s research looks to utilise the photosynthetic chemistry of plants to create biophotovoltaic devices, a sustainable source of solar power. For over five years, he has been taking his research out of the lab to science festivals, schools and design fairs; tailoring his approach to a wider variety of audiences. Through his engagement, he has reached thousands of people, in multiple countries, and is currently developing an educational toolkit to further engage school students with advances in biophotovoltaic technology. Dr Bombelli’s public engagement work has also advanced his research, namely through a transition from using algae to moss in live demonstrations.

Dr Ruth Armstrong and Dr Amy Ludlow (Institute of Criminology and Faculty of Law)

Dr Armstrong and Dr Ludlow have collaborated on a research project addressing the delivery of education in the prison sector. Their project, Learning Together, pioneered a new approach to prison education where the end-users, the prisoners, are directly engaged with the design, delivery and evaluation of the research intervention. Adopting this shared dialogue approach has yielded positive results in terms of prisoners’ learning outcomes and has gathered praise from prison staff and government policy makers. Through continued engagement and partnership working, Armstrong and Ludlow have managed to expand their initiative across a broad range of sites and institutional contexts.

Dr Hazel Wilkinson (Department of English)

Dr Wilkinson is investigating the history of reading and writing habits in the eighteenth century. In collaboration with Dr Will Bowers at the ̽��ֱ�� of Oxford, she has developed an online public platform, journallists.org, which allows readers to engage with installments of periodicals, diaries, letters, and novels, on the anniversaries of the day on which they were originally published, written, or set. Her approach has allowed members of the public to actively participate in research. She has also inspired thousands of readers to engage with under-read eighteenth and nineteenth century texts, often for the very first time.

Dr Paul Coxon (Department of Materials Science and Metallurgy)

Over the last ten years Dr Coxon has endeavored to engage with audiences often overlooked by traditional public engagement channels. He has given talks in venues as varied as bingo halls, working men’s social clubs and steam fairs to showcase his passion for solar research, steering clear of the “flashes and bangs” approach often associated with Chemistry. He has also designed a Fruit Solar Cell Starter Kit, used in fifty low-income catchment schools across the UK.

Mr Ian Hosking and Mr Bill Nicholl (Department of Engineering and Faculty of Education)

Ian Hosking and Bill Nicholl are cofounders of Designing Our Tomorrow, a platform for transforming D&T education in schools. Their public engagement initiative began in 2009 and brought together research around inclusive design and creativity in education. Through production of their DOT box, Hosking and Nicholl have taken active research questions into the classroom and given students control of designing technological solutions. Engagement with teachers, students and policymakers is integral to the success of their initiative and has resulted in engineering design being included in the national curriculum and GCSE qualifications.

Researchers from across the ̽��ֱ�� have been recognised for the impact of their work on society, and engagement with research in the inaugural Vice-Chancellor’s Impact Awards and Public Engagement with Research Awards.

̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge

Dr Ruth Armstrong and Dr Amy Ludlow receive their award from the Vice-Chancellor, Professor Sir Leszek Borysiewicz

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̽��ֱ��art of survival

bjb42 — Tue, 22 May 2012 12:41:02 +0000

Of the 2,200 Channel Islanders who were deported by the Nazis during World War II, most spent the war with little news of Allied progress, and uncertain about when it was all going to end.

It was just one of several psychological burdens they had to endure. Crammed into internment camps hundreds of miles from home, these British citizens spent years in relative isolation, feeling frustrated, anxious and often simply bored.

̽��ֱ��best way to stop themselves from becoming depressed was to find something else to do, and they found a solution in recycling the parcels that were periodically delivered to the camps by the Red Cross. Many prisoners became accomplished craftsmen, transforming parts of these parcels, or their contents, into toys, crockery, everyday objects to help their survival, and games. When they were liberated at the war’s end, these items returned with them to the islands. Some found their way into archives and museums; others remained in private homes.

Since 2006, Dr Gilly Carr, an archaeologist at the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge, has been studying this material record. Now she has both co-edited a book on the subject, called Creativity Behind Barbed Wire, and curated an exhibition, which has opened at Jersey Museum and will be open to the public until the end of 2012. This year marks the 70^th anniversary of the first wave of deportations of Channel Islanders to internment camps in Germany.

Carr believes that, just like the “trench art” created by soldiers who fought at the front during World War I, these objects can open a window on to the eyewitness experience of aspects of World War II.

“For these internees, the future stretched ahead, seemingly without end,” she said. “Many of them assumed or hoped that the Allies would win the war, but there was no certainty when or if this would happen. Time rapidly began to weigh heavily on their minds. We can learn a lot about the experience from letters and diaries, but sometimes the most poignant tales are told by the artwork and handicrafts they made. They are a testament to the importance of creativity in ensuring the survival of internment.”

̽��ֱ��occupation of the Channel Islands remains a relatively unacknowledged chapter in Britain’s wartime history, although Carr’s research - which extends far beyond the study of prisoners alone - has done much to reawaken interest in the subject.

Oddly, the deportations themselves, which began nearly 70 years ago, in September 1942, had their causal origins in the Middle East, where the British had invaded Iran and subsequently deported German citizens working there. An outraged Hitler decided to conduct a similar policy in the Channel Islands as an act of retaliation.

̽��ֱ��Germans started by targeting men between the ages of 16 and 70 who were not born in the Islands, and their dependents, regardless of their place of birth. Those from Jersey went to Wurzach, in southern Germany, and those from Guernsey went to the nearby town of Biberach after several weeks in a transit camp at Dorsten. Many unattached men went to a camp at Laufen and, later on, single women were transferred to Liebenau camp. A number of islanders were sent to other camps.

A second wave followed in 1943, and included people who had avoided the first round of deportations, as well as British Jews, former servicemen, and so-called “undesirables”, who had committed acts of resistance. A number of people from Sark were also deported in retaliation for a commando raid which had occurred on the island the previous autumn, and in which several Germans were killed in a brief firefight around the local Dixcart Hotel.

These prisoners were sent to various camps in south Germany via a transit camp at Compiègne, just outside Paris. There they encountered French Jews, who were en route to the concentration camp at Auschwitz, and witnessed acts of cruelty by German guards which implied the far worse fate that awaited their Jewish fellow-deportees.

̽��ֱ��experiences of the Channel Island prisoners themselves, were, however, far from easy and many struggled with their psychological impact. Preston John Doughty, a Jersey deportee, recorded in his diary on the day that he arrived at Wurzach, that: “the state of the place and our rooms were like pigsties and so, everywhere we went, tears began to flow... Scrubbing of floors, doors, tables, chairs and, in fact, the whole place was undertaken to make it a fit place to live in. My room was like a large barn and in it they put 46 men to eat and sleep.”

̽��ֱ��Red Cross parcels the Channel Islanders received from December 1942 onwards fast became a lifeline not only because of the food they contained, but also because they gave their overactive and anxious minds something to focus on.

̽��ֱ��creations that they produced were often small works of art. Nothing was wasted: Parcel string was made into clothing or bags, cardboard was reused to make toys for children, the wooden crates were turned into items of furniture or games, and tins were made into sports trophies, hair curlers and even a communion chalice.

Today, a rich collection of these items still exists in homes and archives across the Channel Islands, and Carr has been able to assemble many of them for the Jersey exhibition. Together, they speak to the visitor about more than just the experience of life in a German prison camp. Many prisoners personalised their creations with markers of their own identity, or “V” for victory symbols that spoke of a type of symbolic resistance.

̽��ֱ��choice of things the prisoners made is also significant. ̽��ֱ��creation of boxes and containers speaks of a lack of privacy in a context where people slept in the same room as 40 or 50 others, perhaps even more. Hunger is a running theme of the exhibits, often combined with a bleak sense of humour about the poor quality of the soup and bread they were fed, and the bodily consequences of consuming it.

̽��ֱ��Jersey exhibition follows a similar display in Guernsey in 2010, but features new items relevant to the island as well as a number of different features. Carr worked with internees and designers as well as museum staff to tell the stories of people relevant to the island through a combination of words, exhibits and blown-up images. Movingly, the entrance to the whole exhibition features the names of the deported on one side and, on the other, a larger-than-life image of the announcement of the deportations in the Jersey Evening Post.

“Many of these people did not know how they would or could survive and so had to make objects that could help them endure and survive internment,” Carr added. “My research has shown that the objects they made were not just ephemeral ‘pretty items’ – rather, they were central to the ability of internees to survive emotionally, psychologically and physically. Many of these objects speak to us so powerfully 70 years on because the internees could not voice or act out their anger, frustrations and anxieties in the normal way. Instead, they poured their emotions into the objects they made – they provided a safe receptacle.”

Occupied Behind Barbed Wire will be on show at the Jersey Museum until 30 December, 2012. Gilly Carr’s latest book, Creativity Behind Barbed Wire, is co-edited with Harold Mytum and is published by Routledge.

A collection of artefacts made by prisoners from the Channel Islands in World War II has gone on display in Jersey to mark the 70th anniversary of the Channel Island deportations, with the help of a Cambridge researcher.

̽��ֱ��artwork and handicrafts internees made are a testament to the importance of creativity in ensuring the survival of internment.

Gilly Carr

Dr Gilly Carr at the entrance to “Occupied Behind Barbed Wire”, which will be on display in Jersey until the end of 2012.

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Cambridge Ideas - Forgotten Heroes

bjb42 — Thu, 31 Mar 2011 13:47:39 +0000

̽��ֱ��project they are working on aims to document the history of protest and resistance in the Channel Islands. She described the collection as: "the single most important resistance archive ever to emerge from the Channel Islands."

A Cambridge ̽��ֱ�� archaeologist, along with two other researchers in Guernsey, has uncovered a previously unseen archive featuring the testimonies of people who were deported to German prison camps during World War II.

̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge

St Peter Port harbour

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