Members of the St Hugh’s community are warmly invited to a special online event exploring some of the incredible research being undertaken by our DPhil students on Thursday 15 April 2021, 5pm-6pm UK time. Join us to hear from Middle Common Room (MCR) President Ricardo De Luca E Tuma about graduate life during the pandemic, and to enjoy presentations from several of our graduate students about their research.
Our speakers
Jacinto Mathe (Anthropology, 2020): ‘Bones and ecology in the southern African Rift Valley: implications for our understanding of human evolution’
Florence Smith (History, 2018): ‘A Step Towards Equality? – The Introduction of Coeducation at the University of Oxford in 1974’
Ollie Shorthose (Engineering Science, 2019): ‘Soft Robotics, the future of safe human-robotic interface’
Jana Hunter (History, 2020): ‘”Nature and Art, Present and Past”: Travel Writing, Prague’s Panorama, and Czech Modernist Consciousness, 1815-1848’
Scroll down for further information about our speakers.
Booking details
This event will take place via Zoom webinar. To register to attend, please fill in our booking form below by 12 noon on 15 April. The event is free but we ask you to consider making a donation to the College’s Covid-19 Support Fund when you book your ticket. For further information about the Fund and the critical role your donations play in supporting the College at this particularly challenging time, please click here.
Please note that you do not need a Paypal account to make a donation online when you book your ticket. If you would prefer to make a donation over the phone, please do book a free ticket below and telephone Hannah Manito on +44 (0)1865 613839 during office hours (Mon-Fri, 9am-5pm).
Joining details will be emailed to those who have registered the day before the event (please ensure that you enter your email address carefully on the booking form).
Please note that St Hugh’s College’s virtual events may be recorded.

Florence is a second year History DPhil student at St Hugh’s. She started at St Hugh’s in Autumn 2018, originally studying for a Master’s degree in Modern British History then starting her DPhil in Autumn 2019. Florence’s doctoral research focuses on the introduction of coeducational undergraduate colleges at the University of Oxford in 1974. The project uses oral history methodology to uncover and acknowledge the individual voices and experiences of the women who entered five formerly male-only colleges in 1974. The project examines the nuances involved in the process of women entering elite, patriarchal educational institutions. In 2018, Florence was awarded an AHRC Doctoral Training Studentship which funded her Master’s degree and in 2019 she was awarded the St Hugh’s Clarendon Scholarship to fund her DPhil research. Florence is an active member of the MCR and has held various positions on the MCR committee during her time at St Hugh’s.
Ollie joined St. Hugh’s as a DPhil student in 2019 after completing his undergraduate studies in Engineering Science at St. Hilda’s. He is working to 3D print an anthropomorphic soft robotic hand with the potential future applications within rehabilitation or prosthetics.
Jana is a DPhil candidate at the University of Oxford funded by the Rawnsley Scholarship. Her thesis maps the Czech modernist consciousness in the exchanges between British and German travel writers and Czech artists in the nineteenth century, with a particular focus on the perceptions and experiences of time and nature. Prior to Oxford, Jana was at the University of Cambridge where she completed an MPhil in Modern European History. Her dissertation focused on temporal and spatial experiences of August Rodin’s exhibition in Prague through the prism of nature at the turn of the twentieth century. She completed her undergraduate degree at the University of Durham.