Alumni news

This page features snippets that we hear from across our alumni community. Let us know what is happening in your life and work at alumni@gtc.ox.ac.uk.

2024

Sharon Davis (MSc Applied Linguistics and Second Language Acquisition (2014)

Comments on the removal of Jamie Oliver’s Offensive children’s book in Australia. ‘This superficial treatment of Ruby’s character dehumanises her, and by extension, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples,’ – Sharon Davis.

Chris Tolton (MBA, 1996)

More: NASA Awards $1.5 Million at Watts on the Moon Challenge Finale

Daniel Sokol (MSc Social and Economic History, 2002)

Daniel has just published, with his father, A Young Person’s Guide to Law and Justice (Book Guild, 2024), a short, entertaining introduction to law for teenagers. Best-selling author, The Secret Barrister, called it a ‘fantastic book…I wish I had written it’ while Jonathan Herring, Professor of Law at Oxford University, described it as ‘a must for any aspiring lawyer, or anyone who just wants to find out what law is all about.’ Buy the book

Kareem Ayoub (MSc Neuroscience, 2012)

Kareem is Google DeepMind Senior Director of Strategy & Technology. In a recent Artificial Intelligence explainer video he demystified Large Language Models. Watch now

J Carlo Cannell (Business Administration and Management, 1987)

J Carlo Cannell celebrates 31 years at helm of Cannell Capital LLC, a US hedge fund. He and his wife continue their migration between Wyoming, New York and California and welcome opportunity to connect with alumni from Templeton or New College (where he stroked ‘the eight’). Contact him at jcc@cannellcap.com

Emily Morris (Clinical Medicine, 2020)

Emily has been appointed a Teaching Associate, working with the next generations of clinical medicine students. She is an Academic Foundation Doctor in the Thames Valley Deanery. Read more

Stephen Robert Morse (MBA, 2015)

Stephen Robert Morse’s latest documentary ‘How to Rob a Bank’ is attracting rave reviews. Watch it on Netflix now!

Dr Hemal Jayasuriya (BPhil Management Studies, Templeton 1978)

Hemal sent this poem for our community:

Thoughts in the Mists

Mind sea
Empty
But it can rock
All who are at sea
On land, searching for happiness.

Words:
The seeds
Can often take root
Yielding fruits:
Meaningful Lines.

Words:
Pack into make a raft
To float to a safe shore.
Emotions cling on to them
Help troubled minds
Grasp Reality out from Fields:
House: amongst misty thoughts
Waiting for it
All to trickle down

Miguel Moctezuma (MPP, 2020)

Miguel introduced a documentary that he and his team created, FOUND, at an event at the BSG on 2 May 2024. The event was called Mexico’s Missing: How families and technology are working together. He and his fellow guests spoke powerfully about the lived experience and profound tragedy of never having closure. There are currently approximately 116,000 individuals reported missing in Mexico, with the majority very likely in unmarked graves. The impact on their families is enormous.

Through the FOUND project, they leverage technology to collaborate with mothers in their search for missing sons and daughters, working together to bring closure.

Watch the documentary

Aiwanose Odafen (MBA, 2014)

Aiwanose Odafen is set to release her second novel, We Were Girls Once on 25 April, to be published by Scribner Books UK, a subsidiary of Simon & Schuster.

Synopsis

Ego, Zina and Eriife were always destined to be best friends, ever since their grandmothers sat next to each other on a dusty bus to Lagos in the late 1940s, forging a bond that would last generations. But over half a century later, Nigeria is a new and modern country. As the three young women navigate the incessant strikes and political turmoil that surrounds them, their connection is shattered by a terrible assault. In the aftermath, nothing will remain the same as life takes them down separate paths.

For Ego, now a high-powered London lawyer, success can’t mask her loneliness and feelings of being an outsider. Desperate to feel connected to Nigeria, she escapes into a secret life online. Zina’s ambition is to be anyone but herself; acting proves the ultimate catharsis, but it comes at the cost of her family. And Eriife surprises everyone by morphing from a practising doctor to a ruthless politician’s perfect wife.

When Ego returns home, the three women’s lives become entwined once more, as Nigeria’s political landscape fractures. Their shared past will always connect them, but can they – and their country – overcome it?

Find out more and buy the book

About Aiwanose

Born in Lagos, Nigeria, Aiwanose Odafen is an MFA fiction student at the Iowa Writer’s Workshop. She has contributed to published non-fiction works and participated in Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s Purple Hibiscus Trust Writing Workshop. She was longlisted for the 2020 Commonwealth Writers Short Story Prize.

As a high school student, she was a gold and silver medalist in the National Mathematics Olympiad Competition. She graduated top of her class with a first-class degree in Accounting and is certified with the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants, United Kingdom. She holds an MBA from the Said Business School, University of Oxford.

Prior to becoming a writer, Aiwanose worked as a consultant across industries, most recently, in the public health sector with an international NGO, helping to save lives.

Tomorrow I Become a Woman, her first novel, was published in 2022.

Isabelle Hayhoe (MBA, 2021)

Isabelle Hayhoe (MBA, 2021) has recently published a book, entitled Guide to Giving, to encourage more and better philanthropy. Written with Juliet Agnew (also an Oxford alum), the Guide is their blueprint for good practice when giving. In response to the seismic shocks of recent years, wealthy individuals and families are inspired to learn about the pivotal role they can play in driving a more equitable future. The Guide provides the tools to do this, covering a wide range of topics from identifying personal values and motivations, navigating intergenerational family dynamics, and the various considerations when structuring philanthropy, through to the importance of accountability, how to develop a strategy for impact, and aligning investments and values. Read full Guide to Giving (pdf)

Nazma Muller (Journalist Fellow, 1999 to 2000)

Reuters Institute alumnus Nazma Muller set up an NGO in her homeland, Trinidad and Tobago, called the Caribbean Collective for Justice, to address social injustices. The NGO started a petition to legalise cannabis in the country, which was presented to the Prime Minister. When the Government failed to bring the bill to Parliament, Nazma protested for eight Fridays outside the Parliament. The Government relented and legislation was passed to decriminalise 30g for personal use and four plants per adult at home. Nazma continues to advocate for the setting up of the legal supply of cannabis to treat medical conditions and to be used as sacrament by the Rastafari.

Kimmo Lundén (Journalist Fellow, 2008)

Reuters Institute alumnus Kimmo Lundén visited Oxford University’s research forest, Wytham Woods, over the Reuters 40th anniversary and Open Doors weekend. In the article his guide and forest researcher Dr Keith Kirby talks about his research work in Wytham Woods.

2023

Pierre Mychaltchouk (Oxford Strategic Leaders Programme, 2005)

Pierre Mychaltchouk (The Oxford Strategic Leadership Programme 2005) has just completed the Legendary race ‘La Carrera Panamericana’ held in Mexico from Friday 13 October to Thursday 19 October 2023.

From a starting sixty participants, Pierre Mychaltchouk, with a Porsche 911 (#322), completed the race, finishing at the 34th position of the global ranking.

In addition to participation at this Historical Rallye, his journey started in Montreal on Monday 2 October, without assistance, and finally finished on Tuesday 24 October, with a total distance covering 13 thousand kilometers!

This accomplishment has been covered by PCA (Porsche Club of America) with the podcast Episode 86.  The Carrera Panamericana in a Porsche 911 SC | Episode 86 – YouTube as well as on Facebook.

Sudarshan Ray (MBA, 2013)

Sudarshan published Mahabharata: The Great Indian Epic in bookstores across India and online across the world.

Sudarshan told college, ‘I wrote this book keeping the young audience in mind. This is a modern retelling of the ancient epic that is intoned neutrally (most versions are pro-Pandava) and has hopefully transformed the prolific volumes of the many earlier versions into a book that is fit for popular reading.’

Dr Hemal Jayasuriya (BPhil Management Studies, Templeton 1978)

Hemal sent this poem for our community:

Colour

Did you know, Jim, that nobody
Has any idea as to what Colour would be
If it were actually observed, as
No person knows what it actually is.
Now isn’t this puzzling ? What we see
Is the effect of its impact on the retina
And the train of physiological events thereafter.
Jasper, that is strange.
I never thought of things that way.
Reality never makes its appearance;
We feel its impact.
I wonder, Jasper, about the Baryon composed of
A Blue, Red, and Yellow Quark;
What is its Colour ? Jim, actually
It is Colourless : Each Quark is changing
Colour very rapidly so that you are
Never seeing any Colour, as each is
In a continuous process of Change.
So you see the Baryon staying as Colourless

Dr Ralovich Béla (Visiting Scholar, 1990)

Ralovich Béla has published a paper entitled ‘Universe, Space, Infinity, God and our Earth’ in this year. He, now retired, spent his career in the Ministry of Welfare, Hungary since 1992 and before that he worked in the Hungarian Meat Research Institute since 1988 and his scientific life started in Pécs Medical University in 1961. His research topic during his time at Green College, funded by the British Council, was microbiology, epidemiology and immunology of listeriosis which was performed in the Microbiological Laboratory of the J. Radcliffe Hospital where useful and friendly connections were formed with Mr. Doctor Selcon (director of the Laboratory, died), as well as Mr Gordon Curtis and Mr David Day (assistants), too. These friend ships have lived at present, too.

Richard Stavros (EMBA, 2009)

Richard has been named Director, Energy and Environmental at Mindset, a bipartisan public policy consultancy based in Washington, DC. Prior to joining Mindset, Stavros was a Managing Consultant at Thomas Dwight Capital, which advises institutional firms on business and investment strategy. Energy highlights include having advised on one of the first $1 Billion Green Net Zero + Sustainable Data Center initiatives with respect to finance, valuation and energy strategy.

Guada Oliver Covre (MBA, 2021)

Guada has recently launched Candour Wine, a female sommelier-founded canned wine company. Candour offer limited editions of good quality and minimal-intervention wines, and does so in cans. Cans, apart from convenient for many other occasions where a glass bottle would not fit, are considered more sustainable than glass bottles. This is mainly because of their lower carbon footprint and higher recyclability rates. Since 95% of the wines are not meant to be aged, but to be consumed young, they believe that the can makes total sense! Since September 2022 Candour has closed a first round of investment to run a pilot, we canned our first wines, and we started selling in the UK. More information

Manisha Nair (DPhil Public Health, 2010)

Manisha was recognised with a UK India Achievers Award in London. These Awards were in celebration of the 75th anniversary of Indian Independence and were meant to reinforce the strong educational ties that bind the two countries. Manisha is a clinical epidemiologist. She is an Associate Professor and Senior Research Fellow at the University of Oxford. She established, and is the Chief Investigator of the Maternal & Perinatal Health Research collaboration, India (MaatHRI), a large UK-India collaboration for maternal and perinatal health research. Manisha won the Asian Women of Achievement Awards in Science in 2019. More information