Some face-to-face events are returning. Check carefully for any requirements.

Sep
12
Fri
Defeating Dementia @ Mathematical Institute
Sep 12 @ 7:00 pm – 9:00 pm
Defeating Dementia @ Mathematical Institute | Oxford | United Kingdom

The Prime Minister wants to defeat dementia by 2025 and says: “Dementia now stands alongside cancer as one of the greatest enemies of humanity.” It affects over 800,000 people in Britain, at huge cost to the UK economy and at a huge personal price to the families and carers of those affected.

We have ideas about how dementia could be tackled in terms of management and treatment: including better drug delivery to the brain, improving early detection methods and providing an environment in which dementia patients can live safely and at relative peace.

But there are still more questions than answers in terms of the speed of research, care provision and the ethical debate around early diagnosis.

Join experts from the Medical Research Council and Oxford Dementia and Ageing Research (OxDARE) in an open and enlightening discussion on how we can defeat dementia: or at least manage it in light of new early detection methods. Defeating Dementia will be hosted by writer and broadcaster Quentin Cooper.

Sep
18
Thu
Scibar: Have I got snooze for you @ The Port Mahon
Sep 18 @ 6:30 pm – 7:30 pm
Scibar: Have I got snooze for you @ The Port Mahon | Oxford | United Kingdom

From the struggle to get up on a Monday morning to coping with jet-lag, the body has to carefully balance our need to be alert or to be at rest. But how does the
brain control this? How much sleep do we really need? Join us to hear Dr Peter Oliver discuss some of the facts and myths surrounding sleep; highlighting new research in this area as well as the role of genetics in the control of circadian rhythms. Plus, why do flamingos sleep on one leg??? Come along and find out!
twitter @oxfordscibar
facebook ‘British Science Association Oxfordshire Branch

Oct
16
Thu
Fertility, Reproductive Health and Women’s Empowerment @ Oxford Institute of Population Ageing, 66 Banbury Road
Oct 16 @ 12:30 pm – 2:00 pm
Fertility, Reproductive Health and Women's Empowerment  @ Oxford Institute of Population Ageing, 66 Banbury Road | Oxford | United Kingdom

Michaelmas Term 2014 Seminar Series
‘FERTILITY, REPRODUCTIVE HEALTH AND WOMEN’S EMPOWERMENT’
Thursdays – 12:30 – 14:00
Seminar Room, Oxford Institute of Population Ageing,
66 Banbury Road, Oxford, OX2 6PR.
Convener: Dr Melanie Frost

Youth and motherhood in Mexico: social anxiety over transitions and bodies out of time @ Oxford Institute of Population Ageing, 66 Banbury Road
Oct 16 @ 12:30 pm – 2:00 pm
Youth and motherhood in Mexico: social anxiety over transitions and bodies out of time @ Oxford Institute of Population Ageing, 66 Banbury Road | Oxford | United Kingdom

Dr Abril Saldaña Tejeda, University of Guanajuato(Mexico) & Collen Visiting Fellow at OIPA
This presentation looks into the lived experiences of young mothers in higher education in the state of Guanajuato, Mexico. It draws on qualitative interviews and an analysis of medical discourses on the young maternal body through a revision of pregnancy prevention programs designed and implemented by governmental and non-governmental organizations. It is argued that social anxieties over young motherhood could be linked to the way youth is understood as a transition; an undefinable state that works as a margin between childhood and adulthood. It argues that discourses around young motherhood in Mexico often obstruct women’s access to public health, work against effective policies to address unwanted pregnancies and the country’s increasing rate of higher education dropouts.

Michaelmas Term 2014 Seminar Series
‘FERTILITY, REPRODUCTIVE HEALTH AND WOMEN’S EMPOWERMENT’
Thursdays – 12:30 – 14:00
Seminar Room, Oxford Institute of Population Ageing,
66 Banbury Road, Oxford, OX2 6PR.
Convener: Dr Melanie Frost

“Ebola: implications for Africa and understanding future pandemics” by Prof Peter Piot @ Oxford Martin School
Oct 16 @ 3:30 pm – 5:00 pm

Professor Peter Piot, Director of the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine; Professor of Global Health; and Commissioner on the Oxford Martin Commission for Future Generations, will provide his perspective on the key long-term challenges in global health, addressing the burden of both communicable and non-communicable disease.

This seminar will be followed by a drinks reception, all welcome.

Join in on twitter with #c21health

This seminar will be live webcast on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oEwlBU7bNrA

About the speaker:
Professor Peter Piot is the Director of the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine and a Professor of Global Health. Professor Piot is also a Commissioner on the Oxford Martin Commission for Future Generations. In 2009-2010 he was the Director of the Institute for Global Health at Imperial College for Science, Technology and Medicine, London. He was the founding Executive Director of UNAIDS and Under Secretary-General of the United Nations from 1995 until 2008, and was an Associate Director of the Global Programme on AIDS of WHO. Under his leadership UNAIDS became the chief advocate for worldwide action against AIDS, also spear heading UN reform by bringing together 10 UN system organizations.

Professor Piot has a medical degree from the University of Ghent (1974) and a PhD in Microbiology from the University of Antwerp (1980). In 1976 he co-discovered the Ebola virus in Zaire while working at the Institute of Tropical Medicine in Antwerp, Belgium. He was a professor of microbiology, and of public health at the Institute of Tropical Medicine, Antwerp, the Free University of Brussels, and the University of Nairobi, was a Senior Fellow at the University of Washington, a Scholar in Residence at the Ford Foundation, and a Senior Fellow at the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. He held the chair 2009/2010 “Knowledge against poverty” at the College de France in Paris, and is a visiting professor at the London School of Economics. He is a Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences and was elected a foreign member of the Institute of Medicine of the US National Academy of Sciences, and is also an elected member of the Académie Nationale de Médicine of France, and of the Royal Academy of Medicine of his native Belgium, and a fellow of the Royal College of Physicians.

He was knighted as a baron in 1995 and has published over 550 scientific articles and 16 books, including his memior No Time to Lose. In 2013 he was the laureate of the Hideyo Noguchi Africa Prize for Medical Research and in 2014 he received the Prince Mahidol Award for Public Health.

Oct
17
Fri
Most human traits are complex: dissection of genetic variation for height, schizophrenia and motor neurone disease @ Henry Wellcome Building for Human Genetics, SR A
Oct 17 @ 4:30 pm – 5:30 pm

Prof Peter Visscher, Professor and Chair of Quantitative Genetics, Queensland Brain Institute, The University of Queensland

Driven by advances in genome technologies, the last 7 years have witnessed a revolution in our understanding of complex trait variation in human populations. Results from genome-wide association studies and whole-genome exome studies have shown that the mutational target in the genome for most traits appears to be very large, such that many genes are involved in explaining genetic variation. Genetic architecture, the joint distribution of the effect size and frequency of variants that segregate in the population, is becoming clearer and differs between traits. I will show new results from disparate complex traits including height, schizophrenia, motor neurone disease and gene methylation, to illustrate polygenicity and the power of experimental sample size.

Oct
20
Mon
‘Inspiring STEM’ with Prof. Helen McShane @ Queens College Oxford, Shumann Lecture Theatre
Oct 20 @ 6:00 pm – 7:30 pm

The first speaker in Oxford Females in Engineering, Science and Technology brand new speaker series ‘Inspiring STEM’ promises a fascinating talk on her research and personal experiences in combining professional career and personal life, do not miss out:

Professor Helen McShane is a Professor of Vaccinology and Wellcome Trust Senior Clinical Fellow at Oxford University, where she leads a programme of research to develop a new vaccine for Tuberculosis (TB). The BCG vaccine currently administered to children has been around for 90 years and shows only a limited and short-lived effect. Crucially, it does not offer protection against pulmonary TB, which is the most common form of the disease. TB remains a major killer worldwide with 1.4 million victims a year, and resistance has evolved to many drugs used to treat it, so new ways of preventing the disease are badly needed.
Helen originally planned to become a GP, but after 6 months in practice decided to embark on clinical medicine and PhD research into infectious diseases. By the time she arrived at the defense of her thesis, she had been pregnant with her second child and she has successfully juggled home and work life ever since (now, a mum to 3 children).

‘Inspiring STEM’ series of talks aims to bring together Oxford’s Women in STEM, showcase the research performed by the very best scientists and engineers, and inspire the audience to realize their potential. It reflects the academic aspect of OxFEST while providing a glimpse into possible career paths that we can take.

https://www.facebook.com/events/1918280418310524/

Oct
21
Tue
Do No Harm – Henry Marsh @ Blackwell's Bookshop
Oct 21 @ 7:00 pm – 8:00 pm
Do No Harm - Henry Marsh @ Blackwell's Bookshop | Oxford | United Kingdom

What is it like to be a brain surgeon? How does it feel to hold someone’s life in your hands, to cut into the stuff that creates thought, feeling and reason? How do you live with the consequences of performing a potentially life-saving operation when it all goes wrong? In neurosurgery, more than in any other branch of medicine, the doctor’s oath to ‘do no harm’ holds a bitter irony. Operations on the brain carry grave risks…

Henry Marsh will be discussing his book, ‘Do No Harm’.

Oct
22
Wed
The Sick Rose or; Disease and the Art of Medical Illustration – Richard Barnett @ Blackwell's Bookshop
Oct 22 @ 7:00 pm – 8:00 pm
The Sick Rose or; Disease and the Art of Medical Illustration - Richard Barnett @ Blackwell's Bookshop | Oxford | United Kingdom

The Sick Rose is a beautifully gruesome and strangely fascinating visual tour through disease in an age before colour photography. This stunning volume, combining detailed illustrations of afflicted patients from some of the worlds rarest medical books, forms an unforgettable and profoundly human reminder of mankinds struggle with disease. Incorporating historic maps, pioneering charts and contemporary case notes, Richard Barnetts evocative overview reveals the fears and obsessions of an era gripped by epidemics. Richard will be accompanying his talk with a slide show presentation of the books illustrations in all their glory – not for the squeamish!

Oct
23
Thu
Fertility, Reproductive Health and Women’s Empowerment @ Oxford Institute of Population Ageing, 66 Banbury Road
Oct 23 @ 12:30 pm – 2:00 pm
Fertility, Reproductive Health and Women's Empowerment  @ Oxford Institute of Population Ageing, 66 Banbury Road | Oxford | United Kingdom

Michaelmas Term 2014 Seminar Series
‘FERTILITY, REPRODUCTIVE HEALTH AND WOMEN’S EMPOWERMENT’
Thursdays – 12:30 – 14:00
Seminar Room, Oxford Institute of Population Ageing,
66 Banbury Road, Oxford, OX2 6PR.
Convener: Dr Melanie Frost

Impact of childhood vaccination: what’s next? – Dr Matthew Snape @ Oxford Martin School
Oct 23 @ 3:30 pm – 5:00 pm

No other large-scale health intervention can have as big an impact on child mortality as vaccination. Across the world millions of lives have been saved by innoculation, and in the past ten years the annual number of measles cases worldwide has dropped from one million to 200,000. But just as important as creating new vaccines is ensuring that children have access to them. Join us at the Oxford Martin School as Dr Matthew Snape, Consultant in Vaccinology at the Oxford Radcliffe Hospitals NHS trust and Honorary Senior Clinical Lecturer at the University of Oxford, looks at the challenges involved in making sure the success story of childhood vaccination can be a global one.

Join in on twitter with #c21health

This seminar will be live webcast on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0CO2L5Rq7tU

Oct
27
Mon
Gridlock and train crashes: what happens when the world loses the habit of cooperation? – Lord Patten of Barnes @ Oxford Martin School
Oct 27 @ 5:00 pm – 6:30 pm
Gridlock and train crashes: what happens when the world loses the habit of cooperation? - Lord Patten of Barnes @ Oxford Martin School | Oxford | United Kingdom

Despite our extensive knowledge of the major challenges the world faces during coming decades, impasse exists in global attempts to address economic, climate, trade, security, and other key issues. The Chancellor will examine the implications of this gridlock, drawing on the work of the Oxford Martin Commission for Future Generations – of which he is a member – as well as experiences from his distinguished political and diplomatic career.

This lecture is also being live webcast on youtube, please follow this link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XB3QmvwvHCk

About the Speaker

Lord Patten joined the Conservative Research Department in 1966. He was seconded to the Cabinet Office in 1970 and was personal assistant and political secretary to Lord Carrington and Lord Whitelaw when they were Chairmen of the Conservative Party from 1972-1974. In 1974 he was appointed the youngest ever Director of the Conservative Research Department, a post which he held until 1979.

Lord Patten was elected as Member of Parliament for Bath in May 1979, a seat he held until April 1992. In 1983 he wrote The Tory Case, a study of Conservatism. Following the General Election of June 1983, Lord Patten was appointed Parliamentary Under Secretary of State, Northern Ireland Office and in September 1985 Minister of State at the Department of Education and Science. In September 1986 he became Minister for Overseas Development at the Foreign & Commonwealth Office. He was appointed to the Privy Council in 1989 and was appointed a Companion of Honour in 1998. In July 1989 he became Secretary of State for the Environment. In November 1990 he was appointed Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster and Chairman of the Conservative Party.

Lord Patten was appointed Governor of Hong Kong in April 1992, a position he held until 1997, overseeing the return of Hong Kong to China. He was Chairman of the Independent Commission on Policing for Northern Ireland set up under the Good Friday Peace Agreement, which reported in 1999. From 1999 to 2004 he was European Commissioner for External Relations, and in January 2005 he took his seat in the House of Lords. In 2006 he was appointed Co-Chair of the UK-India Round Table. He was Chairman of the BBC Trust from 2011-2014.

He is an Honorary Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians, Edinburgh, and Honorary Fellow of Balliol College, Oxford. He served as Chancellor of Newcastle University from 1999 to 2009, and was elected Chancellor of the University of Oxford in 2003. His publications include What Next? Surviving the 21st Century (2008); Not Quite the Diplomat: Home Truths About World Affairs (2005) and East and West (1998), about Asia and its relations with the rest of the world.

Oct
28
Tue
Unwrapping Tutankhamun @ Ashmolean Museum
Oct 28 @ 2:30 pm – 3:30 pm
Unwrapping Tutankhamun @ Ashmolean Museum | Oxford | United Kingdom

Unwrapping Tutankhamun
With Dr Christina Riggs, Senior Lecturer, School of Art History and World Art Studies, University of East Anglia

Ashmolean Lecture Theatre

Tue 28 Oct, 2.30‒3.30pm

After three years of work in the tomb, Howard Carter and his team were ready to reveal the body of Tutankhamun. Using photographs and diaries from the excavation, this illustrated lecture follows Carter’s work in stages as they worked through the layers of wrappings around Tutankhamun’s body, and considers what else we can learn from the unwrapping of other materials in the tomb.

Oct
30
Thu
Fertility, Reproductive Health and Women’s Empowerment @ Oxford Institute of Population Ageing, 66 Banbury Road
Oct 30 @ 12:30 pm – 2:00 pm
Fertility, Reproductive Health and Women's Empowerment  @ Oxford Institute of Population Ageing, 66 Banbury Road | Oxford | United Kingdom

Michaelmas Term 2014 Seminar Series
‘FERTILITY, REPRODUCTIVE HEALTH AND WOMEN’S EMPOWERMENT’
Thursdays – 12:30 – 14:00
Seminar Room, Oxford Institute of Population Ageing,
66 Banbury Road, Oxford, OX2 6PR.
Convener: Dr Melanie Frost

“Oxford and the next generation of mobile health” by Dr David Clifton @ Oxford Martin School
Oct 30 @ 3:30 pm – 5:00 pm

Dr David Clifton, Royal Academy of Engineering University Fellow in the Institute of Biomedical Engineering at the University of Oxford, will discuss how healthcare systems world-wide are entering a new, exciting phase: ever-increasing quantities of complex, multiscale data concerning all aspects of patient care are starting to be routinely acquired and stored, a process in which mobile health (or “m-health”) has a key role to play.

This seminar will describe the next generation of mobile healthcare technologies, where much of the key, underpinning research is taking place at Oxford. David will describe how mobile healthcare can improve patient outcomes, allow patients a greater stake in managing their own conditions, and, in underdeveloped regions, improve access to affordable healthcare.

Join in on twitter with #c21health

This seminar will be live webcast on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0C4CrjeQsOk

About the speaker:
Dr David Clifton is a tenure-track member of faculty in the Department of Engineering Science of the University of Oxford, and a Governing Body fellow of Balliol College, Oxford. He is a University Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering.

A graduate of the Department of Engineering Science, Dr Clifton trained in information engineering and was supervised by Professor Lionel Tarassenko CBE, Chair of Electrical Engineering. He spent four years as a post-doctoral researcher in biomedical engineering at Oxford before his appointment to the faculty, at which point he started the Computational Health Informatics (CHI) lab.

Dr Clifton teaches the undergraduate mathematics syllabus in Engineering Science, runs the graduate course in machine learning at the Oxford Centre for Doctoral Training in Healthcare Innovation, and teaches engineering policy at the Blavatnik School of Government, Oxford. He is a founding Associate Editor of the IEEE Journal of Biomedical & Healthcare Informatics (JBHI), an Associate Editor of BMC Medical Informatics, and of the British Journal of Health Informatics & Monitoring (BJHIM). He is the Associate Director of the Oxford Centre for Affordable Healthcare (OxCAHT).

A science of belief systems @ The Mitre
Oct 30 @ 7:30 pm – 9:00 pm
A science of belief systems @ The Mitre | Oxford | United Kingdom

A public meeting with a short introductory talk followed by questions and discussion.

Understanding other people: a science of belief systems
Speaker: Dr Edmund Griffiths, author of “Towards a Science of Belief Systems” (Palgrave Macmillan 2014)
Thursday 30 October, 7:30pm to 9:00pm
The Mitre, corner of High St and Turl St (upstairs function room)
All welcome

Organised by Oxford Communist Corresponding Society.

About “Towards a Science of Belief Systems”

People believe in a great many things: the New Age and the new atheism, astrology and the Juche Idea, the marginal utility theory and a God in three persons. Yet most of us know almost nothing about why other people believe the things they do – or indeed about how it feels to believe them. This book presents an objective method for understanding and comparing belief systems, irrespective of their subject matter and of whether or not the investigator happens to agree with them. The method, descriptive logic, is illustrated through analyses of various phenomena, including Zoroastrianism, Dawkinsism, Fabianism, 9/11 Truth, ‘alternative’ Egyptology, Gnosticism, flying saucer sightings, and the hymns of Charles Wesley. Special attention is given to beliefs that are not supposed to be wholly believed, and to how descriptive logic relates to the materialist conception of history. The book also outlines a new theory of superstition.

Nov
5
Wed
Ming: 50 years that changed China @ SR, Radcliffe Humanities Building
Nov 5 @ 12:45 pm – 1:45 pm
Ming: 50 years that changed China @ SR, Radcliffe Humanities Building | Oxford | United Kingdom

Craig Clunas, Professor of History of Art at the University of Oxford and co-curator of the British Museum’s blockbuster exhibition ‘Ming: 50 years that changed China’, will discuss the exhibition with an interdisciplinary panel of academics and curators. They will be focusing particularly on the relationship between the exhibition and its catalogue, exploring how the exhibition is transposed to the page.

Panellists:

Rana Mitter (Professor of the History and Politics of Modern China)
Peter Ditmanson (Oriental Studies Lecturer in Chinese History)
Clare Harris (Professor of Visual Anthropology and Curator for Asian Collections at the Pitt Rivers Museum)

About the exhibition:

Between AD 1400 and 1450, China was a global superpower run by one family – the Ming dynasty – who established Beijing as the capital and built the Forbidden City. During this period, Ming China was thoroughly connected with the outside world. Chinese artists absorbed many fascinating influences, and created some of the most beautiful objects and paintings ever made. From September 2014 – January 2015 The British Museum stages a major exhibition exploring this golden age in China’s history. This discussion will examine the relationship between the exhibition and its catalogue, and explore the curation principles behind the exhibition.

This is part of the TORCH Book at Lunchtime series. All welcome, no booking required. Please visit www.torch.ox.ac.uk/book-at-lunchtime for more information.

Digital Health: Opportunities and challenges in Oxford @ St Catherine's College, JCR Lecture Theatre
Nov 5 @ 6:00 pm
Digital Health: Opportunities and challenges in Oxford  @ St Catherine's College, JCR Lecture Theatre | Oxford | England | United Kingdom

The Innovation Forum, a student led, UK-wide network, invites all medics, entrepreneurs, scientists and coders to connect at our Oxford Launch event and to find out about “Digital Health: Opportunities and challenges in Oxford”. Our experienced panel of 4 speakers will cover a range of topics but we envisage touching upon core themes such as:

• What is digital healthcare?
• What opportunities exist in Oxford for talented coders/entrepreneurs etc. to connect with the medical community?
• What issues exist with access and use of data? How can students/interested people navigate this

Nov
6
Thu
Fertility, Reproductive Health and Women’s Empowerment @ Oxford Institute of Population Ageing, 66 Banbury Road
Nov 6 @ 12:30 pm – 2:00 pm
Fertility, Reproductive Health and Women's Empowerment  @ Oxford Institute of Population Ageing, 66 Banbury Road | Oxford | United Kingdom

Michaelmas Term 2014 Seminar Series
‘FERTILITY, REPRODUCTIVE HEALTH AND WOMEN’S EMPOWERMENT’
Thursdays – 12:30 – 14:00
Seminar Room, Oxford Institute of Population Ageing,
66 Banbury Road, Oxford, OX2 6PR.
Convener: Dr Melanie Frost

‘Living with flooding: the science and politics of flood risk management’. @ SR3, St. Anne's College
Nov 6 @ 12:45 pm – 2:00 pm

Professor Sarah Whatmore, head of School of Geography and the Environment, will speak about ‘Living with flooding: the science and politics of flood risk management’.

Sarah Whatmore is Professor of Environment and Public Policy at the University of Oxford and one of the world’s leading scholars on the relationship between environmental science and the democratic governance of environmental risks and hazards. She has worked extensively on the conditions that give rise to the public contestation of environmental expertise; the dynamics and consequences of environmental knowledge controversies for public policy-making; and the design of methods for conducting environmental research that enable the knowledge of affected communities to inform the ways in which environmental problems are framed and addressed.

Professor Whatmore is currently Head of the School of Geography and the Environment and Associate Head (Research) of the Social Sciences Division at the University of Oxford. She is an elected Fellow of the British Academy (FBA), the Academy of Learned Societies in the Social Sciences (AcSS) and the Royal Geographical Society (with the Institute of British Geographers) (RGS) and has served on its Council. She is also a member of the Social Science Expert Panel advising the UK Government’s Departments of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) and Energy and Climate Change (DECC).
A free lunch is provided. To book a place please email ahdg@st-annes-mcr.org.uk

Well fed? The health and environmental implications of our food choices – Prof Susan Jebb, Dr Tara Garnett & Dr Mike Rayner @ Oxford Martin School
Nov 6 @ 3:30 pm – 5:00 pm

Non-fat, low-fat, saturated fat, trans fats, healthy fats – in an era where we seem to be constantly bombarded with often conflicting messages about our diets, is all this information actually making us any healthier? How can we cut through media hysteria and make wise choices about the food we eat, and what impact do our consumption habits have, not just on our own health but that of the planet?

Speakers:

Professor Susan Jebb, Professor of Diet and Population Health, Nuffield Department of Primary Care Health Sciences, University of Oxford
Dr Tara Garnett, Principal Investigator, Oxford Martin Programme on the Future of Food
Dr Mike Rayner, Principal Investigator, Oxford Martin Programme on the Future of Food
Join in on Twitter with #c21health

This seminar will be live webcast on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0UbwkWsEdmU

About the Speakers:
Professor Susan Jebb is a nutrition scientist and her research interests are focused on how what we eat affects the risk of gaining weight or becoming obese and the interventions that might be effective to help people lose weight or reduce the risk of obesity-related diseases. She has also conducted a series of randomised controlled trials to study the impact of dietary changes on the risk factors for cardiovascular disease. In general, this work highlights that body weight is a more important risk factor for ill-health than differences in the nutritional composition of the diet. She has strong scientific collaborations with the Behaviour and Health Research unit at the University of Cambridge and the MRC Human Nutrition Research unit, where she was a Programme Leader for many years.

She is also very interested in how scientific evidence on diet is translated into policy and practice, by government, industry, the public health community and the media. She was the science advisor for the Foresight obesity report and subsequently chaired the cross-government Expert Advisory Group on obesity from 2007-11. She is now a member of the Public Health England Obesity Programme Board. She also Chairs the DH Public Health Responsibility Deal Food Network, developing voluntary agreements with industry to improve the food environment. She is one of the Chairs of the NICE Public Health Advisory Committees. She is actively involved in a number of events and media projects to engage the public in issues relating to diet and health. In 2008 she was awarded an OBE for services to public health. She is a Trustee and former Chair of the Association for the Study of Obesity.

Dr Tara Garnett is a Principal Investigator at the Oxford Martin Programme on the Future of Food and she initiated, and runs the Food Climate Research Network, now based at the Environmental Change Institute, University of Oxford.

Her work focuses on the contribution that the food system makes to greenhouse gas emissions and the scope for emissions reduction, looking at the technological options, at what could be achieved by changes in behaviour and how policies could help promote both these approaches. She is particularly interested in the relationship between emissions reduction objectives and other social and ethical concerns, particularly human health, livelihoods, and animal welfare. Much of her focus is on livestock, since this represents a nodal point where many of these issues converge.

Tara is keen to collaborate through the FCRN with other organisations to undertake research, organise events and build and extend interdisciplinary, intersectoral knowledge in this field.

Dr Mike Rayner is a Principal Investigator on the Oxford Martin Programme on the Future of Food and Director of the British Heart Foundation Centre on Population Approaches for NCD Prevention, which is based within the Nuffield Department of Population Health of the University of Oxford, and which he founded in 1993.

Mike’s particular research interests are in food labelling, food marketing, food taxes and the relationship between a healthy diet and sustainable diet.

Mike is also Chair of Sustain, the alliance for better food and farming in the UK, and Chair of its Childrens’ Food Campaign in the UK. He is a trustee of the UK Health Forum, Chair of the Nutrition Expert Group for the European Heart Network based in Brussels and a member of the Scientific Advisory Panel of the International Obesity Task Force. He is also an ordained priest in the Church of England.

Nov
8
Sat
My Siberian Year, 1914-1915 @ Pitt Rivers Museum
Nov 8 @ 2:30 pm
My Siberian Year, 1914-1915 @ Pitt Rivers Museum | Oxford | United Kingdom

In May 1914 Polish anthropologist Marie Antoinette Czaplicka set off for Siberia in charge of an expedition to study the reindeer-herding Evenki people. She was twenty-nine years old, had recently completed a diploma in anthropology at Oxford and had started researching the peoples of Siberia, looking particularly at spirit worship and shamanism.
This talk explores the expedition, its extraordinary hardships and the Evenki people that were the focus of research. One of the aims of the expedition was to collect artefacts for both Pennsylvania University Museum and the Pitt Rivers Museum, a selection of which are on display in Oxford to mark the centenary.

Nov
10
Mon
“The Butterfly Defect: How globalization creates systemic risks, and what to do about it” by Prof Ian Goldin @ Oxford Martin School
Nov 10 @ 5:00 pm – 6:00 pm
"The Butterfly Defect: How globalization creates systemic risks, and what to do about it" by Prof Ian Goldin @ Oxford Martin School | Oxford | United Kingdom

Globalisation has brought us vast benefits including growth in incomes, education, innovation and connectivity. Professor Ian Goldin, Director of the Oxford Martin School, argues that it also has the potential to destabilise our societies. In The Butterfly Defect: How globalisation creates systemic risks, and what to do about it, he and co-author Mike Mariathasan, Assistant Professor of Finance at the University of Vienna, argue that the recent financial crisis is an example of the risks that the world will face in the coming decades.

The risks spread across supply chains, pandemics, infrastructure, ecology, climate change, economics and politics. Unless these risks are addressed, says Goldin, they could lead to greater protectionism, xenophobia, nationalism and to deglobalisation, rising conflict and slower growth.

The book talk will be followed by a book signing and drinks reception

This book talk will be live webcast on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UuW2rgtZuIM

About the Book
Global hyperconnectivity and increased system integration have led to vast benefits, including worldwide growth in incomes, education, innovation, and technology. But rapid globalization has also created concerns because the repercussions of local events now cascade over national borders and the fallout of financial meltdowns and environmental disasters affects everyone. The Butterfly Defect addresses the widening gap between systemic risks and their effective management. It shows how the new dynamics of turbo-charged globalization has the potential and power to destabilize our societies. Drawing on the latest insights from a wide variety of disciplines, Ian Goldin and Mike Mariathasan provide practical guidance for how governments, businesses, and individuals can better manage risk in our contemporary world.

Goldin and Mariathasan assert that the current complexities of globalization will not be sustainable as surprises become more frequent and have widespread impacts. The recent financial crisis exemplifies the new form of systemic risk that will characterize the coming decades, and the authors provide the first framework for understanding how such risk will function in the twenty-first century. Goldin and Mariathasan demonstrate that systemic risk issues are now endemic everywhere in supply chains, pandemics, infrastructure, ecology and climate change, economics, and politics. Unless we are better able to address these concerns, they will lead to greater protectionism, xenophobia, nationalism, and, inevitably, deglobalization, rising conflict, and slower growth.

The Butterfly Defect shows that mitigating uncertainty and systemic risk in an interconnected world is an essential task for our future.

Nov
13
Thu
Fertility, Reproductive Health and Women’s Empowerment @ Oxford Institute of Population Ageing, 66 Banbury Road
Nov 13 @ 12:30 pm – 2:00 pm
Fertility, Reproductive Health and Women's Empowerment  @ Oxford Institute of Population Ageing, 66 Banbury Road | Oxford | United Kingdom

Michaelmas Term 2014 Seminar Series
‘FERTILITY, REPRODUCTIVE HEALTH AND WOMEN’S EMPOWERMENT’
Thursdays – 12:30 – 14:00
Seminar Room, Oxford Institute of Population Ageing,
66 Banbury Road, Oxford, OX2 6PR.
Convener: Dr Melanie Frost

“New strategies for disease prevention and management, from infancy to old age” by Prof Terry Dwyer and Dr Kazem Rahimi @ Oxford Martin School
Nov 13 @ 3:30 pm – 5:00 pm

There remain many unanswered questions in medical research about both the prevention and treatment of disease, but new technologies are opening up new opportunities to provide insights. One approach, in particular, the capacity to assemble and analyse very large health datasets, is underpinning the work of both speakers addressing problems at both ends of life.

Kazem Rahimi is utilising innovative digital technologies and large healthcare datasets to find better approaches to managing established cardiovascular disease including heart failure. Terry Dwyer, on the other hand, is pooling data on one million mothers and babies to help uncover causes of childhood cancer – an area where, despite considerable effort, little progress has been made over recent decades.

Join in on twitter with #c21health

This seminar will be live webcast on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yURabFdYHJY

About the speakers:
Professor Terry Dwyer is the Executive Director of the George Institute for Global Health at the Oxford Martin School and Professor of Epidemiology, University of Oxford.

Terry is a non-communicable disease epidemiologist with extensive experience in the conduct of cohort and case control studies. He was previously Director of the Menzies Research Institute, University of Tasmania, coordinating research projects including those on cancer, heart disease, multiple sclerosis, childhood asthma, and diabetes.

His work has focussed on infant and child health. His team’s research on Sudden Infant Death Syndrome and sleeping position was recognised by the NHMRC, Australia, as one of the most important contributions to medical research by Australia in the 20th Century. Much of this work was conducted on the 11,000 infants enrolled in the Tasmanian Infant Health Survey (TIHS) between 1988 and 1995 and was supported by funds from both NH&MRC and NIH.

He is currently playing a leading role in two large global cohort collaborations. The first involves a collaboration of birth cohorts in more than ten countries to obtain prospective evidence on the causes of childhood cancer. Little prospective data on this association has previously been available. This consortium, the International Childhood Cancer Cohort Consortium (14C), seeks to assemble data on approximately 1 million mothers and babies who will be followed through childhood. It has been supported financially by NCI, and currently Terry is working on this from IARC.

The second study is focused on following around 40,000 subjects who were first measured at school age and are now moving into their fourth and fifth decades. The CDAH study is one of six coborts in three countries contributing data to this consortium. This study seeks to estimate the separate effect of childhood physical and lifestyle characteristics on risk of major adult diseases such as type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease. There have been many publications on this including one in the New England Journal of Medicine in 2011.

Dr Kazem Rahimi, Associate Professor, is the Deputy Director of the George Institute for Global Health at the Oxford Martin School; James Martin Senior Fellow in Essential Healthcare at the University of Oxford and Honorary Consultant Cardiologist at the John Radcliffe Hospital, Oxford.

As the Deputy Director he leads the Essential Healthcare Programme, which aims to find practical and affordable solutions for the global health priorities of the world’s largest emerging economies, as well as the priorities of vulnerable or disadvantaged populations in established economies.

He graduated in medicine from the University of Leipzig in Germany with postgraduate training in cardiology and health services research in Leipzig, London and Oxford. Prior to joining the George Institute, in 2010, he was a Research Fellow at Oxford’s Clinical Trial Service and Epidemiological Studies Unit. His research interests include service delivery innovation in chronic disease prevention and management, large-scale complex intervention studies, and data-driven electronic decision support systems.

Nov
15
Sat
Celebrating the Diversity of Archaeology – OUAS Undergraduate Conference 2014 @ Merton College
Nov 15 @ 10:00 am – 4:00 pm
Celebrating the Diversity of Archaeology - OUAS Undergraduate Conference 2014 @ Merton College | Oxford | United Kingdom

Oxford University Archaeological Society invites you to our annual undergraduate conference, the theme of which is:

CELEBRATING THE DIVERSITY OF ARCHAEOLOGY

Papers will be presented by undergraduate students from across the country on the following topics:
– Zooarchaeology
– Greek Sculpture
– Pella’s Hellenistic Agora
– Experimental Archaeology
– Pottery Conservation

The cost of the full day is £8 including a buffet lunch and morning refreshments. Excluding lunch, the full day costs £3.50, refreshments included. Individual talks cost 50p each to attend. For a full event program, search for “Oxford University Archaeological Society” on Google and you will be taken to our website.

Nov
18
Tue
“Is the Planet Full?” – Panel discussion @ Oxford Martin School
Nov 18 @ 5:00 pm – 6:30 pm
"Is the Planet Full?" - Panel discussion @ Oxford Martin School | Oxford | England | United Kingdom

Panel:

Professor Charles Godfray, Director, Oxford Martin Programme on the Future of Food and author of the chapter How can 9-10 Billion People be Fed Sustainably and Equitably by 2050?
Professor Ian Goldin, Director, Oxford Martin School, Editor of Is the Planet Full? and author of the chapter Governance Matters Most
Professor Sarah Harper, Director, Oxford Institute of Population Ageing, Oxford Martin School and author of the chapter Demographic and Environmental Transitions
Professor Yadvinder Malhi, Director, Oxford Centre for Tropical Forests, Oxford Martin School and author of the chapter The Metabolism of a Human-Dominated Planet
Dr Toby Ord, James Martin Fellow, Oxford Martin Programme on the Impacts of Future Technology and author of the chapter Overpopulation or Underpopulation?
The panel will discuss whether our planet can continue to support a growing population estimated to reach 10 billion people by the middle of the century.

The panel discussion will be followed by a book signing and drinks reception.

This panel discussion will be live webcast on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VFIqDQP1Vjc

About the Book:
What are the impacts of population growth? Can our planet support the demands of the ten billion people anticipated to be the world’s population by the middle of this century?

While it is common to hear about the problems of overpopulation, might there be unexplored benefits of increasing numbers of people in the world? How can we both consider and harness the potential benefits brought by a healthier, wealthier and larger population? May more people mean more scientists to discover how our world works, more inventors and thinkers to help solve the world’s problems, more skilled people to put these ideas into practice?

In this book, leading academics with a wide range of expertise in demography, philosophy, biology, climate science, economics and environmental sustainability explore the contexts, costs and benefits of a burgeoning population on our economic, social and environmental systems.

It’s all about Me, Me and Me – arginine Methylation of E2F1 – Poppy Roworth @ Stopforth Metcalfe Room, Kellogg College
Nov 18 @ 6:00 pm – 7:00 pm

The Colloquium is a seminar series at Kellogg College, Oxford.

Poppy is a 2nd year DPhil student at the department of Oncology. She completed her BSc Biochemistry at the University of Southampton and did a ‘sandwich’ year at AstraZeneca working on pre-clinical cancer drugs which is where she became fascinated by cancer biology. Poppy is also Secretary of OxFEST which supports women in STEM.

Nov
20
Thu
Fertility, Reproductive Health and Women’s Empowerment @ Oxford Institute of Population Ageing, 66 Banbury Road
Nov 20 @ 12:30 pm – 2:00 pm
Fertility, Reproductive Health and Women's Empowerment  @ Oxford Institute of Population Ageing, 66 Banbury Road | Oxford | United Kingdom

Michaelmas Term 2014 Seminar Series
‘FERTILITY, REPRODUCTIVE HEALTH AND WOMEN’S EMPOWERMENT’
Thursdays – 12:30 – 14:00
Seminar Room, Oxford Institute of Population Ageing,
66 Banbury Road, Oxford, OX2 6PR.
Convener: Dr Melanie Frost

“Eradicating Hepatitis C and HIV: progress and challenges for the next ten years” by Dr John Frater and Dr Ellie Barnes @ Oxford Martin School
Nov 20 @ 3:30 pm – 5:00 pm

The next decade could see significant steps towards eradicating viruses which threaten the lives of millions of people worldwide. Major progress has been made towards a cure for hepatitis C, but at $84,000 for a course of treatment, will the cost of the drugs stand in the way of a global roll-out? And with the high cost and risks of toxicity and drug resistance making anti-retrovirals a less than ideal long-term solution for HIV patients, what breakthroughs are giving scientists hope in their efforts to find a cure for the virus?

Join in on Twitter with #c21health

This seminar will be live webcast on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sN7NwoOQP-s

About the speakers:
Dr John Frater is a Principal Investigator in the Institute for Emerging Infections, Oxford Martin School and a Clinical Research Fellow in The Nuffield Department of Medicine at the University of Oxford. John carried out his medical training at Cambridge University and the Royal London Hospital. He undertook a PhD at Imperial College, studying African strains of HIV and their susceptibility to treatment.

Following this he gained a MRC Clinician Scientist Award to work at Oxford University researching HIV evolution and strategies for HIV eradication. He is currently the scientific lead and co-chair of ‘CHERUB’, (Collaborative HIV Eradication of Reservoirs: UK BRC), an NIHR-supported collaboration dedicated to finding a cure for HIV infection. He also works as an Honorary Consultant Physician at the John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford.

Dr Ellie Barnes is a Principal Investigator in the Institute for Emerging Infections, Oxford Martin School; MRC Senior Clinical Fellow and Honorary Consultant in Hepatology in the Nuffield Department of Medicine, University of Oxford.

Ellie trained in medicine at St. Bartholomew’s hospital, London. Towards the end of her time there she took a year away to study human evolution, social biology and the philosophy of science at University College London. She specialized in liver medicine, attracted to this by the mix of practical and academic skills required. Her PhD was in T cell immunity to hepatitis C virus (HCV) in the context of therapy with Paul Klenerman and Geoff Dusheiko. She has been supported by the MRC (UK) throughout, more recently as a Clinician Scientist at the Peter Medawar Building for pathogen research in Oxford.