Ruth Padel, the prizewinning British poet and a great-great-granddaughter of Charles Darwin, has become the College's Writer in Residence, as part of the Leverhulme Trust's Artist in Residence programme. Ruth has published seven collections of poetry; most recently Darwin - a Life in Poems which includes a poem set in Christ's.  Her non-fiction includes I'm A Man on rock music and Greek myth, The Poem and the Journey, on reading modern poetry, and a travel cum-nature book, Tigers in Red Weather.

In 2005 she wrote and presented an acclaimed series of talks for BBC Radio 4 on Hans Christian Anderson, analyzing each day a different tale and relating them to his life. In 2007 she wrote and presented a similar series on Elgar, looking at his life, relationships with women, love of landscape and personality through an exploration of the Enigma Variations.  Her most recent radio work is Darwin my Ancestor.