Ana Rodrigues is the College Nurse and Wellbeing Advisor who has always never been afraid to try something new – including gravy!

1. She used to be a geologist.

As a student in Lisbon she was always pulled in two directions. 

“I lived almost parallel lives – looking at rocks through the microscope and lecturing in petrology [the origin, structure and composition of rocks] but at the same time, in all my free time, I was volunteering in health and social care roles” 

Sandi Toksvig, OBE the award-winning author, broadcaster, entertainer and founder of the Women’s Equality Party, is elected a Bye Fellow of Christ’s College, Cambridge.

She is also awarded the first Qantabrigian Q+ Fellowship by the LGBTQ+ research programme in the Department of Sociology whose founding Director is Christ’s Fellow Professor Sarah Franklin.

Professor Susan Bayly has been honoured with the publication of a collection of essays edited by former students and colleagues from the Department of Social Anthropology at the University of Cambridge.

Christ’s has welcomed 127 new undergraduate and 121 new postgraduate students to College this week, as well as seven new Fellows. Chemist Dr Richard Tse will be admitted to the Fellowship next week.

The new Fellows are:

Christ’s College is delighted to welcome Alexandra Rowlands as Development Director. She will be made a Fellow of the College on 29 September.

Alexandra has over 15 years’ experience in fundraising, having worked for the Hallé, London Philharmonic Orchestra and most recently the Royal Opera House, where she held the role of Associate Head, Strategic Funding.

Five things you might not know about Librarian Catherine Ascough, whose first day at Christ’s was the hottest day of 2022. Her first year in post has had some unexpected challenges not least overseeing the removal of several thousand books into storage ahead of the First Court renovation.

1.  Her name is tricky to get right.

But Catherine says:

It is a real pleasure to announce the winner of the 2023 Christ’s College Art Prize. This year’s subject was Reframing Our Heritage, and it gave rise to entries brilliant, quirky and imaginative. 

The Bishop Porteus prize for ‘the most distinct and graceful’ reader in Chapel is won by Robyn Russell-Jones who is studying theology.

For the past two summers, two groups of Christ’s students have explored the archives to document the involvement of College members in the slave trade, slave plantations and anti-slavery agitation.