Five alumni are speaking at the second annual alumni talk this evening.
Five Gates alumni have spoken about life “in the real world” at the second annual Gates symposium last week.
They included Anne Leone [2006], who did her PhD in Italian on the cultural significance of blood in the Middle Ages as seen via the works of Dante. She spoke about her role as lead singer in soul band the Chancellors of Vice and her role in a vampire film. Anna runs a film seminar on vampires.
Other speakers were Douglas Guilfoyle [2004], now a Law Lecturer at University College London. He did his PhD in Legal Studies. His current research focuses on how to combat Somali piracy. His PhD was on shipping interdiction and the law of the sea and prior to Cambridge he worked as a judge’s associate in the Federal Court of Australia and as a litigation solicitor. He regularly gives talks on the law of the seas, particularly issues such as piracy, and prepares reports for NGOs and government clients. In 2009, he was appointed to prepare a report on treaty-based jurisdiction over pirates for the legal issues working group of the Contact Group on Piracy off Somalia.
Max Gwiazda [2001], a lecturer in the Department of Architecture at Cambridge, spoke about conflict in cities and gave examples such as Belfast in Northern Ireland, which he says has increased the number of separation barriers since the Good Friday Agreement. He is a research partner on the ESRC-funded project ‘Conflict in Cities and the Contested State’ and his research focuses on the interplay of politics, urban design and heritage practices in ethno-national conflicts in Jerusalem. He did his PhD in the History and Philosophy of Architecture.
Eric Jensen [2003] is Assistant Professor of Sociology, University of Warwick, Visiting Senior Research Fellow, Institute of Zoology Zoological Society of London / University of Cambridge and Senior Fellow in Conservation Education and Visitor Research, Durrell Wildlife Conservation Trust. His research focuses on public engagement with science, especially through zoos and festivals. He did his PhD at Cambridge in Social and Political Science. He outlined the positive educational value of zoos for children.
David Deitz [2006] is Head of Business Development for Assura Medical, the healthcare arm of the Virgin Group. David did an MPhil at Cambridge in the History and Philosophy of Sciences and Medicine. He said Virgin was going to make the NHS fun.
