Alumni Weekend

Dr Sabina Alkire, Director of the Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative (OPHI) gives a talk for the Oxford Alumni Weekend 2013. What does 'being poor' really mean? The Global Multidimensional Poverty Index, or MPI, is an international measure of acute poverty covering more than 100 developing countries. Assessing poverty at the individual level, it complements traditional income-based poverty measures by capturing the severe deprivations that each person faces at the same time with regard to education, health and living standards. It also reveals how poverty is falling: whether there is a smaller number of people experiencing poverty, or whether the share of deprivations faced by poor people has dropped. Join Sabina Alkire to hear how the method that underlies the index, developed at Oxford University, is being applied by governments.

James Benmore (Kellogg), Samantha Shannon (St Anne's) and Sam Thompson (St Anne's) talk about their work as writers. Chaired by Dr Clare Morgan (Kellogg), author and Director of the Master of Studies in Creative Writing. Whether you're an aspiring author or simply a fan of contemporary fiction, join us for this engaging session as our panel of Oxonian authors share their stories, motivations and top tips on getting published. This event will celebrate three talented local debut authors. James Benmore's first novel, Dodger, was published by Heron in 2013 and follows the story of Jack Dawkins, better known as the Artful Dodger from Oliver Twist. Samantha Shannon has recently completed a degree in English language and literature at Oxford and signed a book deal with Bloomsbury in 2012. The Bone Season is the first in a series of seven novels. Dr Sam Thompson is a lecturer at St. Anne's College, whose first novel Communion Town was longlisted for the Man Booker Prize in 2012.

Dr John Wheater (Head of Physics Department), Emeritus Professor Derek Stacey and Dr Jay Watson (alumnus), give a talk about the Oxford Physics department and the study of physics today.

Dr Simon Butt (Keble), Fellow and Tutor in Neuroscience, gives a talk for the Oxford Alumni Weekend. The human brain is an amazingly complex organ, yet at the moment of conception we are formed of a single fertilised egg, the potential of which will be sculpted over the years ahead by a variety of genetic and environmental cues to emerge as the brain that defines us as individuals today. In this lecture, Simon Butt will explore how his research over the last few years has focused on elucidating a genetic bar code to identify nerve cells and relate their activity to behaviour - a strategy that has significant implications for our understanding of a wide range of neurological disorders

Professor Richard Washington, Professor of Climate Science at the School of Geography and the Environment; Fellow and Tutor in Geography, Keble College, gives a talk for the 2013 Oxford Alumni Weekend. In summer the central Sahara is a brutally hot and inhospitable place largely devoid of people. But it is also a critically important part of the climate system controlling the West African Monsoon and driving the largest dust emissions on the planet. Yet we have no observed data to quantify the behaviour of this system. This talk will explore how the Fennec project aimed to do the impossible and recover those all-important observations from the core of the remote desert.

In this lecture, Professor Goldin presents ideas from his latest book and focuses on issues such as the financial crisis, the internet, pandemics, migration and climate change, in order to highlight the need for urgent global action.

'Big data' in medicine is an emerging field with the potential to revolutionise healthcare research.This session will look at how Oxford is addressing some of these research opportunities and challenges.

With digital broadcasting increasing and newspaper readership falling, how should we respond in ways that ensure the free flow of information that is essential in a pluralist society?

Victorian fiction is commonly thought of as treating love sentimentally and lacking all reference to sex. In this talk drawing on material from a book he is writing, Dr David Grylls, Fellow of Kellogg College, will contest such a view.

See how modern analyses of the fossil record, genetics and development provide a new understanding of flatfish evolution, and how this bears on both the great flatfish controversy and the rate and nature of evolutionary change more broadly.