Admission of Fellows

We're delighted to welcome three new Fellows to the Robinson community to support the College with innovative research and teaching.

Dr Tom Crawford (Fellow in Maths)

Dr Bristi Basu (Fellow in Medicine)

Dr Orsolya Petőcz (Early Career Teaching and Research Fellow in History and Modern Languages)

Dr Tom Crawford (Fellow in Maths)

Dr Tom Crawford teaches Maths at the University of Cambridge and the University of Oxford, as well as running the award-winning 'Tom Rocks Maths’ outreach programme. 

Tom completed his PhD in Fluid Dynamics at the University of Cambridge under the supervision of Prof. Paul Linden and obtained his undergraduate degree in Maths from the University of Oxford in 2012 where he studied at St John’s College.

Alongside his teaching commitments, Tom runs an award-winning outreach programme through his website ’Tom Rocks Maths’ which hosts videos, podcasts, puzzles and articles that aim to make maths entertaining and understandable to all. Tom works with several partners including the BBC and the Numberphile YouTube channel – the largest maths channel on the platform with over pi-million subscribers. With over 20 million YouTube views, 2 TEDx talks, and guest lectures at the Royal Institution and New Scientist Live, Tom is well on his way to his goal of bringing maths to the masses.

When not misbehaving with numbers, Tom can usually be found playing football, snowboarding or getting a new maths tattoo (15 and counting…).

Find out more about Tom on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Instagram @tomrocksmaths, or check out his website www.tomrocksmaths.com.

Dr Bristi Basu (Fellow in Medicine)

Dr Bristi Basu is a Clinical Principal Research Associate in the University of Cambridge and Honorary Academic Consultant in Medical Oncology at Cambridge University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust. Her specialist research focus is in experimental cancer therapeutics, with site specialisation in hepato-pancreatic-biliary tumours. She trained in Medicine at Oxford University (Prosser Exhibitions) before undertaking clinical specialty training in Medical Oncology at Cambridge. During this time, she completed a PhD in cancer cell biology and drug discovery at the University of Cambridge as the Cancer Research UK Gordon Hamilton-Fairley Clinical Research Training Fellow. She has worked as a chief investigator, UK co-ordinating investigator, principal investigator and co-investigator in academic-led and industry-sponsored Phase I, II and III clinical trials, including first-in-human and first-in-class studies. She leads the Cambridge Experimental Cancer Medicine Centre, directs the Cambridge Cancer Trials Centre and co-leads CRUK Cambridge Centre Pancreatic Cancer Programme. She is Chair of the Cancer Research UK Expert Review Panel and Vice-Chair of Cancer Research UK’s Clinical Research Committee. She is Deputy Chair of the UK NCRI Pancreatic Cancer Research group, co-leading its Novel Therapeutics working group, and is a member of the Research Strategy Group for Pancreatic Cancer UK. She works within the Capacity Building leadership team of Cambridge NIHR Biomedical Research Centre and is Director of Studies for Part 2 medical students at Robinson College, Cambridge.

Bristi's other interests are Scuba diving, yoga and dog walking.

Dr Orsolya Petőcz (Early Career Teaching and Research Fellow in History and Modern Languages)

Dr Orsolya Katalin Petőcz is Early-Career Teaching and Research Fellow in History and Modern Languages at Robinson College, University of Cambridge. She completed her PhD supervised by Prof Emma Wilson and Prof Robert S. C. Gordon. She explores queer testimonies across literature and the visual arts. She focuses primarily on the testimonies of survivors of World War II and studies the early texts of queer and trans theories in the context of which these testimonies emerge. Petőcz organises events in line with her research interests, most recently the conference and film premiere ‘Queer and Trans Testimonies: From the Holocaust to 2023’. Petőcz has published research articles in Journal of Italian Cinema and Media Studies, Italian Studies and French Cultural Studies, as well as book chapters. Petőcz is the co-editor, with Naomi Segal, of the volume Dwelling: Cultural Representations of Inhabited Places (Palgrave Macmillan: 2024), endorsed as a ‘must-read’ by Princeton-based André Benhaïm. The book offers a bridge to her postdoctoral work related to migration studies with a focus on the stigma of promiscuity in the testimonies of Eastern European Holocaust survivors. Petőcz is currently working on a monograph titled Genders Ago: Monstrosity in the Long Twentieth Century, which elaborates on ‘queer testimony’ and her thesis-based monograph The Age of the Queer Witness: Holocaust Testimonies across National Borders.

We're also pleased to welcome Four new Bye Fellows:

Dr John Donegan-Cross (Bye Fellow -Ho Peng Yoke)

Professor Chunwen Hao

Professor Andres Sevtsuk

Dr Lily Song