Teaching and research are at the very heart of St Hilda’s, with groundbreaking work taking place in numerous fields.
Oxford is famous for its tutorial system, which offers such a bespoke education to our students. However, this very low ratio of students to tutors is costly, so increasing the College’s endowment for key posts is a priority.
Endowing posts ensures continuity of teaching for our students while contributing to the sustained research of our academics and the impact that this has in the wider world.
The immediate priorities for endowment are posts in Computer Science and Biomedical Science so that new appointments can be made in these important and growing fields.
St Hilda’s also seeks to increase funding for Career Development Fellowships, which are pivotal in enriching the research environment within College. These early career posts support the next generation of academics as they focus on their varying fields of world-leading research, while also developing their teaching expertise for future posts in higher education.
Biomedical sciences
The Biomedical Sciences cluster is an example of the way in which we are building on the College’s achievements in pre-clinical and clinical medicine. St Hilda’s began to admit for the new subject of Biomedical Sciences in 2016 and we have attracted strong applications from the start.
The success of this new subject can be seen from both the high percentage of Firsts amongst its graduates and the feedback from our students who go on to careers and graduate studies in this field.
Over time we have established a supportive environment for students across these subjects, complementing our offerings in Biochemistry, which was established at St Hilda’s in the 1950s by our pioneering alumna and Fellow, Dr Muriel Tomlinson.
We must now build from this foundation and seek funding to secure the future of tutorial teaching in this important cluster of subjects, particularly Biomedical Sciences, which is now a four-year degree. Ultimately, this will require endowment with an investment of £1.5 million to create a new post, which can be named for the donor.
As an immediate priority, to ensure continuity of teaching, we seek £200,000 to establish a Career Development Fellowship in Biomedical Sciences for a minimum five-year period.
Quantum computing
This exciting field for research is in its early stages and the opportunity is there for talented researchers to make a profound difference. Quantum Computing exponentially increases the speed of data processing and underpins developments in many fields.
We are delighted to have recently established a new Associate Professorship and Tutorial Fellowship in Quantum Computing. The appointee has joined Dr Aleks Kissinger, our current researcher in Quantum Computing, and allows the College to admit three undergraduates per year for Computer Science (as single honours, or with Mathematics or Philosophy) – a first for St Hilda’s.
Quantum Computing is a key research area that is increasing in importance rapidly, as technology becomes ever more demanding. As well as teaching and supervising research in this topic at both undergraduate and postgraduate level, the new appointee will also teach core Computer Sciences to undergraduates, meaning that our students will not be reliant on tutors at other colleges.
To allow St Hilda’s to continue teaching and researching at the cutting edge of technology, we seek to make this a permanent post at a cost of £1.5 million. We will be pleased to name the post for the donor.