The Queen's College Record 2020

In association with the Department of Economics, we also elected a new Career
Development Fellow. Dr Viktor Marinkov was awarded a doctorate by the European
University Institute in Florence. His research spans productivity growth, expectations
in macroeconomics and monetary policy. He aims to improve understanding of
productivity differences between countries and, more generally, the importance of
deviations from rational expectations in explaining macroeconomic phenomena.
Dr Marta Arnaldi is our new Laming Fellow in Modern Languages. Her research
concentrates on modern and contemporary literature originally written in, or translated
into, different languages and different media. At Queen’s, she will be looking at the
interaction of translation and medicine, by exploring the therapeutic potential of
translation in contemporary English, French and Italian poetry. Her own first collection
of poems, Itaca (Milan, 2016) has won two international literary prizes.
Reports and College Activities
I am unable to share the College’s position in this year’s Norrington Table as the
University decided to stop publishing an interim Table. The Table will now be available
only at the end of Michaelmas term each year, in order to incorporate appeal
outcomes or other result adjustments. I can, however, report that our finalists achieved
a very impressive set of results: 51 undergraduates were awarded a First class
degrees, with 38 gaining a 2.1. While satisfaction surveys are properly regarded with
a certain scepticism, the College’s ‘learning experience’ also attracted very high levels
of satisfaction from its students (94.5%). In June 2020, the College issued a statement
in response to the ‘Black Lives Matter’ campaign and, in August, a statement on the
application of a flawed algorithm to A-level results.
The third term of the academic year was, inevitably, much affected by the coronavirus.
The College site closed and tutorials and classes were conducted using videoconferencing.
Final examinations were also held remotely, with students following an
‘open book’ system and an honour code. Several of the College’s researchers have
been pursuing solutions to the crisis. They include Professor Peter Robbins’ work
on a clinical drug trial aimed at raising oxygen levels in the blood to assist patients’
chances of recovery; Professor Chris O’Callaghan’s work as a medical consultant at
the John Radcliffe Hospital and his leadership of the Academic Centre for UrgenT and
Emergency Care (ACUTECare); and Dr Jasmina Panovska-Griffiths’ research on the
mathematical modelling of virus transmission.
At the time of writing, Queen’s is once again open for teaching, learning and research
in the usual way, with mitigations such as social distancing and mask-wearing to make
the College site as safe as possible for everyone. It is my hope – and that of everyone
at Queen’s – that my successor as Senior Tutor, Professor Seth Whidden, will be able
to report a substantial return to normality next year.
College Record 2020 | The Queen’s College 11