The College Record 2022

nature of dark matter, and, more generally, to explain the deficiencies of the Standard
Model of Particle Physics. During his association with the College he will investigate
the possibility that dark matter might be briefly unstable in the early universe, allowing
for dark matter to decay in a manner that results in the observed matter-antimatter
asymmetry (which is needed to understand why observationally there is essentially
no anti-matter in the Universe); and he will continue to investigate orbital anomalies
that could be due to a primordial black hole in the outer Solar System.
The Queen’s College Translation Exchange was part of a successful grant application
to support a new national translator-in-residence scheme. Each translator will run
a series of activities in their host institution, enabling members of the university and
general public to engage collaboratively and critically with the act of translation. The
translators will also benefit from being part of the wider national network of residents,
and the project as a whole will support efforts across the UK to decolonise and
diversify curricula, research and literary translation. The College will host awardwinning
writer and translator Polly Barton during the coming year.
Reports and College Activities
These new colleagues will no doubt contribute to the high level of scholarly
achievement of our current fellows, which included some particularly noteworthy
accolades this year. Fellow in Chemistry Prof Simon Aldridge was selected to receive
a Humboldt Research Award, in recognition of his academic record to date. Award
recipients are invited to carry out research projects of their own choice in cooperation
with specialist colleagues in Germany. Fellow in Mathematics Professor José Carrillo
was elected a Foreign Member of the Royal Academy of Sciences of Spain, and he
is a member of the Scientific Committee of the Spanish National Science Agency
2021–4. Laming Junior Research Fellow Coraline Jortay was awarded this year’s Early
Career Research prize from the British Association for Chinese Studies for her article
on ‘Reclaiming Rubbish: Gender, Class, Disability and Feiwu as an Intersectional
Lens in Xiao Hong’s Market Street and Field of Life and Death’, which appeared in
the January 2022 issue of the British Journal of Chinese Studies.
Finally, several of our early career fellows will be moving on to exciting opportunities
elsewhere: Jessica Stacey (CDF in French) will be spending the next 2 years in Berlin
on a Marie Curie fellowship, and Anna Seigal (eJRF, Maths) has taken a position as
an Assistant Professor of Applied Maths at Harvard.
These and other individual accomplishments are a better measure of the College’s
academical successes of the past year than league tables. This year’s Norrington
Table saw us placed 11th, with an overall ‘Norrington Score’ of 77.3% — the College’s
second highest ever — and (thanks to our even higher score the previous year) a
3-year average of 78.6%. As it calculates the results of exams sat in Trinity Term
2021, at the end of a year interrupted by the pandemic, it is a sign of our students’
persistence and determination. Only 2 of our 88 finalists received a 2.ii, and none
received a third: surely that success rate speaks volumes to their resilience and
College Record 2022 | The Queen’s College 11