Nick Wise
President
Hi, I’m Nick and I’m MCR President this year. I’m starting the 3rd year of my PhD at the Engineering Department, studying the fluid dynamics of buoyancy-driven ventilation flows. As President it’s my job to represent your interests in college, and try to get any concerns or issues you have resolved. In my spare time, I play trombone in a pop covers band and attempt the crossword in the MCR. I also play Frisbee, lacrosse and climb. I look forward to meeting you all in Fresher’s Week, but feel free to email me before you get here if you have any questions.
Andrea Paterlini
Vice President
My name is Andrea and I am the Vice President of the MCR committee this year. I am doing a PhD in Plant biology, studying how sugars move within a plant and how this affects development and growth. Sweet life (sort of)! My main job as VP is to work alongside CUSU (Cambridge university student union), GU (Graduate Union) and the reps from the other colleges to have a unified student voice when we raise issues to the University. I also help out the president and the rest of the committee running events (if you like quirky board games you shall hear from me) and the bar. Please feel at home in the MCR (you will meet interesting people from all over the world and you will form great friendships) and make sure others feel welcomed too, keep it nice and tidy. Again, welcome to our wonderful community!
Dan Muthukrishna
Secretary and Computing Officer
Hey! I’m Dan, a second year PhD student at the Institute of Astronomy, where I try to understand exploding stars and dark energy with the help of machine learning! As secretary and computing officer, my job is to keep you updated on college news with a weekly bulletin, as well as maintain the MCR’s website, punt booker, and events booker. As an international student from Australia, I enjoy the occasional beer and game of cricket, and have found the MCR to be a great home away from home. It offers an amazingly unique opportunity to collaborate beyond our own departments by sharing ideas and forming bonds with an incredibly diverse and multi-disciplinary group. I’m looking forward to meeting you at Freshers’ week!
Eyal Fisher
Treasurer
Hello! I am Eyal and I look after the MCR's budget. The job mostly consists of reimbursing expenses occurred on behalf of the MCR and paying for the bar supply. At the beginning of each year we meet and decide on the budget for the next academic year. I encourage you to join the committee and participate in this process. During the last year, our major expenses included yoga lessons, themed formals, coffee and biscuits for the MCR, and of course, fresher's week. There is budget for any member who wants to organize an event for the MCR community, so whatever your passion is, please do get in touch if you would like to throw an event. In my spare time, I develop statistical methods for biologists, specifically those who are interested in spatially resolved single cell RNA-seq data, so drop me an email if you care about that. Looking forward to meeting you all in Freshers' week.
Lydia Parkinson
Social Secretary
Hi, I am Lydia, a first year PhD student working in Neuroblastoma research. I am your social secretary, which means I will be planning events throughout the year, including formal dinners and bops. I will also be organising your fresher's week, where I hope you will see how much Clare and Cambridge have to offer. If you have any questions about fresher's, Clare or Cambridge feel free to get in touch, I am happy to help!
Ester Gurnari
Social Secretary
I’m Ester and I’m doing and MPhil in Comparative Literatures. As you may know, I come from Italy (I don’t have an accent so needed to make sure you all know my origins) and I’ve been in Cambridge and at Clare for two years. I love this college and its friendly spirit and this is why I being part of the MCR Committee as social secretary along with Lydia!
I love organising events to delight people, I love tequila and I love you! Ciao belli e grazie!
William Wood
Bar Manager
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Hiya! My name is Will and I am a physics PhD student, just starting my third year here at Clare. For the most part, I take slightly flexible things, put currents through them, wave a few magnets around them and hope for the best. However, I have since been able to increase the scope of my already exhilarating life by becoming one of our bar managers -- taking over from Aneesh. I like to think I bring a focus on balance, making sure we don’t get so lost in our 17 types of pale ale and chocolate rose quartz porter infused with elderflower and Earl Grey that we forget to stock enough lager (or vice versa, of course).
Jonty Townson
Bar Manager
Hi folks, I am Jonty, I’ll be a second year PhD student on the BBSRC-DTP programme and one of the MCR bar managers, along with Aneesh. I’m really looking forward to welcoming you all to Clare and hope that the bar becomes a special place for you. Please do drop us a line if there is anything you want us to stock in the bar, or if you would like to organise something in the MCR!
Aneesh Pappu
Bar Manager
(Temporarily)
I’m Aneesh Naik, a PhD candidate at the Institute of Astronomy, and one of the MCR Bar Managers, along with Jonty Townson. As well as being the social hub of the MCR, the bar is quite a special place in Cambridge, serving 100 whiskies (!), a whole smorgasbord of interesting beers, spirits, and liqueurs, as well as exciting non-alcoholic drinks! I hope that I’ll be meeting many of you there.
Sam Hodder
Female Welfare Officer
Hi Everyone! I am Sam and I am an MPhil Biomedical student. Although I have only been in Cambridge for a month so far, I have really enjoyed being apart of the Clare College postgraduate community and being involved in college life. Everyone at Clare College has been so welcoming and I feel so lucky to be a member of one of the liveliest graduate communities in Cambridge.
However, I understand that sometimes settling into a new university, in a new city with lots of new people and an unfamiliar course can be equally as daunting as it can be exciting. As your female welfare officer I ensure that I am ALWAYS available to listen to any problems anyone may have over the course of this year. Whether the concerns maybe academic, financial or social I will listen and help advise anyone to the best of my ability and together find the best course of action. I would be more than happy to listen to any concern no matter how big or small to help anyone feel more at ease and in control, there is nothing worse that feeling that you are out of your depth.
Pedro Vianez
LGBTQ+ Welfare Officer
officers for next year. My job basically consists of organising social events for anyone who identifies under the LGBT+ umbrella (but of course, open to everyone) as well as representing them in anything LGBT+ related. During the day I’m a 2nd year PhD Physics student at Clare (which unfortunately, is also often the case at night), researching on low-dimensional semiconductor devices and their potential for observing quantum phenomena. Sounds fancy? Let’s say that I spend half of my waking hours in a clean-room dressed as a drag queen on a budget and the other half trying not to blow up the cryostats. As an international, in my free time I’m usually found trying to steal other people’s jobs. I also have a passion for learning new languages, currently learning (and failing miserably at) French and Greek (so please if you speak any of these try not to laugh much).
Feel free to contact me (either by email or Facebook) if you want to learn more about what College (and Cambridge) can offer in terms of welfare or just chat on whatever issue may be having. Welcome to Clare!
Philip Leung
Male Welfare Officer
Hi, I am Philip, a 2nd year PhD student doing theoretical astrophysics at the Maths department. As one of your welfare officers, I am someone you can approach if you have any welfare related concerns or just because you want some conversation (about anything!). I am also part of a team that organises welfare related activities in the MCR so that we might know that there is more to life than just studying! If you would like a chat please just send me an email (pkcl2) or message me on Facebook. Looking forward to meet you all!
Peter Asimov
Mature Students' Officer
Welcome Freshers, my name is Peter, I am beginning the third year of my PhD in Music, and I am your Mature Students Officer, having served as Clareity President and Exchange Officer in the past. The MCR considers you a “mature” student (for lack of a better word!) if you are simply over 25 and/or studying for a PhD. I am therefore responsible for making sure that these groups of students are having their needs met and getting the most out of the MCR. This may mean organising writing-up (or break-from-writing-up) events for PhD students, making students’ families feel welcome in college life, putting on the partners dinner alongside matriculation. If you identify as a mature student, be in touch with any ideas about how the MCR can better serve you!
Paola Velasco Herrejón
Clareity President
Hi, my name is Paola and I am entering the third year of my PhD in Development Studies, which focuses on energy and social justice. One of the things that I love most about Clare is that you get to meet fascinating people working on world changing research in all subjects. That is why I’m very excited to be coordinating Clareity this year, which is a series of informal evening talks where MCR members present their latest research to the grad community – with pizza and wine of course. We will also have a college-wide symposium in March (more information to follow). If you are interested in presenting do not hesitate to email me. Hope to see you in our first Clareity Evening soon after the Freshers’ Week!
Kasia Brzezinska
Accommodation Officer
Hi, my name is Kasia and I’m entering the third year of my PhD in eighteenth-century Polish history. This year we’re seeing some big changes with graduate accommodation as college is building a brand new complex for us at St Regis. This means more of us will be living out of college or further out of town at Swirles Court. If you have any questions about your accommodation, want to find out a bit more about the new development at Regis, or have any issues you’d like to raise, please do get in touch. Aside from being your accommodation officer, I’m also a bit of a baking enthusiast – so you’ll be sure to find me organising various cake-related events throughout the year too. Looking forward to meeting you all!
Edward Hinton
Sports Officer
Hello! I am Ed and I'm the sports officer for the MCR so if you're interested in college sport (which is a great way to meet new people in college) and you're not sure who to contact, let me know. Sometimes I do research on the modelling of carbon dioxide storage in geologic formations. Looking forward to meeting you all in Freshers' week.
Lena Morrill
Exchange Officer
Hi, I'm Lena. I am a PhD student in Mathematical Genomics and Medicine. As your exchange officer I am in charge of organising swaps with other colleges. (Yes, I do want to go to a formal in all 31 colleges. No, that's not the reason why I wanted this committee position, and it would be offensive to suggest so). I like going to the theatre, swimming in the sea, and hammocks. Hope you have a great freshers' week; I look forward to meeting you all!
Jędrek Morzy
Admiral of the Punts
Hi! My name is Jędrzej (you could try pronouncing it as yendjay and be close enough) and my role in the MCR is to take care of the punts (boats that you move around by pushing a pole, a bit like in Venice) and to make sure they can be enjoyed by everyone as much as possible. To achieve that, I oversee the punts, equipment and organise punting inductions. When I am not busy replacing padlocks, you can find me in Materials Science Department where I study Li-ion battery material degradation using in-situ electron microscopy as a part of NanoDTC course. If you have any questions regarding punting or just want to chat about science and other topics, let me know!
Maxwell Jones
Library Officer
Hi, welcome to Clare! I’m Max, a second year History PhD studying Pessimism in nineteenth-century Germany and Italy. As Library Officer, I attend library committee meetings and try to solve any issues you might have related to academic affairs. I also hold the all-important office of Quartermaster, making sure that the MCR is supplied with tea, coffee, and biscuits. Don’t hesitate to come and see me with any questions or concerns about either. Clare has two main libraries: the Forbes Mellon library, located in Memorial Court, which is a study space with a collection of teaching-related books; and the Fellows’ library in Old Court (unfortunately currently closed for renovations), a historical library which houses Clare’s collection of rare and valuable books, including two first editions of Newton’s Principia. The librarians are friendly and helpful, so feel free to approach any of us. I also run the MCR book exchange (opposite the bar in the MCR). You can take any book you like completely free - just replace it with a book of your own. I look forward to meeting you all!
Dan Whitaker
Green Officer
Hi, I’m Dan, a second year PhD student in chemistry working on novel, sustainable materials and I’ll be your MCR green officer this year. I’m keen on all things green so ask me where you can grow your own vegetables, where you can shop sustainably, where you can eat if you’re a vegan or even just how the heck does Cambridge recycling work?! I’m always looking for new ideas about how we can make college life as environmentally friendly as possible so come and find me in the gardens and we can have a chat about it.