Tag Archives: Birkbeck Effects

200th Anniversary Birkbeck Effect: Odessa Hamilton, Birkbeck student governor

It was after experiencing trauma that left her comatose that Odessa Hamilton chose to study her BSc Business Psychology at Birkbeck. She overcame remarkable odds, learning not just the skills and knowledge required for her studies but also re-learning to walk, talk, read and write simultaneously. After graduating with first class honours, she became an alumni governor and has gone on to a successful academic career in behavioural science. 

Thrice accredited by the British Psychological Society, a Fellow of the Royal Society for Public Health and the recipient of a full scholarship from the ESRC and BBSRC for her doctoral research in biobehavioural epidemiology and precision medicine, Odessa has credited Birkbeck with making her career possible. Upon her election to alumni governor at Birkbeck she said: “Having experienced the benefits of Birkbeck firsthand, I am truly passionate about advancing the College’s long-term mission to make education accessible for all.” 

200th Anniversary Birkbeck Effects: Roger Penrose, physicist

Only 33 years old when he was appointed as Reader (and later Professor) of mathematics, Penrose was a leading person in the Birkbeck community until he left nine years later. His publication of “Gravitational Collapse and Space-Time Singularities” in 1965 was ground-breaking in its proof that a singularity in space-time would occur in the gravitational collapse of a massive star. He began his collaboration with Stephen Hawking while at Birkbeck, demonstrating that a singularity applied to the origin of the whole universe in the Big Bang. 

Penrose combined quantum mechanics with consciousness and gravity. Non-computability was crucial to his thinking. He was influenced by Bohm’s EPR paradox, which helped Penrose develop his “twistors” theory, or a non-local description of massless quantum particles. 

In 1988, he was awarded the Wolf Foundation Prize for Physics alongside Hawking, the most prestigious award in physics after the Nobel Prize. Penrose was later awarded the Nobel Prize for Physics for his work on gravitational collapse and space-time singularities, an idea that had first come to him when walking to his office in Birkbeck decades earlier. 

200th Anniversary Birkbeck Effects: Tessa Blackstone, Baroness and Master 1987-97

Tessa Blackstone served as a master at Birkbeck from 1987-1997 and reinstated the teaching of law at Birkbeck by inaugurating the department (now School of Law).  

Baroness Blackstone of Stoke Newington, a Labour peer and former Minister of State for both Education and Culture, began her academic career at the London School of Economics.  In 1975 she joined the Central Policy Review Staff, an independent unit within the Cabinet Office, before returning to academia as Professor of Educational Administration at the Institute of Education. 

This was followed by a post as Deputy Education Officer for the Inner London Education Authority, before becoming Master of Birkbeck in 1987. Her decade of leadership at Birkbeck ended when she took up an appointment with the new Labour government in 1997. She returned once again to academic life as the Vice-Chancellor of the University of Greenwich in 2004, retiring in 2011. 

200th Anniversary Birkbeck Effect: Slavoj Žižek, philosopher

World-renowned public intellectual Professor Slavoj Žižek has published over 50 books (translated into 20 languages) on topics ranging from philosophy and Freudian and Lacanian psychoanalysis, to theology, film, opera and politics, including Lacan in Hollywood and The Fragile Absolute.  

He was a candidate for, and nearly won, the Presidency of his native Slovenia in the first democratic elections after the break-up of Yugoslavia in 1990. Although courted by many universities in the US, he resisted offers until the International Directorship of Birkbeck’s Centre for the Humanities came up. 

200th Anniversary Birkbeck Effect: Robert Browning, classicist and Greek historian

A professor of Classics and Ancient History from 1965 to 1981, Browning was a member of the Communist Party Historians Group and a famous Hellenist who campaigned against the dictatorship of the Greek Colonels (1947-74) and later served as the chairman of the British Committee for the Restitution of the Parthenon Marbles. Like Ste Croix, Browning applied a Marxist theory of history to the ancient world. But his approach was different to that of Ste Croix, as was revealed in a review he published in 1983 of Ste Croix’s classic The Class Struggle in the Ancient Greek Work (1981). Browning observed that Ste Croix’s book avoided the “kind of sectarian infighting in which some Marxists indulge”, and, as such was “a very English and pragmatic book, which may well infuriate some Marxist readers”. In other words, Browning favoured a more unequivocal Marxist account of historical change, while still contending that “I say a Marxist approach and not the Marxist approach”. Browning was also loyal to the Soviet Union, not only publishing a couple of articles in Russian but also maintaining a “close relationship… with the leading members of the national committees in the eastern bloc, accepting the structure of the academic community in the USSR as he did in politics”.  

200th Anniversary Birkbeck Effect: Naheed Memon, CEO of Oracle Power

Naheed Memon is an Independent Non-Executive Director at Coro Energy Plc and a Chief Executive Officer & Executive Director at Oracle Power Plc. 
 
She is on the Board of Directors at Coro Energy Plc, Oracle Power Plc, Thatta Cement Co. Ltd. and Kings Apparel Industries (Pvt) Ltd. Ms. Memon was previously employed as a Chairman by Sindh Board of Investment, a Chief Executive Officer by Advicia Consulting Ltd., and a Chief Executive Officer by Manzil Pakistan. 
 
She received her undergraduate degree from the University of Karachi and an MSc Economics degree from Birkbeck. 

200th Anniversary Birkbeck Effect: Kevin Gordon, family law barrister

Formerly a probation and aftercare officer in Jamaica, becoming a lawyer wasn’t always part of Kevin Gordon’s career plan. Having experienced the concepts of family law firsthand, and then moved to Britain as a social worker, he saw Birkbeck’s evening degree programmes as a ‘light bulb moment.’ He achieved his LLB Law in 2011 and was called to the Bar just two years later. 

Kevin is also a motivated and highly valued mentor on Birkbeck’s Mentoring Pathways programme, which is vital for the development of talented non-traditional law students, helping them get ahead with their careers in the legal sector. “I see myself as a product of good mentoring,” he says, “and it is so important to have someone of whom you can ask questions and not be judged.” 

As well as finding his calling as a barrister, Kevin trained and performed in Jamaica as a contemporary ballet dancer, an experience he has paid forward in London as the lead choreographer and dancer during the annual Miscellany Production and Gray’s Inn. 

200th Anniversary Birkbeck Effects: Jane Ittogi, Lawyer and public figure in Singapore

Jane Yumiko Ittogi is the wife of former Senior Minister Tharman Shanmugaratnam. A lawyer by training, Ittogi left the legal practice to support the local arts and education scenes and engage in community work. To date, Ittogi has served on the boards of the Singapore Art Museum, the National Heritage Board, the National Gallery Singapore, and Lasalle College of the Arts.  

At present, Ittogi is the Chair of Tasek Jurong Limited. A local non-governmental organisation (NGO), Tasek Jurong specialises in providing financial and social support to the socially disadvantaged. These include ex-inmates, youth-at-risk, single parents, the needy and disabled and their families. 

Ittogi later left legal practice to contribute to Singapore’s arts scene. Notably, Ittogi has held several key leadership positions across several landmark arts institutions in Singapore. 

200th Anniversary Birkbeck Effect: Kevin Teo, lecturer in organizational psychology

Dr Kevin Teoh is a Chartered Psychologist and the Programme Director of the MSc Organizational Psychology at Birkbeck. He is also the Executive Officer for the European Academy of Occupational Health Psychology.  

His primary research interests are around developing healthier workplaces, and the translation of research into practice, policy, and public dissemination. Kevin has collaborated extensively with the European Agency for Safety and Health at Work and the Society of Occupational Medicine and has a particular interest in the working conditions and wellbeing of healthcare workers.  

Kevin has also worked with organizations in the private and public sectors. These projects have primarily been around workplace wellbeing, management training, recruitment and retention, and safety. Kevin has published in journals such as Work & Stress and the Journal of Occupational Health Psychology, and is a regular speaker at academic, professional, and public events.  

200th Anniversary Birkbeck Effect: Lara Bloom, president and CEO of Ehlers-Danlos Society

A graduate of Birkbeck’s BA Global Politics and International Relations, Lara Bloom is President and CEO of The Ehlers-Danlos Society and responsible for raising global awareness of rare, chronic and invisible diseases, specialising in the Ehlers-Danlos syndromes, hypermobility spectrum disorders and related disorders.  

As someone with an EDS diagnosis, before joining the Ehlers-Danlos Society Lara ran EDS UK from 2010-2015 and currently works with a range of umbrella organisations lobbying governments internationally. Lara played a key role in the recent international effort to re-classify EDS and create management and care guidelines. She co-authored the subsequent classification publication in the American Journal of Medical Genetics and serves on the steering committee of the International Consortium for EDS and Related Disorders. 

Commemorating ten years in the field of patient advocacy, Lara was appointed a Professor of Practice in Patient Engagement and Global Collaboration at Penn State College of Medicine in 2020.