Stan Rosenberg MA, PhD

Director

Dr Rosenberg is the director of the Scholars’ Semester and the Oxford Summer Programme.  He is a member of the Wycliffe Hall academic staff and also teaches early Christian history and doctrine for the theology faculty at the University of Oxford.  Previous positions include Director of the Washington DC Academic Center for Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, and Academic Programs Director for the C.S. Lewis Institute in Washington, D.C.  He graduated BA in history from Colorado State University and MA and PhD from the Catholic University of America.  His research interests focus on Augustine’s works (the sermons in particular), early Christian cosmology and its relationship to Greco-Roman culture and philosophy, and the interplay between intellectual and popular thought during this period.  His recent research has led to a series of papers on the intersection of preaching, popular religion, and the development of doctrine in the largely oral culture of late antiquity.  These are leading toward a book tentatively titled: Between creed and book: sermons as the source for interpreting Augustine’s theology and the congregation’s beliefs.

Elizabeth Baigent MA (Oxon.), DPhil (Oxon.), PGDipLATHE (Oxon.), FSA, FRHistS, FRGS, FHEA

Senior Tutor and Associate Director

Dr Baigent is the University Reader in the History of Geography.  She was educated at the universities of Oxford and Münster.  She has held research fellowships at the universities of Oxford and Stockholm and a visiting professorship at Johns Hopkins University, with funding from bodies such as the British Academy and the Fulbright Commission.  From 1993 to 2003 she was Research Director of the Oxford dictionary of national biography, and Research Lecturer in the history faculty.  She has 550 scholarly publications including a (co-authored) book which won an international prize.  She is fellow of the Society of Antiquaries, the Royal Historical Society, the Royal Geographical Society, and the Higher Education Academy. 

Simon Lancaster BMus, GradDipMus., Cert Christian Counselling (CWR)

Tutor for Student Affairs

Simon has worked as a historical researcher and contributor for some of the most prestigious presses in the world, and was an academic member of the modern history faculty at Oxford University, working as the chief Bibliographic Editor for the Oxford dictionary of national biography. He is one of the authors for the New Hart’s rules, Oxford University Press’s official style guide, and probably knows as much about style and bibliography as anyone in Oxford. He is currently reading for an MSc at Oxford in English Local History. He has been a member of the Christian Counselling Association and is trained as a professional Christian counsellor.

Daniel Cooling BA (Middlesex)

Academic Administrator

Daniel graduated BA in Theology from the London School of Theology (LST), Middlesex University. He then worked in administration for both academic and business contexts, before joining SCIO in 2011. He has also studied constructive systematic theology at LST and at the University of St Andrews, and his research interests focus on the interface between eschatology, pneumatology, aesthetics, and the religious imagination and affections.

Lecturer and Director of Studies in Philosophy and Theology

Dr Kirkpatrick is the assistant tutor in theology at Wycliffe Hall, and serves as a liaison between the SCIO programme and the wider staff at Wycliffe Hall. His research interests include existential philosophy, ethics, and systematic theology. He is the author of the forthcoming book Attacks on Christendom in a World Come of Age: Kierkegaard, Bonhoeffer, and the question of ‘Religionless Christianity’ and is a regular contributor to Third Way magazine. For the academic year 2011–12 he is University Lecturer in Ethics.

Joyce François BA (Legon), DPhil (Oxon.)

Operations Administrator

Dr François is a soil scientist by training, having taken her first degree at the University of Ghana (Legon) and her doctorate at Oxford.  She has undertaken research for scientific publications and written policy reports on Africa.  After working in administration at the North Oxford Overseas Centre and for Oxford Computer Journals, she has worked primarily in the voluntary sector, among other things as a visitor to asylum seekers at the Campsfield detention centre near Oxford.

Richard Lawes BA (Oxon.), MSt (Oxon.), DPhil (Oxon.), MB, ChB (Edin.), BSc (Edin.), MRCPsych, PG Dip Cognitive Therapy

Lecturer and Director of Studies in English Language and Literature

Dr Lawes has taught English in the English faculty of the University of Oxford and a number of colleges for several years, and is lecturer in English at Regent's Park College, teaching literature of the Renaissance period and literary theory. Richard's interests include spiritual autobiography, poetry of the seventeenth century, psychological literary theory, and C.S. Lewis. He is also a qualified medical doctor and psychiatrist, currently working at the University's counselling service.

Jonathan Kirkpatrick BA (Oxon.), MSt (Oxon.)

Lecturer in Classics

Jonathan graduated BA in classics, MSt in Oriental Studies, and DPhil in classics from Oxford, and his research interests currently centre on pagan religious cults in Roman Palestine. From 2004 to 2006 he was Departmental Lecturer in Jewish Studies at the University. He is writing a book on C.S. Lewis’s connection with the classics.

Emily Reed Burdett, BS, MS

Lecturer and Director of Studies in Psychology

Emily Reed Burdett graduated BS in psychology from Azusa Pacific University and MS in clinical psychology from California State University, Fullerton. She is currently completing a DPhil at Oxford researching the cognitive, cultural, and developmental foundations of children’s understanding of God and humans. Her research interests include science and religion, child development, cognitive science of religion, and children’s conceptual development. Her work has been published most recently in Cognitive Science, The Psychologist, and the Journal of Cognition and Culture.

Sam Brewitt-Taylor, BA (Oxon.), MSt (Oxon.)

Junior Dean, North Wing

Sam is the Junior Dean for Wycliffe Hall. He graduated BA in modern history and MSt in historical research from Oxford before working for a year at St Ebbe’s church doing administration and student work. His research interests lie in the religious history of Britain in the last 200 years, and how this has affected wider society, and he is currently reading for a DPhil at Oxford on intellectual movements within British Christianity during the 1960s.

Subiksha Krishniah, BA (Stella Maris), MA (Wales)

Junior Dean, The Vines

Subiksha graduated BA in English Language and Literature from Stella Maris College, India, and MA in applied linguistics from the University of Wales, Bangor. She then studied socio-phonetics at Worcester College, Oxford, focusing on linguistic imposition in the outsourced workplace before moving to teach for a year in India. Before coming to Oxford, she worked as Director of Studies for the English department in a college in Cardiff. She is now reading for an MSc in comparative and international education at Lady Margaret Hall. Her research interest is second-language literacy education and policy in developing nations.

John Roche MSc, MA, DPhil (Oxon.)

Lecturer in History of Science and Research Fellow, Science and Religion Research Projected funded by John Templeton Foundation

Dr Roche teaches the history of science at Linacre College, Oxford, and applied physics at Oxford Brookes University.  He was Senior Consultant and Administrator to the John Templeton Oxford Seminars on Science and Christianity.  His main research interest lies in using the history of physics to clarify difficult concepts in today’s physics.  His publications include The mathematics of measurement: a critical history (1998), and ‘What is potential energy?’, European Journal of Physics, 24 (2003), 185–96.

Emma Plaskitt BA (McGill), MPhil (Oxon.), DPhil (Oxon.)

Lecturer in English Language and Literature

Dr Plaskitt is a graduate of McGill University, Montréal, and Merton College, Oxford, where she wrote her doctoral thesis on eighteenth-century novelists Eliza Haywood, Samuel Richardson, and Frances Burney. Since 1994 she has taught children’s literature and English literature 1640–1901 for several Oxford colleges, including Brasenose, Worcester, Somerville, and St Hugh’s. She has also taught for a variety of American programmes. Having worked for the Oxford dictionary of national biography, where she was responsible for writing many articles on eighteenth- and nineteenth-century women writers, she now focuses on teaching for SCIO and for Stanford University, for whom she is an Overseas Lecturer. Though a specialist on the literature of the Restoration and eighteenth century, her research interests include the Victorian novel — particularly the gothic novel and novel of sensation — and children’s literature.

Meriel Patrick MA (Oxon.), MPhil (Oxon.), DPhil (Oxon.)

Lecturer in Theology and Philosophy

Dr Patrick studied for her MA, MPhil, and DPhil at St Hilda’s College, Oxford.  Her research interests stretch from philosophy of mind through metaphysics and philosophy of religion to Christian doctrine: her doctoral thesis considered the nature of mind and the application of this concept to a number of doctrinal questions.  She has taught both philosophy and theology for a number of colleges of the University of Oxford and for visiting student programmes.  She is also religion and theology metadata editor for Intute: Arts and Humanities, a national service which reviews websites for use in higher education and promotes the use of online learning resources.

Michael Burdett BA (Azusa Pacific), BA (Azusa Pacific), BS (California State University, Fullerton), MPhil (Oxon)

Junior Research Fellow and Lecturer in Philosophy and Theology

Michael Burdett is working on a science and religion project funded by the John Templeton Foundation which researches science and religion in US colleges and universities. He is also a Junior Research Associate at the Oxford Centre for Christianity and Culture. His independent research is on the nexus between technology, philosophy, and religion and he has presented and published internationally in several edited volumes and journals on issues related to technology, transhumanism, evolution, and theology.