Mansfield People

Professor John Morton

Stipendiary Lecturer in Engineering

Helen Mountfield KC

Principal and Tutor for racial inclusion

Contact

principals-ea@mansfield.ox.ac.uk

Helen Mountfield KC

Principal and Tutor for racial inclusion

Helen Mountfield KC joined Mansfield College as Principal in 2018.

Helen is a barrister, specialising constitutional law, human rights and equality law, with particular experience in the education sector. Helen is a founder member of Matrix Chambers, an accredited mediator, a Master of the Bench of Gray’s Inn and is a past and present part-time judge in several jurisdictions including the High Court of England and Wales and the Channel Islands Courts of Appeal. She has appeared over 25 times in the Supreme Court and Privy Council, on hundreds of occasions in the Court of Appeal, European Court of Justice and European Court of Human Rights, and won many legal awards (including Legal 500 KC of the Year for Public Law in 2022). She features on the ‘First Hundred Years’ website, which celebrates the history of women in law.

Helen has also written and broadcast frequently on legal topics, including contributing to all eight editions of the Blackstone Guide to the Human Rights Act. She edited the White Book on human rights for many years, and is a member of the editorial board of Public Law.

Within Oxford University, she served on the Race Equality Task Force 2020-2021, and is co-Chair of the Joint Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Committee. At Mansfield College, she is Tutor for Racial Inclusion alongside her role as Principal.

Helen also plays an active role in public policy. She has given evidence to Parliamentary committees on human rights, free speech and election and constitutional law issues on a number of occasions, and in 2016-2017 was co-chair, with Lord Watson, of the Independent Commission on the Future of Work in the Digital Economy, and a member of the Royal Society of Arts’ Commission on Drugs Policy. She is currently at trustee of Index on Censorship and has also served as a trustee, director and advisory board member of many other NGOs and charities, in the fields of the arts, human rights and justice, and equality.

She was educated at Crown Woods School (now Stationers’ Crown Woods Academy) in south-east London - by coincidence, one of Mansfield’s partner schools. From there she read Modern History at Magdalen College Oxford, where she obtained a first-class degree, directed plays and was one of the first ‘Target Schools’ officers. In 2023, she became an Honorary Fellow of Magdalen.

Dr Alex Muir

Theology Tutor and Departmental Theology Lecturer in New Testament

Nathan Mulcock

Chaplain

Dr Amber Murrey-Ndewa

Tutorial Fellow in Human Geography

Contact

amber.murrey-ndewa@ouce.ox.ac.uk

Dr Amber Murrey-Ndewa

Tutorial Fellow in Human Geography

A decolonial political geographer with interests in environmental justice, resistance studies, and social change, Dr. Amber Murrey is an Associate Professor of Human Geography at the University of Oxford and Tutorial Fellow at Mansfield College. Before joining the faculty at Oxford, Amber taught at the American University in Cairo, Jimma University (Ethiopia), Clark University and Boston College.

She is the editor of "A Certain Amount of Madness": The Life, Politics and Legacy of Thomas Sankara (Pluto Press, 2018). Listen to her interview on the legacy of Thomas Sankara on the BBC World News programme, The Forum. Amber has authored more than a dozen articles and chapters on race and racism, extraction, and decolonial ethics in the social sciences. She tweets @Amber.Murrey.

Books

Murrey, A. (forthcoming) Colonialism. In, Kobayashi, A. (ed.) International Encyclopedia of Human Geography, 2nd Ed. Elsevier.
Murrey, A. (forthcoming) Thomas Sankara and the political economies of justice. In, Falola, T. and Oloruntoba, S. (eds.) The Palgrave Handbook of African Political Economy. Palgrave MacMillan, London.
Murrey, A. and Jackson, N. (forthcoming) Africa and the resource curse idea. In, Falola, T. and Mbah, E. (eds.) Routledge Encyclopaedia of African Studies. Routledge, London.
Murrey, A. (2019) Constant questioning on-and-off the page: Race, decolonial ethics and women researching in Africa. In, Jackson, R. and Kelly, M. (eds.) Women Researching Africa. Palgrave MacMillan, London.
Murrey, A. (2019) When spider webs unite they can tie up a lion: anti-racism, decolonial options and theories from the south. In, Fiddian-Qasmiyeh, E. and Daley, P. (eds.) The
Handbook of South-South Relations. Routledge, London.
Murrey, A. (2018) Africa’s Sankara: On Pan-African leadership. In, Murrey, A. (ed.) “A certain amount of madness”: The life, politics and legacies of Thomas Sankara. Pluto Press, London.
Murrey, A. (2018) Conclusion. In, Mubangizi, O. (ed.) What and whose justice? African perspectives on transitional justice. Fahamu Press, Nairobi, Dakar, Oxford.
Murrey, A. (2018) Introduction. In, Murrey, A. (ed.) “A certain amount of madness”: The life, politics and legacies of Thomas Sankara. Pluto Press, London.
Murrey, A. (2017) A post/decolonial geography beyond ‘the language of the mouth’. In, Woons, M. and Weier, S. (eds.) Borders, Border Thinking, Borderland: Developing a Critical Epistemology of Global Politics. E-International Relations Publishing. pp. 79-99.
Murrey, A. (2015) Sankara, Thomas (1949-87). In, Ness, I. and Cope, Z. (eds.) The Palgrave Encyclopedia of Imperialism and Anti-Imperialism. Palgrave Macmillan, London and New York.

Book Reviews

Murrey, A. (2017) Leonard, Lori (2016) Life in the Time of Oil: A Pipeline and Poverty in Chad. Bloomington: Indiana University PressLeonard, Lori (2016) Life in the Time of Oil: A Pipeline and Poverty in Chad. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. The Extractive Industries and Society, 4(2): 419-420.
Murrey, A. (2016) Hannah Appel, Arthur Mason and Michael Watts (eds) Subterranean Estates: Life Worlds of Oil and Gas, Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2015. ISBN: 978-0-8014-5344-1 (cloth); ISBN: 978-0-8014-7986-1. Antipode, 48(2).
Murrey, A. (2015) Review “Concerning violence.” Directed by Göran Olsson. Produced by Final Cut for Real, Helsinki Filmi Oy, Louverture Films. 2014. Journal of Black Studies, 46(8): 837-842.
Murrey, A. (2014) Learning from the African awakenings of 2011 – struggle and acts of imagination. Capital and Class, 38(3): 622-625.
Murrey, A. (2011) Barack Obama and twenty-first century politics, Horace Campbell. Imhotep: Africana Studies Graduate Student Journal, 2(1): 38-41.

Other Publications

Murrey, A. and Jackson, N. (2018) The Lives and Afterlives of Thomas Sankara. Pluto Press Blog.

Articles & book chapters

Bujra, J., Mgumia, J., Zeilig, L., Shivji, I., Swagler, M., Hopfmann, A., Zack-Williams, T., Murrey, A., Gachihi, G., Nyamsenda, S., Chachage, C. and Mbilinyi, M. (2019) Connections 2: Roape Workshop in Dar es Salaam, 16–17 April 2018. Review of African Political Economy, 45(158): 609-677.
Murrey, A. and Jackson, N. (2019) A decolonial critique of the racialized “localwashing” of extraction in Central Africa. Annals of the Association of American Geographers.
Murrey, A. and Tesfahun, A. (2018) Conversations from Jimma, Ethiopia on the geographies and politics of knowledge. Ufahamu: A Journal of African Studies, 40(2): 27-45.
Murrey, A. (2017) Decolonising the imagined geographies of ‘witchcraft’. Third World Thematics, 2(2-3): 157-179.
Smith, T., Murrey, A. and Leck, H. (2017) ‘What kind of witchcraft is this?’ Development, magic and spiritual ontologies. Third World Thematics, 2(2-3): 141-156.
Murrey, A. (2016) Slow dissent and the emotional geographies of resistance. Singapore Journal for Tropical Geography, 37(2): 224-248. Winner of Best Annual Graduate Student Article.
Murrey, A. (2015) Invisible power, visible dispossession: the witchcraft of a subterranean pipeline. Political Geography, 47: 64-76.
Murrey, A. (2015) Narratives of life and violence along the Chad-Cameroon oil pipeline. Human Geography – A New Radical Journal, 8(1): 15-39.
Campbell, H. and Murrey, A. (2014) Culture-centric preemptive counterinsurgency and US Africa Command: assessing the role of the US social sciences in military engagements in Africa. Third World Quarterly, 35(8): 1457-1475.
Elliott-Cooper, A., Murrey, A., Kumar, A. and Younis, M. (2014) Labour and resistance across global spaces: Introduction. City – analysis of urban trends, culture, theory, policy, action, 18(6): 771-775.

Dr Reuben Ng

Principal's Visiting Fellow

Sarath Ninan Mathew

Fixed Term Non-Stipendiary Lecturer in Law, Mansfield College

Dr Carlos Núñez Jimenez

Lecturer in Moral Philosophy

Rachel O’Nunain

Stipendiary Lecturer in English and Academic Support Tutor

Professor Kate O’Regan

Director of the Bonavero Institute of Human Rights

Professor Keyna O’Reilly

Lecturer in Materials Science

Dr Talha J. Pirzada

Stipendiary Lecturer in Materials Science

Contact

Talha.pirzada@linacre.ox.ac.uk

Dr Talha J. Pirzada

Stipendiary Lecturer in Materials Science

Dr. Talha J. Pirzada is a stipendiary lecturer in the field of materials engineering, with a research focus on aerospace materials.

Research interests

Education:

DPhil in Aerospace Materials from Linacre College, Oxford, completed in 2021.
MSc in Mechanical Engineering from University College London.
B.Eng in Aerospace Engineering from the University of Bath.

Current Positions:

Postdoctoral Fellow at the Department of Materials.
Lecturer in Elastic Deformation of Materials at the same department.
Junior Research Fellow at Lady Margaret Hall.
Research & Technology Manager at Cross Manufacturing Ltd.

Professional Affiliations:

Chartered Engineer.
Fellow at the Institute of Mechanical Engineers.

Research Interests:

Specializes in Oxide-based Ceramic Matrix Composites.
Expertise in Aerospace Seals, Nickel, and Cobalt-based Super Alloys.
Proficient in Fracture Mechanics and Additive Manufacturing of Nickel-based Alloys.

Current Project:

Leading the Hawk-X project, an industrial-scale initiative aimed at producing Ceramic Matrix Composites in the UK.
Involves collaboration with 13 organizations including QinetiQ, Reaction Engines, MBDA, and NCC.
Aims to establish the first UK facility for manufacturing these composites, targeting applications in jet engines, rockets, and defence systems.

Additional Interests:

Enjoys poetry, flying, and playing tennis alongside his professional pursuits.

Dr. Talha Pirzada’s diverse expertise and leadership roles reflect his significant contributions to both academia and industry, particularly in advancing materials technology for aerospace applications.

Articles & book chapters

“Low-Density Hydrous Iron Oxide via Conformal Transformation of MIL-53(Fe),” Chemistry Communication Journal.
“Effects of polymer infiltration processing (PIP) temperature on the mechanical and thermal properties of Nextel 312 Fibre SiOC Ceramic matrix composite” Composites Part A
“Structure and flexural properties of 3D needled carbon fibre reinforced (C/C-SiC) composites fabricated by gaseous and liquid infiltration” Ceramics International
“Hydrothermal aging and structural damage of a jute/PLA composites observed by X-ray tomography” Composites Science and Technology
“Electrochemical decolourization of Methylene blue at Pt electrode in KCl solution for environmental remediation,” Journal of Industrial and Engineering Chemistry.
“In situ observation of the deformation and fracture of an alumina-alumina ceramic-matrix composite at elevated temperature using x-ray computed tomography” Journal of the European Ceramic Society
Full-field characterisation of oxide-oxide ceramic-matrix composites using X-ray computed micro-tomography and digital volume correlation under load at high temperatures, Materials & Design
Microstructure Characterization by X-Ray Computed Tomography of C/C-SiC Ceramic Composites Fabricated with Different Carbon Fiber Architectures, Applied Composite Materials
Plastic inhomogeneity and crack initiation in hybrid wrought – additively manufactured Inconel 718, Materials Characterization
Oxide Based Ceramic Matrix Composites For High Temperature Aerospace Sealing Applications, Oxide Based Ceramic Matrix Composites For High Temperature Aerospace Sealing Application’s University of Oxford