Research at Christ Church

Dr Yu Mo, House Career Development Fellow at Christ Church and Research Fellow at the University of Oxford’s Environmental Change Institute (ECI), has led a new international study revealing how changes in tropical cyclone behaviour are reshaping risks to mangrove ecosystems worldwide. The research has been published in the leading journal Science Advances.

After nearly five years of intensive collaboration, a major international research project investigating how to improve the quality of care for sick newborns in Kenyan hospitals has reached its conclusion.

The Learning to Harness Innovation in Global Health for Quality Care (HIGH-Q) project was co-led by Professor Mike English, Senior Associate Research Fellow at Christ Church and Professor of International Child Health at the University of Oxford, and set out to explore how innovation might help address some of the most urgent challenges in neonatal care.

Groundbreaking findings from an interdisciplinary team of researchers led by Dr Tapabrata Rohan Chakraborty, Lecturer in Computer Science at Christ Church, have been published in the leading journal Nature Communications. The study demonstrates how artificial intelligence can improve the accuracy and usefulness of cancer predictions by generating synthetic molecular data from routine pathology images.

A report written by Christ Church DPhil student Megan Bowler brings to light the dramatic decline in formal language learning in UK schools. Garnering attention from the press, the publication from the Higher Education Policy Institute (HEPI) and sponsored by the language-learning app Duolingo makes the case for revitalising language education and sets out how this can be done.

A publication in leading science journal Nature Communications offers novel insights into the function of star-like cells – or ‘astrocytes’ – in the brain, and how they govern the function of brain nerve cells. The article is the product of interdisciplinary collaboration between University of Oxford researchers, including two Christ Church academics, Tutor in Medicine Professor Stephanie Cragg and Tutor in Mathematics Professor Kevin McGerty. 

An international collaboration involving Christ Church’s Professor Stephen Smartt has been recognised with an Into Change Award by the Danish Ministry of Higher Education and Science. 

The award, which carries a value of £1 million, recognises the achievements of the ENGRAVE (Electromagnetic counterparts of gravitational wave sources at the Very Large Telescope) collaboration in tracing the origins of the universe’s heaviest elements, forged in the aftermath of supernova explosions. In doing so, the team has helped illuminate the very building blocks of our existence.