Darwin College Cambridge

"Youth violence is deeply social," according to new research led by Darwin Fellow Professor Paolo Campana of the Institute of Criminology.

New analysis by the University of Cambridge's Violence Research Centre of over 200,000 UK police records shows that young people with strong connections to other suspected offenders are far more likely to carry knives, commit violent crime and become victims of violence themselves than the wider youth suspect population.

The report, "Breaking networks of youth serious violence", was funded by the Nuffield Foundation and published by the University, and has been covered by the BBC.

"Violence does not happen in isolation, and tackling youth violence means tackling the networks that sustain it,” said Paolo.

https://www.cam.ac.uk/research/news/super-connected-teenagers-key-to-tackling-violent-crime-study-suggests

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cp8lmy2nv46o?

As part of this year's Pride celebrations, we've a proud boast of our own. On Thursday evening the Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology will screen for the first time a film by Darwinian Alexander Augustus, created as Artist in Residence for Cambridge Pride 2025.

A Land Where Our Monuments Bloom brings together archival footage of pride movements from 1979 to the present, celebrating LGBTQ+ history, visibility, and community.

The screening will be followed by a Q&A with Alex. Now working towards his PhD at Harvard's Graduate School of Design, he completed a PGCE and Masters in Education at Darwin last year.

Book free IN-PERSON tickets via this link: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/a-land-where-our-monuments-bloom-tickets-1990376481636
Book free ONLINE tickets via this link: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/a-land-where-our-monuments-bloom-online-tickets-1990572476863

It's World Environment Day, and the perfect opportunity to check that two upcoming Darwin events focused on sustainability have made it into your diaries.

This coming Tuesday, 9th June, join us in London for our first ever Sustainability Network event. Generously hosted by ARUP, and bringing together members of the Darwin community with a shared interest in sustainability, this is an exciting opportunity to exchange ideas, and build new connections across sectors and generations, over a glass of wine.

Please let us know here if you plan to attend: https://my.darwin.cam.ac.uk/civicrm/event/info?reset=1&id=13702

On Monday, 22nd June, we'll be gathering in the Bradfield Room to explore the emotional and psychological impacts of climate change. We are grateful to our diverse panel of journalists, practitioners, and academics who have agreed to share their perspectives on eco-anxiety and how to navigate it.

Find out more: https://www.darwin.cam.ac.uk/events/event/item/climate-anxiety-panel-event/

“We’ve overcome the problem of traditional vaccines, which have limited protection. It means we can escape the constant cycle of chasing the virus variants circulating in humans and updating the vaccines to try to catch up, like a dog chasing its tail.”

Darwin Fellow Professor Jonathan Heeney has led a team to develop a "universal vaccine", offering protection against viruses even as they mutate.

The technology uses an AI-designed ‘super-antigen’ – the first time that a vaccine whose active component was designed entirely by computer simulations has been tested in humans.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/crrpggegwe0o
https://www.cam.ac.uk/research/news/new-universal-vaccine-technology-could-protect-us-from-future-virus-outbreaks

Could a "universal vaccine" protect us from future virus outbreaks? A Cambridge-led team has developed a way to engineer better vaccine...

Great to talk to Darwinian Macsen Brown about Operation Market Garden as the play prepares to transfer to the Edinburgh Fringe.

The MPhil in Education student told us how the play, based on diaries kept by its author's great-grandfather, offered a sense of connection to his own Welsh background, and why "it has been been an absolute honour to help tell his story."

https://www.darwin.cam.ac.uk/news/welsh-soldiers-experiences-as-prisoner-of-war-brought-to-life-by-darwin-student/

Lovely to take a trip down memory lane with alumnus Dr Andy Coburn (PhD Architecture 1981), who has kindly made us a gift of a selection of May Ball posters from his time at Darwin.

While on the May Ball organising committee, Andy drew the beautiful promotional posters, which he has generously had framed for display and presented to the Bursar, John Dix.

What do you remember of May Balls in the 1980s? Or is it a case of 'if you can remember it, you weren't really there...'?

Darwin Fellow and Head of the Laboratory of Viral Zoonotics Professor Jonathan Heeney talks to today's Observer about the outbreak of Ebola in the Democratic Republic of Congo, and his ten-year mission to develop a vaccine.

"In sub-Saharan Africa, almost annually there are different outbreaks of Ebola, Marburg, Bundibugyo, Ebola Sudan – all the variants – and some places where they have overlapping outbreaks,” he told the paper.

“So we thought: ‘Why make just one vaccine when you don’t know what disease you’re dealing with, and by the time they diagnose it the horse has bolted?”

‘It’s shocking we’re going through it all again’: scienti... Researchers warn that funding cuts have left the west African country vulnerable to the deadly virus and say a vaccine is potentially just months away

Summer has appeared just in time for tomorrow's graduation, and we can't wait to acknowledge the achievements of another cohort of extraordinary Darwinians.

Ahead of the celebrations we sat down with one graduand, Bronte Evans Rayward, to hear about her journey from history to geography via visual art and storytelling; how a fascination with the early 20th century Antarctic whaling industry equipped her to study environmental narratives in the Falkland Islands; and how, on the other side of the world from all that was familiar, Darwin became her home from home.

https://www.darwin.cam.ac.uk/news/graduation-story-bronte-evans-rayward/

To mark yesterday's , Darwin PhD student Jacob Pantling talked to the Centre for Climate Repair about his sideline as a Darwin beekeeper; why bees are so crucial to biodiversity, and why Darwin produces the best honey in Cambridge.

https://www.climaterepair.cam.ac.uk/news/ice-ice-bees

There's a new temporary inhabitant of the Cam... an amphibious excavator is patrolling Darwin's stretch of the water to prepare the riverbed for the installation of platforms as the Pump House build gets underway.

Find out more about our exciting plans and keep up to date with what to expect on site: https://www.darwin.cam.ac.uk/construction-and-degasification-plans/