Dr Alison Wood

BA MA PHD

College position:

Academic Director Homerton Changemakers

Dr Alison Wood
Dr Alison Wood

Dr Alison Wood is founding Academic Director of Homerton Changemakers, a co-curricular, pioneering programme equipping Cambridge students to be wise change-agents amidst complexity and challenge. The programme focuses on global citizenship; leadership; enterprise; self-hood; narratives of changemaking; adaptive mindsets; & regenerative thinking in the era of climate crisis and geo-political instability.

Alison also teaches and writes on the philosophy of education; the history and future of Universities; the future educated self; and the deep questions of what universities are really for. Her work combines two decades of experience building cross-sector and cross-disciplinary research initiatives (from healthy ageing to nineteenth-century studies and research leadership) with a research career in the history of intellectual institutions and changemaking. She’s also worked in 7 different disciplines, including medicine; spent 10 years working as a musician; and is what might be called a serial intrapreneur.

Before joining Homerton Alison was the Mellon/Newton Interdisciplinary Post-Doctoral Research Fellow at CRASSH (Centre for Research in Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities) at Cambridge (2013-2018); and a Research Associate in the Faculties of English and Divinity, also at Cambridge (2011-2013). She read English and History at the University of Adelaide and worked as a musician before undertaking doctoral work in nineteenth-century intellectual culture (King's College London).

At Cambridge she’s served as a member of the University's Researcher Development Committee, the Pro-Vice Chancellor’s Working Group on Postdoctoral Affairs, and the Arts and Humanities Research Council (UK) Research Careers and Training Advisory Group; co-convened the CRASSH Postdoctoral Forum (2014-17); established and led the CRASSH ‘Becoming a Research Leader’ Programme (2014-2018); and taught in Divinity and English. She also works regularly with the University's School of Arts and Humanities, the Careers Service,  the Centre for Teaching and Learning, and the Researcher Development Programme. And currently supervises undergraduates for the Faculty of Education. 

Research Interests

Changemakers is the applied element of Alison’s work in the philosophy of education; the history and future of Universities; the future educated self and whole-person education; and the deep questions of what universities are really for. Her career combines two decades of experience building cross-sector, international, cross-disciplinary research initiatives (from healthy ageing to nineteenth-century studies and research leadership) with interdisciplinary research in the history of intellectual institutions and ‘how ideas become normal’.

Right now, she is turning that experience to the ways Universities can and must step into the new responsibilities that climate crisis and geo-political instability demand – nurturing whole-person formation; weaving ancient wisdoms with contemporary technologies to craft ‘multi-worldview’ approaches; pioneering regenerative forms of thinking and organising; and helping usher in whole-system thriving at every level.

Alison’s writing, collaborations and consulting crosses scholarly & popular domains. Recent projects include regenerative leadership and being; modernity, neo-liberalism & educated selfhood; ecological mindsets & education; emerging educational forms; sustainability & the future of education; University keywords; academic citizenship; the history of English as a discipline; British intellectual and scientific culture in the C19th; the function of doubt; and religion in C19th Cambridge University.

Collaborations include:

  • The Hawkwood Conversations’ on Sustainability & the Future of Education’ co-convened with Professor Richard Calland (Cape Town), Andrew Watson (Jerusalem International School) and the Hawkwood Centre for Future Thinking - a 6 part high-level seminar series and 2-day f2f conference (2020-21)
  • Developing innovative student programmes with the AI-led learning platform OBRIZUM and The Hawkwood Centre for Future Thinking 

In 2017-18 Alison was a British Academy ‘Rising Star’, leading a research network Critical University Studies. She has also co-directed a British Academy funded project ‘Negotiating Religion in the Contemporary University' (Cambridge & UCL, 2012-13); and co/hosted numerous conferences, symposia, forums, seminars and reading groups, always driven by the questions: ‘how can this be more intellectually interesting’? and ‘what difference can this make’?

Her recent invited talks, chairing & consulting have taken her to Doha, Santa Barbara, CERN, Cardiff, Exeter, Berlin, London, Manchester, Hawaii, Venice, Prague and New York, along with many gatherings in Cambridge.

Links to online publications, articles or other work

About

Fellow in Focus, The Homertonian 2022

Writing

Alison occasionally writes for the Guardian & TLS & is currently working up a book-length exploration of disciplines, university systems, & adaptive, progesive education Essays on Being Educated.

Commissioned/Forthcoming

Researchers’ Stories 5 interview-based essays on the mindsets, skills, and career pathways of Cambridge post-doctoral researchers. Careers Service, University of Cambridge. 2022

Published

Disruptive Education and its Non-Linear Forms. With Chibeza Agley. Wise Words, WISE Foundation. Jan 2022

Coping with Covid: Daily Prompts. with Melanie Keene. A 12-part series for bolstering inner life and fortitude, particularly in covid-related isolation. October 2020

Postgraduate courses must cultivate emotional and organisational traits tooThe Guardian 22 Jan 2019 

‘The End of Universities?’ ‘Critical University Studies’, CRASSH blog (2018) http://www.crassh.cam.ac.uk/blog/post/on-critical-university-studies

‘Secularism and the Uses of Literature: English at Cambridge, 1890-1920’. Modern Language Quarterly 75.2 (2014): 259-277.

‘Darwinism, Biology, & Mythology in the ‘Today & Tomorrow’ series, 1923-1929’. Interdisciplinary Science Reviews. 34.1 March (2009): 22-31.

‘Operatic Narratives: Textual Transformations in Gwen Harwood and Larry Sitsky’s Golem and Lenz.’ Journal of the Association for the Study of Australian Literature. 5 (2006): 179-191.

Special issue a/b: Auto/Biography Studies ‘The Work of Life-Writing’ 25.2 (Winter 2010). Introduced and edited with Clare Brant.

Working paper: ‘The Post-Doctoral System: Core Issues and Plausible Ambitions’. A paper for the University of Cambridge, May 2015.

Reviews & shorter pieces published in the Guardian, Times Literary Supplement, Viewpoint (Newsletter of the British Society for the History of Science), Proceedings of the Torquay Natural History Society, & Australian Literary Studies.

Department

Homerton Changemakers

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