Meet our new Teaching Fellows

Our new Teaching Fellows: Dr Ali Meghji, Dr Adrian Weller MBE, and Dr Chris Whitewoods

In Easter Term, Sidney appointed Dr Ali Meghji, Dr Adrian Weller MBE, and Dr Chris Whitewoods as Teaching Fellows.

Dr Ali Meghji is an Associate Professor in Social Inequalities. His research focuses on the global social theory of race and racism, examining how racial inequalities get produced and reproduced on local and global scales.

Dr Meghji is co-Editor-in-Chief of Sociology Compass, where he leads the primary research section. He also sits on the editorial boards of The British Journal of Sociology and of Cultural Sociology. He is the co-founder and co-convenor of the Post/Decolonial transformations subgroup of the British Sociological Association.

Dr Ali Meghji said: “I’m super excited to be joining Sidney. The community of Fellows, staff, and students is great.”

Dr Adrian Weller MBE has broad interests across foundational Artificial Intelligence, its commercial applications, and the need to ensure beneficial outcomes for individuals and society.

He is Director of Research in Machine Learning at the University of Cambridge. A Turing Fellow, he is Programme Director for Safe and Ethical AI at The Alan Turing Institute. He is also Programme Director for Trust and Society at the Leverhulme Centre for the Future of Intelligence, co-director of the European Laboratory for Learning and Intelligent Systems (ELLIS) programme on Human-centric Machine Learning, a member of the UNESCO Ad Hoc Expert Group on the Ethics of AI and a member of the IEEE Standards Working Group on Explainable AI.

Dr Adrian Weller MBE said: “I’m delighted to have found such a warm, friendly home in Cambridge. I look forward to helping Sidney’s students and contributing to College life.”

Dr Chris Whitewoods joined the Sainsbury Lab at the University of Cambridge as a David Sainsbury Career Development Fellow in March 2021. The Whitewoods Group aims to understand how plants pattern themselves in three dimensions: “I want to understand how the inside of leaves are patterned.  Leaves contain different cell types surrounded by a complex network of intercellular air spaces. This intricate internal structure is vitally important for photosynthesis, but we do not understand how it is formed. My lab uses developmental genetics and computational modelling to identify the molecular and developmental mechanisms that control cell division, expansion and cell identity in leaves.

“I am thrilled to become a Fellow at Sidney. I look forward to being part of this friendly College community and to helping students on their journey to becoming scientists. I am also excited to spread my love of plants around the College!”