Contributors

Richard Armour

PhD Candidate, Monash University

PhD Candidate, Monash University Critical Care Paramedic interested in novel roles for paramedics integrated in healthcare. Current Doctoral Candidate at Monash University exploring the role of paramedics in providing care to people who use substances.

Robert Taub

Director of Music, The Arts Institute, University of Plymouth

Director of Music, The Arts Institute, University of Plymouth As Music Director for the Arts Institute at University of Plymouth, Dr Robert Taub is excited about building and leading Musica Viva - a collaborative programme featuring fellow leading musicians as well as colleagues within the University that brings top tier concert performances and broad-based music educational events to communities of all ages in Devon and the South West. From New York’s Carnegie Hall to Hong Kong’s Cultural Centre, Robert is acclaimed internationally as a concert pianist and recording artist. He has performed as guest soloist with the world’s leading orchestras and conductors, including the MET Orchestra in Carnegie Hall, the Boston Symphony Orchestra, BBC Philharmonic, The Philadelphia Orchestra, San Francisco Symphony, and many others. He has also performed solo concerts on the Great Performers Series at New York’s Lincoln Center and other major series worldwide, and has been featured in international festivals, including the Saratoga Festival, the Lichfield Festival in England, San Francisco’s Midsummer Mozart Festival, Aspen Music Festival, and the Geneva International Summer Festival, among others. He has also initiated and led several concert series and festivals, including a highly touted series at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, where is only predecessor as Artist-in-Residence was TS Eliot. Following the conclusion of his highly celebrated New York series of Beethoven Piano Sonatas, Taub completed a sold-out Beethoven cycle in London at Hampton Court Palace. His recordings of the complete Beethoven Piano Sonatas have been praised worldwide for their insight, freshness, and emotional involvement. In addition to performing, Robert Taub is an eloquent spokesman for music, giving frequent engaging and informal lectures and pre-concert talks. His book Playing the Beethoven Piano Sonatas (Amadeus Press) is a standard for the Beethoven Sonata literature. In addition, Taub prepared a new edition of the Beethoven Piano Sonatas for Schirmers Performance Editions, published by Hal Leonard Corporation. He has also performed several “historic pianoforte” concerts in the London area of Beethoven Sonatas, playing pianofortes – 1795 Longman and Broderip, 1816 Broadwood, and 1823 Streicher – specifically associated with Beethoven during his years of composition of particular Sonatas. He has recorded the complete piano sonatas of Beethoven and Scriabin, as well as works of Babbitt, Schumann, and Liszt, several of which have been selected as “critic’s favourites” by Gramophone, Newsweek, The New York Times, and The Washington Post. Taub has been in the vanguard of new music, having premiered piano concertos by Milton Babbitt (MET Orchestra) and Mel Powell (Los Angeles Philharmonic), and making the first recordings of the Persichetti Piano Concerto (Philadelphia Orchestra) and Sessions Piano Concerto. He has also premiered solo piano and chamber music works commissioned for him by Milton Babbitt, Jonathan Dawe, Jane O'Leary and other major composers. During his first term at the Institute for Advanced Study, he initiated a concert series dedicated to the complete Beethoven Piano Sonatas. So popular were these concerts that he played each programme three times to sold-out houses; the series was featured in the US national press. In addition, Taub started a lunchtime series of informal discussions about music. In his subsequent two terms, he included chamber music in the concert series, bringing in world-renowned colleagues, with at least one work from every concert broadcast on NPR’s “Performance Today.” He also expanded the popular informal talks to include interviews with important young composers. Robert Taub is a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Princeton where he was a University Scholar. As a Danforth Fellow he completed his doctoral degree at The Juilliard School where he received the highest award in piano. Taub has served as Artist-in-Residence at Harvard University and at UC Davis prior to his time at the Institute for Advanced Study. He is currently Director of Music, The Arts Institute, University of Plymouth, where he initiated and directs the Musica Viva Concert Series.

Rebecca J.W. Jefferson

Head of the Isser and Rae Price Library of Judaica, University of Florida

Head of the Isser and Rae Price Library of Judaica, University of Florida I am the Curator of the Isser and Rae Price Library of Judaica and a Joint Faculty member of the Bud Shorstein Center for Jewish Studies at the University of Florida. In addition to managing and developing the Price Library, I was recently a PI on a National Endowment for the Humanities Challenge Grant, raising a $2 million endowment in support of preserving, collecting, and promoting Jewish heritage materials from Florida, Latin America and the Caribbean. Prior to moving to Florida, I worked as a Research Associate in the Taylor-Schechter Genizah Research Unit, Cambridge University Library. My personal research continues to focus on the history of Hebraica and Judaica library collections, particularly the discovery and distribution of the Cairo Genizah manuscripts. My book on this subject, The Cairo Genizah and the Age of Discovery in Egypt: the History and Provenance of a Jewish Archive, was published by I. B. Tauris in 2022.

Rob Newton

Professor of Exercise Medicine, Edith Cowan University

Professor of Exercise Medicine, Edith Cowan University Professor Robert Newton, PhD, DSc, AEP, CSCS*D, FACSM, FESSA, FNSCA is a Vice Chancellor's Professorial Research Fellow and Professor of Exercise Medicine in the Exercise Medicine Research Institute at Edith Cowan University Perth, Western Australia. Current major research directions include: reducing decline in strength, body composition and functional ability in cancer patients; cancer related fatigue and the influence of exercise; exercise medicine and tumour biology. Professor Newton has published over 1000 papers including 520 refereed scientific journal papers, two books, 17 book chapters and has a current Scopus h-Index of 94 with his work being cited 32,500 times. As of 2024 his research had attracted over $50Million in competitive research funding. In 2018 he was awarded the Cancer Council of Western Australian Career Achievement Award and in 2019 was named the Western Australia Premiers Scientist of the Year.

Rui He

Lecturer in Education, Manchester Institute of Education, University of Manchester

Lecturer in Education, Manchester Institute of Education, University of Manchester Working as a cross-cultural psychologist at Manchester Institute of Education (University of Manchester), my research interests focus broadly on international and intercultural education and cross-cultural and developmental psychology, particularly on international students’ acculturation experiences, bio-ecological development, and (im)mobility; mental health and psychological wellbeing; mundane studies; social connections and interactions; Study Abroad (Exchange) Programmes (Residence/Year Abroad Programme); language, culture, and identity; and creative research methods.

Riley Duren

Research Scientist, University of Arizona

Research Scientist, University of Arizona Riley Duren is a Research Scientist at the University of Arizona's Office of Research, Innovation and Impact and Chief Executive Officer for the non-profit organization Carbon Mapper. From 2008-2019 he served as Chief Systems Engineer for the JPL's Earth Science & Technology Directorate with a portfolio including spaceborne instruments and missions, airborne studies, research and analysis, and applied science. For over three decades he has worked at the intersection of science and engineering to deliver observational systems, including seven successful satellite missions ranging from earth-mapping radars to telescopes in deep space. He served as Chief Engineer for the Kepler mission that conducted a major survey of earth-size planets around other stars. Since 2008 he has worked to extend the discipline of systems engineering to the challenge of societal decision-making for climate change responses with a focus on greenhouse gas mitigation.