Wadham College welcomes its new Honorary Fellows for 2025

Wadham is delighted to announce the appointment of three new Honorary Fellows for 2025: (Syed) Refaat Ahmed, Chief Justice of Bangladesh (Law, 1983), Flora Fraser, Author (Literae Humaniores, 1977), and John-Arne Røttingen, Chief Executive Officer of the Wellcome Trust (MSc Epidemiology, 1999).

A full list of Wadham's Honorary Fellows can be found at the link below.

Justice Syed Refaat Ahmed obtained a LL.B. (Hons) (First Class, First in order of merit) from the University of Dhaka, a B.A. in Jurisprudence and M.A. from Wadham College, University of Oxford, and a M.A. in Law and Diplomacy and a Ph.D. from Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University.

He was Ford Foundation Fellow in Public International Law at The Fletcher School.

He enrolled as an Advocate of the District Court, the High Court Division and the Appellate Division of Bangladesh Supreme Court in 1984, 1986 and 2002 respectively.

Justice Syed Refaat Ahmed was elevated as Additional Judge of the High Court Division on 27.04.2003 and appointed Judge of the same Division on 27.04.2005.

He has a number of publications to his credit and lectures as an invited speaker extensively at home and abroad. His 2020 publication, Digital Footprints: A Rights-Based Perspective, has been published by the Bangladesh IP Forum/ Bangladesh Intellectual Property Academy (BIPA). His current research interest is focused on the rule of law within the Bangladeshi constitutional scheme and his write-up has appeared in a 2024 Routledge/Taylor and Francis Group, UK publication ”A History of the Constitution of Bangladesh: The Founding, Development, and Way Ahead”.

He has previously worked as a Lawyer in the City of London and with the UNHCR in Hong Kong and Washington, D. C.

Justice Syed Refaat Ahmed is Founder Member of the Global Judicial Institute on the Environment, Brazil. He was instrumental in organizing the 2016 South Asia Judicial Conference on Environment and Climate Change, a milestone event held under the aegis of the Supreme Court of Bangladesh in cooperation with the Asian Development Bank.

He has participated in international Roundtables, Workshops, Conferences, Study Tours and Courses held in UK, Germany, Malaysia, The Philippines, India, Nepal, Italy, Singapore, Thailand, USA, Brazil, Myanmar and Bahrain. He notably spoke in November, 2021 as Distinguished Expert Speaker on the topic “Criminalizing Humanitarian Action- A Judicial Perspective” at a conference co-hosted by the School of Law, Zhejiang Gongshang University, Hangzhou, China and ICRC Regional Delegation for East Asia.

He has visited Brazil, USA, UK, Ireland, The Netherlands, France, Monaco, Spain, Portugal, Germany, Switzerland, Italy, The Vatican City State, Greece, Turkey, Egypt, Bahrain, Qatar, UAE, Pakistan, India, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Maldives, Myanmar, Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, Cambodia, Macau, Hong Kong and The Philippines.

He was sworn in as the 25th Chief Justice of Bangladesh on the 11th of August 2024.

Flora is a writer and historical biographer. She is the daughter of historian and historical biographer Lady Antonia Fraser and the late Sir Hugh Fraser, a British Conservative politician. Her stepfather was the playwright Harold Pinter, the 2005 Nobel Laureate in Literature. Her maternal grandparents were the late Elizabeth Longford, also an eminent biographer, and the late Lord Longford, a well-known politician, social reformer, and author. She has written historical biographies of Emma Hamilton, Caroline of Brunswick, the daughters of George III, and Pauline Bonaparte. More recently she was the author of George & Martha Washington: A Revolutionary Marriage (2015).

Flora is currently working on two book projects for Knopf, US, and Bloomsbury, UK: In Search of Flora, a life of the Scottish heroine, Flora Macdonald, who was later caught up in the American Revolution; and a future life of Lord Nelson on shore and at sea. She was appointed the Mount Vernon Georgian Papers Fellow for 2017, and undertook research among those Papers in the Royal Archives and in the US for her current book projects. She is now a member of the Georgian Papers Programme Academic Steering Committee, and an active member of the King’s Friends network. This is an international and free-to-join community for all those interested in the Georgian Papers Programme.

In 2019 King’s College, London awarded her an honorary doctorate and in 2020 she was elected a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society.

She is passionate about widening access to education and has for many years served as a resourceful advisor on the College’s Development Council.

John-Arne joined Wellcome as Chief Executive Officer (CEO) in January 2024 and leads the charitable foundation’s mission to support science to solve the urgent health challenges facing everyone.

John-Arne has held many international roles in health and research, including most recently as Ambassador for Global Health at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Norway. Prior to this, he was founding CEO of CEPI (Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations), which Wellcome helped to launch, and has been the Chief Executive of the Research Council of Norway.

He has held academic positions at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and the University of Oslo. He is a member of the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters and the US National Academy of Medicine.

John-Arne trained in medicine and science, receiving his MD and PhD from the University of Oslo. He also has an MSc from the University of Oxford and MPA from Harvard University. His research has spanned basic science, epidemiology, clinical trials, health services research and global health policy, governance and financing. He has led the steering groups for the Ebola vaccine trial in Guinea and the Covid-19 WHO Solidarity Trial, and the Lancet Series on access and sustainable effectiveness of antimicrobials.

He has held many national and international board and advisory board roles, including board member of Science Europe and chair of the Alliance for Health Policy and Systems Research, and was a board member of Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, PATH, Global Antibiotic Research and Development Partnership (GARDP) and Medicines Patent Pool (MPP).

He has served on expert and advisory bodies at the WHO and in global health, including more recently as chair of the ACT-Accelerator Financial and Resource Mobilization Working Group and a member of the G20 High Level Independent Panel on Financing the Global Commons for Pandemic Preparedness and Response. He served on the Standing Committee on Science of the Canadian Institutes of Health Research and on the Science and Research Committee of the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) and was co-chair of the Future of Global Health Initiatives.