This list is still under development and will be complete by early September, 2025.
Inaugural Patricia Merivale scholar in residence: Christine Ferguson
Professor Christine Ferguson (FEA, FRHistS) is Chair in English Studies at the University of Stirling in Scotland, where her research focuses on the entwined histories of popular fiction, science, and alternative spirituality in nineteenth and twentieth-century Britain. She is the author of three books and two edited works, including the essay collection The Occult Imagination in Britain, 1875-1947 (Routledge, 2018), co-edited with Andrew Radford, and the new monograph Opens Secrets: The Popular Fiction of Britain’s Occult Revival, 1842-1936 (Oxford University Press, 2025), from which this talk is drawn. In 2026, she will publish the first scholarly edition of Arthur Conan Doyle’s The Land of Mist and Other Spiritualist Writings as part of the Edinburgh Edition of the Works of Arthur Conan Doyle.
Dr Ferguson is also a society member of Green College. She will be in residence at Green College for a week in late July 2025, and then for a longer period beginning in April, 2026.
21st Writer in residence: Clara Kumagai
Clara Kumagai is from Ireland, Japan, and Canada. Catfish Rolling, her debut novel, was a 2024 YOTO Carnegie Medal nominee, and winner of the 2024 KPMG Children’s Books Ireland Book of the Year. Her second novel, Songs for Ghosts, is out in 2025. She lives and writes in Ireland.
For her residency, Clara has organized the public series Where the Waves Take Us: Art, Identity, and the Sea, a multidisciplinary exploration of creativity and the ocean, and of the relationship between humans and the natural world. This series explores the ocean as a world unto itself, as well as a site for human journeys, and how traversing them links to themes of identity, (im)migration, and human connections to our environment. UBC’s coastal location and the ocean's fluctuations due to climate change heightens the relevance of engaging with the sea and our connection to water in thoughtful and insightful ways. The series’ guests include writers, a singer-songwriter, and a playwright, with a body of work that engages with nature and communities through the lens of both past and present.
Clara Kumagai will be in residence at Green College for three months, beginning in September 2025. Learn more about her work on her website.
Visiting scientist from France: Emmanuelle Helloin
Dr Emmanuelle Helloin is a research engineer at INRAE (France) specializing in bacteriology. Her academic background includes a Master's in Microbial Ecology with a focus on biological treatment of wastewater, and doctoral research on the impact of environmental factors on Listeria monocytogenes in cheese production. She furthered her research with a postdoctoral fellowship focused on identifying virulence factors of extraintestinal pathogenic Escherichia coli. Currently, she is responsible for organizing and developing the CIRM-BP, a culture collection of animal and human pathogenic bacteria at INRAE (Nouzilly). Her expertise lies in the bacteriology of risk group 2 and 3 pathogens, with a strong emphasis on biosafety and biosecurity as well as ISO 9001 quality management.
Dr Helloin's current objectives involve expanding the CIRM-BP collection to include commensal bacteria and a microbiota biobank, aiming to make these resources accessible to the international scientific community. She actively participates in European and national research projects focused on characterizing bacterial biodiversity and evaluating potential new antimicrobial agents.
Dr Emmanuelle Helloin will be in residence at Green College for three months, beginning in September 2025.
John Grace Memorial visitor in residence: Signa A Daum Shanks
Dr Signa A Daum Shanks is a lawyer, law professor, and historian. Currently working at the University of Ottawa’s Faculty of Law, she teaches, researches, and has taught property, torts, legal history, law and economics, game theory, Canadian constitutionalism and Indigenous peoples, and Indigenous legal traditions. Before becoming a full time academic, Dr Daum Shanks worked at a national law firm, MAG Ontario, the federal Departments of Justice and (now) Indigenous Services, and Saskatchewan Justice. Dr Daum Shanks is a Senior Fellow at Massey College. Her poetry has appeared in publications such as the Literary Review of Canada, Folklore, Queen’s Quarterly, and Canadian Literature.
Recognized with the President’s Award from the Women Lawyers Association of Ontario, a scholarly research prize from the Law Commission of Canada, the national Scholarly Paper Award from the Canadian Association of Law Teachers, and the Research Leader Award at York University, Dr Daum Shanks enjoys contributing to various Boards, including the Ontario Bar Association, the OBA Foundation, the CBA’s Law for the Future Fund, the Public Legal Education Association (Saskatchewan), and Saskatoon’s poverty law clinic (CLASSIC). She was appointed by the United Nations as a participant in the annual United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues. Dr Daum Shanks was a member of the Minister of Innovation’s Legislative Review Panel, the Minister of Heritage Advisory Panel on Online Harm, and in 2021 she was appointed the Prime Minister’s Advisory Panel for Supreme Court Appointments.
Dr Signa A Daum Shanks is also a proud shareholder of the community-owned Saskatchewan Roughriders. She will be in residence at Green College in the second half of October, 2025.