Our people

Dr Huanyuan Zhang-Zheng is a postdoctoral researcher with a profound interest in African forest ecology, carbon cycle modelling, and plant functional traits. Affiliated with both the University of Oxford and UC Berkeley, he is responsible for building the Global Ecosystem Monitoring (GEM) Forests carbon cycle database. Huanyuan is a member of the Ecosystems Lab and NGEE-Tropics Lab. Huanyuan’s primary research endeavours encompass the compilation of the GEM forests carbon cycle database, data-model comparisons of forests’ gross primary productivity, and meta-analyses of forest productivity across a multitude of tropical sites. He is also the sole author of CRAN R package, ARTofR.

Dr Zhang-Zheng earned a BSc in Environmental Science from Sun Yat-sen University in China, and the University of Birmingham. He also holds an MRes in Ecosystem and Environmental Change (Distinction) from Imperial College London. In 2023, he was awarded DPhil in Geography and the Environment from the University of Oxford with a thesis entitled Gross primary production of West African tropical forests. He has been the recipient of the Environmental Change Institute small grants from the University of Oxford, the Tang scholarships awarded by the China Oxford Scholarship Fund, and the Henfrey scholarship on Chinese studies from St Catherine’s College, Oxford. Additionally, his research was funded by Xishuangbanna Tropical Botanical Garden Open Funding, and African-Oxford Catalyst Grant, awarded by African-Oxford Initiative.

Born on a tropical island (Nan’ao Island, China) and passionate about tropical ecosystems, he has travelled to and conducted research in Mexico, Colombia, Ghana, Malaysia and Yunan, China. He is also a PADI qualified Free Diver and Dive Master.

See a full list of Huanyuan’s publications on Researchgate.

Stefan is an Associate Professor at Engineering Science, Man Group Research Fellow in Financial Machine Learning and former Deputy Director of the Oxford-Man Institute of Quantitative Finance, a Research Associate at the Oxford Internet Institute and a Mentor in the FinTech stream at the Creative Destruction Lab at Saïd Business School, all at the University of Oxford. He also works on commercial projects with Man Group, the funding partner of the Oxford-Man Institute, firstly as a Scientific Advisor and later as Principle Quant.

Stefan’s research is focused on applied machine learning in finance, economics and natural sciences, including deep learning, reinforcement learning, network and NLP approaches. He is also interested in exploring early use cases of quantum computing. At the Oxford Internet Institute Stefan teaches the intensive module on Machine Learning and the elective on Applied Machine Learning as part of the MSc in Social Data Science.

Through the University of Oxford, Stefan frequently engages in collaborative projects with industry partners including NVIDIA, Graphcore, Nokia and Lockheed Martin. He has extensive consulting experience in leading machine learning projects in application domains such as finance and healthcare with clients ranging from listed companies to SMEs and start-ups. Stefan holds a DPhil in Mathematical Physics from Imperial College.

View all publications on the Department of Engineering Science website

Bob Chilcott has enjoyed a lifelong association with choral music, as a chorister and choral scholar in the choir of King’s College, Cambridge, and as a member of the King’s Singers. He became a full-time composer and conductor in 1997, and has composed a large catalogue of choral music which is published by Oxford University Press. His most often performed pieces include Can you hear me?, A Little Jazz Mass, Requiem, and the St John Passion.

Bob has directed choirs in more than 30 countries worldwide and conducts many thousands of amateur singers in a continuing series of Singing Days. Since 2002 he has been Principal Guest Conductor of the BBC Singers and since 2019 Principal Conductor of Birmingham University Singers.

His music has been widely recorded by leading British choirs and groups including The King’s Singers, King’s College, Cambridge, Wells Cathedral, Westminster Abbey, The Sixteen, Tenebrae, The BBC Singers, The Bach Choir, Commotio, and Ora. Circlesong, recorded by the Houston chamber Choir and Treble Choir of Houston, was released by Signum in January 2022, and his second disc with NFM Wroclaw, Canticles of Light, in January 2023. November 2023 has seen the release of Christmas Oratorio recorded by The Choir of Merton College, Oxford on Delphian and Mary, Mother by St Martin’s Voices on Resonus.

Paul McCreesh is renowned for the energy and passion of his musicianship and the interpretative insight he brings to repertoire of the widest stylistic and historical breadth. His authoritative performances are founded on uncompromising drive and vision, alongside a hunger for new challenges.

First established as the Artistic Director of Gabrieli Consort & Players, he now guest-conducts some of the world’s finest orchestras including the Leipzig Gewandhaus, Bergen Philharmonic, Hong Kong Philharmonic, Sydney Symphony, Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, Montreal Symphony, New Japan Philharmonic, Verbier Festival Orchestra, Minnesota Orchestra and Dallas Symphony. He is a former Principal Conductor and Artistic Director at the Gulbenkian Orchestra, Lisbon, and served for six seasons as Artistic Director of the Wratislavia Cantans festival in Wrocław, Poland.

At the heart of McCreesh’s music-making is a determination to broaden access to the arts. In the UK he leads Gabrieli’s Roar project for young singers and is renowned for his ambition in expanding opportunities in music education for all.

McCreesh’s ever-questioning spirit makes him a difficult artist to categorise; he is as likely to be found conducting Purcell’s theatre works as Elgar’s symphonies or an a cappella part song. He is particularly known for his performances of major choral works such as Britten’s War Requiem, Mendelssohn’s Elijah, Verdi’s Requiem, Elgar’s The Dream of Gerontius and Haydn’s The Creation and The Seasons. He brings to all this repertoire the same rigorous scholarship and interpretative flair that defined his early career, continuing to confirm his reputation for innovation. With a 30-year recording career which includes many iconic projects and numerous award-winning benchmark recordings, he is well known as one of today’s most highly regarded recording artists.