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Remembering Dr Philippa Hetherington
7 November 2023
On Friday 3 November, colleagues and friends came together to celebrate the life and work of Dr Philippa Hetherington, one year on from her passing.
Dr Philippa Hetherington, Lecturer in Modern Eurasian History at SSEES, sadly passed away on 5 November 2022. A year on, friends and colleagues across the academic community and beyond gathered at SSEES in person and online to remember her as the brilliant scholar, teacher and friend she was to many.
Prof Richard Mole, Director of SSEES, introduced speakers who reflected on their own memories of Philippa as a colleague, collaborator, teacher, supervisor, researcher, partner and fun-loving, world traveller. You can watch the full recording on the SSEES YouTube channel.
Simon Dixon spoke on Philippa's contribution to SSEES and the delight of appointing her to the school. Julia Klimova, who was supervised by Philippa for her PhD, reflected on Philippa's support and enthusiasm for her subject area. Alena Ledeneva paid tribute to Philippa's work with FRINGE, her capacity to do seemingly everything at once, as well as reminiscing on what a fun colleague and friend Philippa was (with a penchant for karaoke!). Julia Laite, who worked with Philippa on the history of trafficking and sexual labour, told us of Philippa's work on gender and migration. Greg Afinogenov then joined from the US to talk about Philippa's book, 'Circulating Subjects',which hopes to be published shortly. This was followed by her husband and fellow SSEES historian, Alessandro Iandolo, who reflected on her research in Imperial and Soviet history and the impact she has and will have on the field. He spoke of the forthcoming book and its aims, her international archival trips, and the scholarship launched in Philippa's name at UCL.
After the speeches, guests gathered for a reception where warm memories were shared and reflections on how much she will be missed, but never forgotten.
To commemorate Philippa and her passion for international travel and history, UCL SSEES is proud to have launched the Dr Philippa Hetherington Memorial Scholarship. The scholarship will support History PhD students at the school with a travel grant to carry out research overseas.