2025 Thomas Harriot Lecture: Sylvia Sumira
The 2025 Thomas Harriot Lecture will be given by Sylvia Sumira on ‘Globes in the time of Thomas Harriot‘. Sumira is an independent conservator specialising in globes. After graduating in History of Art from Leicester University, she gained a post-graduate diploma in Conservation of Fine Art on Paper. She worked in globe conservation at the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich for several years. Since setting up her own studio she has carried out extensive work for many clients including museums, libraries and other public institutions in Britain and abroad, as well as for private owners of globes. She is an accredited member of the UK Institute of Conservation and a Fellow of the International Institute for Conservation of Historic and Artistic Works.
About the Thomas Harriot Lecture
The College’s annual Thomas Harriot Lecture was inaugurated in 1990. Revised versions of the lectures delivered since then have been published in three volumes, edited by Robert Fox: Thomas Harriot. An Elizabethan man of science (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2000); Thomas Harriot. Mathematics, exploration, and natural philosophy in early modern England (Farnham: Ashgate, 2012); and Thomas Harriot. Science and discovery in the English Renaissance (London: Routledge, 2023).
About the Thomas Harriot Lecture
Thomas Harriot, mathematician and natural philosopher, was born in Oxfordshire. He matriculated at Oxford in 1577 as a member of St Mary Hall (which united with Oriel College in 1902) and was awarded a BA degree at Easter 1580.
Harriot’s skills in astronomical navigation led to his employment by Sir Walter Raleigh (another member of Oriel) to teach Raleigh and prepare his sea captains for the voyage that left in 1585 to establish a settlement in America. After spending almost a year at Roanoke, near the coast of today’s North Carolina, Harriot wrote A brief and true report of the new found land of Virginia, the first account of America to be published in English (1588).
Find out more about Thomas Harriot on our Notable Historical Figures and Alumni page.
