Patrick Vernon OBE, an Associate Fellow of CHM since Feb 2013, was named 'Man of the Year' at the Precious Awards (for women of colour in business) last week. An ex-Hackney councillor and cultural historian, Mr Vernon is known for founding 100 Great Black Britons, a campaign promoting the black community’s contributions to Britain and challenging the notion of Britishness that excludes multicultural communities in the UK. He has written books on black history and led key campaigns such as for the soldier and footballer Walter Tull to receive his military cross from the First World War.

We are delighted to announce that Dr Howard Chiang has joined CHM as an academic staff member. He has been an Associate of the Centre for a year or so, but his new status gives us the opportunity to work more closely with him. He will continue to be a staff member in the Global History & Culture Centre as well, and provide a useful link between the two.

Kyle Jackson, a PhD student at CHM, has had the results of his pilot project 'Locating and surveying early religious and related records in Mizoram' published online by the British Library. Operating under the Library's Endangered Archives Programme, project researchers travelled into villages throughout India's northeastern state of Mizoram, creating and cataloguing some ten thousand digital images of the region's most endangered historical documents. The result is a virtual treasure trove for historians and enthusiasts of India's northeast. The project catalogue is available here.