Colin Phillips

I was a student at SGS from 1979-1986. Two notable aspects of my time there was that I had the opportunity to study 6 different languages — I didn’t realize how fortunate I was at the time — and I got to do a lot of running. My best achievement as a runner was that I once broke the school record for the 800m … only for my little brother to break it the following day. After SGS I headed off to Oxford University to study modern languages, thanks to the encouragement of SGS teacher David Jones. 

In 1990 I headed off to the US for what I thought was a 9-month visit. It turned into 33 years. I fell in love with Linguistics (which my SGS maths teacher Cyril Rimmell had predicted years earlier), I met my wife, I did a PhD at MIT, and developed an academic career in the US, including nearly 25 years at the University of Maryland, in the Washington DC metro area. My main expertise is in the area of psycholinguistics, which sits at the intersection of linguistics, psychology, neuroscience, and computer science.

I had not been planning to return to the UK, but life takes you in unexpected directions. At the start of 2024 I moved back to the UK to start a new adventure as Professor of Linguistics and department head at Oxford University (announcement), picking up where I left off many years earlier, though in a field and department that barely existed in 1990. It is an exciting time to be in this role, especially given the changing role of language and languages in modern Britain, given light of things like the very diverse society, and Britain’s positioning of itself in the world post-Brexit. In June I gave my “inaugural lecture”, where I was thrilled to welcome as a special guest my SGS teacher David Jones, who first took me to an Oxford open day 40 years ago, and my SGS classmate Helen Dolby (now based in Belgium), who was one of the very first female students at SGS, and who had pushed and inspired me as a 16-18 year old at SGS. 

I still spend about 3 months of the year in the US, which remains my family’s main home, and where part of my transatlantic research group is based. My daughter, Zoe, who finished university earlier this year in the US, has also shown a taste for languages and international travel. She completed a degree in Japanese, and she recently moved to Japan, where she is teaching English in a small fishing town in the far south of Japan, close to Nagasaki. So our family spends much of the year spread across 3 continents, and very much appreciating modern technology. Very different than when my mum first dropped me off with my suitcases at Spalding train station to head to teach in Germany in 1988, unsure of when she would get a letter from me.

Best wishes from an appreciative SGS alumnus!

Colin Phillips