Foteini Dimirouli
DPhil Comparative Literature 2009
Access Fellow and Career Development Fellow in English
Dr Foteini Dimirouli is Keble’s first Access Fellow. Her role comprises leadership in the area of equality in education as well as research in English and Comparative Literature. Foteini has pursued this dual path since her doctoral studies, when she first dedicated herself to access and outreach activities.
An Athenian who read English as an undergraduate, Foteini joined Keble as a DPhil candidate in Comparative Literature with the support of a DeBreyne scholarship in 2009. In 2012, she began offering tutorials and lectures in English for state schools and under-represented students, first as a volunteer and soon after as a professional at Somerville College. Foteini was then awarded the Mary Seeger O’Boyle postdoctoral fellowship at Princeton University in 2016 and spent a year in the US, focusing on research.
In 2017 she returned to Keble and Oxford, which she considers home, and has since held joint responsibilities as the Access Fellow and Career Development Fellow in English. She runs a busy calendar of school events and works to develop ambitious partnerships, significantly raising Keble’s outreach profile in the West Midlands. Foteini considers the community and inclusivity of college life to be an integral part of what Oxford has to offer, and always seeks to ground her outreach work in collaboration. In the difficult environment of the pandemic, she recognised the immediate need for digital innovation. With the help of a committed group of Keble students and tutors, she established an access and outreach YouTube channel, becoming an amateur videographer and giving the outside world a window into college life. She is an active member of the Senior Common Room and, from October 2022, has a seat on Governing Body.
In 2021 she received the support and recognition of grants from both the Onassis Foundation and the Athens-based Research Centre for the Humanities for a research project that investigates the rise of digital poetics in the public sphere.