The mayor of Cambridge is Cllr Maria Cleminson, who represents Abbey ward.

Maria was born in Oxford in 1981 to an English father and Russian mother. Her father’s various academic posts meant she moved around quite a bit as a child, including three years in New Zealand, but her family eventually settled in Winchester.

Her mother’s job as a Russian teacher in the prestigious public school there meant that Maria ended up having the unusual sixth form experience of being virtually the only girl in an all-boys school, which she believes has contributed to her feeling comfortable standing out and holding her own.

She studied history at Oxford University, where her interests were late antiquity and the medieval period, which set her up nicely for her first job as a ‘costumed historical interpreter’ (dressing up and telling stories) at the Tower of London.

This did not hold her interest for long, however, and she moved on to writing obituaries for The Times. After a few years, Maria felt that she would prefer to being doing great things, rather than writing about people who had done them, so she moved to Moscow to try out corporate PR, which did not suit her at all, and then returned to the UK to work in the charity sector.

In 2012 Maria moved to Tajikistan in Central Asia with her now-husband, Frank, to start a placement with the Voluntary Service Oversees, which turned into a job with Caritas Switzerland writing projects for women’s groups in rural communities. She absolutely loved the work and felt she had found her calling, but soon had to return to England, this time to Cambridge, to become a carer with Frank for his ailing grandmother.

Maria had only visited Cambridge a couple of times up until that point, but it gradually it became obvious that this is where she was going to stay – having lived here 14 years now, it is the longest Maria has ever stayed in one place.

Shortly after arriving, Maria did a postgraduate degree at Cambridge University in Development Studies – an absolutely wonderful course with the unexpected consequence that it persuaded her that the global south didn’t need another middle-class white girl like herself developing its projects.

Maria started a family with Frank, and once their youngest of three started nursery, Maria began to cast about for opportunities that might lead on to some kind of employment again, starting with voluntary positions that led her deeper and deeper into community work.

Maria was a governor at St Luke’s primary school in Arbury, and she began volunteering for Cambridge Citizens Advice. She joined the steering committee of the Riverside Area Residents Association, where she spearheaded biodiversity projects at the Cellarer’s Chequer and joined the effort to develop the Riverside Vision and a heritage trail for the area. She gathered together a team to save the 13th century church of St Andrew the Less as a community and heritage centre, and she has been working with a collective to transform the Elizabeth Way underpass and bridge into a cultural hub.

With all of this, it felt a natural step for her to become a councillor, so that she could champion her community in a more official capacity, and she was elected this year to become councillor in her home ward, Abbey.