People

Violence Reduction Hub Advisory Group 

Dr Jennifer Creese

Dr Jennifer Creese is a sociocultural anthropologist with interests in health and social care, multiculturalism and Jewish studies. Her PhD (University of Queensland, Australia, 2020) and recent monograph, Jewish Identity in Multicultural Australia (Palgrave, 2023) explored experiences and political strategies of belonging for the Jewish community in Australia, including tackling antisemitism. After a postdoctoral fellowship at the Royal College of Physicians of Ireland (2020-21), she joined the University of Leicester in 2022. Jennifer is a Lecturer in the Department of Population Health Sciences and the Leicester Medical School, and a member of the Stanley Burton Centre for Holocaust and Genocide Studies. A qualitative researcher and ethnographic expert, her research interests lie at the intersection between ethnic/racialised violence and healthcare. Current research projects include: exploring the effects of racism, microaggression and violence towards ethnic minority NHS staff on speaking up for patient safety (NIHR Greater Manchester Patient Safety Research Collaboration, 2023-28); working with 10 NHS Trusts to reduce violence and bullying and their effects on junior NHS doctors’ career and emigration decision-making (ESRC Impact Accelerator Award, 2023-24) and understanding and combatting antisemitism in medical education.

Professor Sally Kyd

Sally Kyd is a Professor of Law and currently Head of Leicester Law School. She researches and teaches issues relating to Criminal Law and Criminal Justice generally, with her specialist expertise being in road traffic offences. This interest was initially generated through research on homicide, and findings relating to criminal charges brought in relation to vehicles being used as weapons causing death. That initial interest has broadened out to explore how the criminal law can be utilised to help to achieve road harm reduction. Alongside this, she remains interested in the law’s response to homicide and other offences of violence. She is particularly interested in the way in which laws are drafted to criminalise particular conduct, but also in how such laws are interpreted by those who have the discretion to influence the outcome of a case (from police, through to the CPS and the courts), and the relationship between offence labelling and sentencing.

Kerry Onyejekwe

Kerry Onyejekwe is a lecturer in the School of Education. Kerry is teaching focused and is currently convenor for the Pedagogy module on the Masters in International Education and the lead for Secondary PGCE Social Science. Kerry is also lead for the SEND and Adaptive teaching strand of the PGCE.  Her interests span Education, Criminology and Psychology. Her early career focused on offender rehabilitation, working with Apex Leicester and the Probation Service.  She then went on to work as a Psychologist in the London Probation Area having completed an MSc in Applied Forensic Psychology.  Kerry is also a lecturer for the Open University teaching Psychology and Criminology which enables her to work with students in secure settings. Kerry taught Psychology, Sociology and Public Services for over 10 years before becoming an Advanced teaching practitioner and joining the University of Leicester in 2015 in the School of Education.  Kerry’s most recent research with a multidisciplinary team from Law and Sociology is focused on Relationships and Sex Education.  Kerry has an interest in the protective role of relationship and sex education for reducing sexual risk and victimisation.  Her wider interests are Youth Justice, reducing violence in schools, neurodiversity in particular ADHD and behaviour management strategies in schools.  In addition to the importance of positive relationships in schools in reducing the need for sanctions leading to exclusions and the relationship between educational experience and crime.

Dr Matt Tonkin

Dr Matt Tonkin is an Associate Professor in the School of Criminology at the University of Leicester. He has two primary areas of research expertise: 1) serial offenders, serial offending and policing methods designed to facilitate the detection and prosecution of these offenders (e.g. crime linkage, offender profiling and geographical profiling); and 2) social climate in prisons and forensic psychiatric hospitals, including how to measure and improve the therapeutic atmosphere in these settings and the factors that impact on positive rehabilitative outcomes for offenders. Dr. Tonkin has worked extensively with police forces, prisons and forensic hospitals across the UK, Europe and Asia and his work has been published in a range of leading Criminology and Psychology journals. He has been funded by a wide range of funders, including UKRI, Leverhulme Trust, British Academy, National Institute of Health Research, law enforcement agencies, local and central government.

Dr Jessica Urwin

Jessica Urwin is a researcher and lecturer in the School of Criminology. Her research focuses primarily on youth justice and service provision for young people. Her PhD investigated the structure of mental health provision within youth justice, and identified changes that could allow this system to be fairer. She has worked on several programme evaluations, including evaluating Mental Health First Aid training, crisis intervention training for police officers and leadership training for community leaders. Jessica's work utilises a social justice approach and is generally interested in developing services within a criminal justice context to increase fairness and accessibility for children and young people. A more recent strand of Jessica's research has focused on popular criminology and youth justice, and she is currently analysing film representations of justice-involved young people.