People

Professor Clare Anderson is interested in the histories and legacies of imperial punishment and forced mobility. She has led large multi-disciplinary and interdisciplinary projects funded by the ERC, ESRC and BA, focused on prisons and penal colonies in South America, the Caribbean, Africa, the Indian Ocean, Asia, Australasia and the Pacific. Her current projects are exploring the impacts of colonialism on mental health and substance abuse in Guyana’s jails (ESRC GCRF), and patterns of descent among African and Asian convicts in the former colonies of the British and French Empires (Leverhulme Trust). Clare has previous and ongoing collaborations with partners and stakeholders from government, government agencies, NGOs and the heritage sector. She is editor of the Journal of Colonialism and Colonial History, and an enthusiastic supporter of a large cohort of postgraduate and postdoctoral researchers.

• ca26@le.ac.uk

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Kellie works with academic stakeholders across the university to pioneer and manage a diverse portfolio of research activities, commissioned and/or supported by the Institute. In her work as a research associate on several multi and interdisciplinary projects funded by the ERC, ESRC and BA, Kellie continues to work closely with external partners, including NGOs and government organisations. She also has experience of developing, delivering, and supporting various knowledge exchange and impact activities.

• km345@leicester.ac.uk

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Professor Dame Vicki Bruce is an experimental psychologist (now Professor Emerita at Newcastle University), whose research has focussed on how humans perceive and recognise faces. She was Deputy Principal for Research at the University of Stirling (1995-2002) and then Vice Principal and Head of the College of Humanities and Social Science at the University of Edinburgh (2002-2008) before returning to her roots in the North East. She has held many roles within research councils and funding councils, most recently serving on the Stern review panel which developed the framework which guided REF2021. She is a Fellow of the British Academy, and of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, and an Honorary Fellow of the British Psychological Society.

Dr Anna K Dickson is the Director of Research for the House of Commons. As Director she has strategic oversight of the research output of 100 researchers responding to requests for information from MPs and proactively publishing legislative briefing papers and other research output. She is also responsible for quality assurance processes and editorial policy of the Research team.
 
She is currently leading an exciting project to create a Policy, Research and Analysis Community across Select Committee Teams and Researchers in Parliament. As part of this project to encourage collaboration, knowledge exchange in research hubs, the ESRC has funded three academics to increase knowledge of and interaction with external research and help to build centres of excellence.
 
Since joining Parliament in 2004 she has worked in a variety of roles including in Select Committees and the Procedural Offices.
 
With an academic background she was previously lecturer in Politics and International Relations at the University of Durham. Her research area was at the intersection of international relations and development studies. She has written on EU development policies and on the politics of international trade in commodities (in particular sugar and bananas).
 
Anna currently sits on the ESRC Grant Assessment Panel as an external reader.

Professor Simon Gill is a Professor in the School of Engineering at Leicester and is Dean of Research.

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Himanshu Kaul is a Biomedical Engineer whose interdisciplinary research focuses on the integration of computational, experimental, and clinical data/methods to gain systems-level understanding of biological phenomena. His scientific contributions include amendment of the definition of the dynamic reciprocity principle, a virtual asthma patient that predicted the clinical impact of three different asthma drugs on two clinical outcomes, which remains unprecedented in respiratory medicine, and the first computational framework capable of predicting how changes in gene network topology impact tissue patterns. His work on the virtual patient has been recognised as a ‘Virtual Physiological Human Institute Success Story’ and one of the ‘Top 5 Innovations Pioneered at the University of Leicester’. His research has been a focus of multiple media interviews on radio, print, and podcast. Himanshu secured his doctorate from the University of Oxford. In 2021, he joined the University of Leicester as its first Royal Academy of Engineering Research Fellow. Here, he leads an interdisciplinary lab with PhD students focused on research at the interface of engineering, robotics, software development, molecular cell biology, cancer, computational modelling, and criminology. 

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Steve is a passionate advocate of the power of Education and Philanthropy to transform lives and communities locally and worldwide. He has played leading roles in organisations that have courageously and effectively sought to address inequality and exclusion whether improving cancer services in disadvantaged communities at Macmillan Cancer Care, widening access to higher education and the academy for traditionally excluded groups at the Universities of Bristol and Leicester or campaigning to end child poverty as a UK Director at Barnardo’s.

He has been closely associated with the University over four decades as a graduate, senior member of staff and most recently as Special Advisor to the Vice-Chancellor for Advancement and Civic Engagement during which time he collaborated with LIAS in launching the innovative Community Engagement Fund.  Steve holds a BA (Hons) from Leicester and is a Certified Member of the Chartered Institute of Fundraising and the Council for Advancement and Support of Education. 

Gowan Dawson is Professor of Victorian Literature and Culture at the University of Leicester and Dean of Research and Enterprise for the University's College of Social Sciences, Arts and Humanities. He is an Honorary Research Fellow at the Natural History Museum, London, and serves on the grants and library committees of the Royal Society. He has published widely on both nineteenth-century literature and the history of science, including, most recently, Monkey to Man: The Evolution of the March of Progress Image (Yale University Press, 2024).

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Dr Shearer is Director of the Graduate School for Interdisciplinary Studies at the University of St Andrews. A life scientist originally, she became interested in wider issues of bioethics and science policy and subsequently moved into the area of medical ethics and law. Her areas of interest are trust and fairness, with a policy and practice focus. She chaired the research ethics committee (REC) in the School of Medicine at St Andrews for 8 years, and served as deputy convenor for the University REC. In the education-sphere, her research interests centre around interdisciplinarity, the teaching and assessing of ethics and the ethical review of pedagogic research and scholarship. A former Director of Teaching in the School of Biology and Associate Dean in the Faculty of Science, she values collaboration and led a cross-institutional faculty learning community to explore reflective academic practice.

In her role as Deputy Vice Chancellor, Mellissa works with academic stakeholders from across the University of Guyana to pioneer and manage a diverse portfolio of research activities. She also works closely with external partners, including the Guyana Prison Service, NGOs and government organisations, and has experience of developing, delivering, and supporting various knowledge exchange and impact activities. Mellissa is experienced in national and international policy issues and has a particular interest in furthering interdisciplinary work and the development of units of advanced study.

Steve is a passionate advocate of the power of Education and Philanthropy to transform lives and communities locally and worldwide. He has played leading roles in organisations that have courageously and effectively sought to address inequality and exclusion whether improving cancer services in disadvantaged communities at Macmillan Cancer Care, widening access to higher education and the academy for traditionally excluded groups at the Universities of Bristol and Leicester or campaigning to end child poverty as a UK Director at Barnardo’s.

He has been closely associated with the University over four decades as a graduate, senior member of staff and most recently as Special Advisor to the Vice-Chancellor for Advancement and Civic Engagement during which time he collaborated with LIAS in launching the innovative Community Engagement Fund. Steve holds a BA (Hons) from Leicester and is a Certified Member of the Chartered Institute of Fundraising and the Council for Advancement and Support of Education.

Gurharpal is a political scientist and completed his undergraduate and PhD degrees at the London School of Economics. From 2011-17 he was the Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Humanities SOAS. Currently he is Emeritus Professor of Sikh and Punjab Studies at SOAS. Before moving to SOAS Gurharpal held the Nadir Dinshaw Chair in the School of Philosophy Theology and Religion at the University of Birmingham and was the Deputy Director of the Religions and Development Research Programme (DFID). Prior to this appointment he was the C.R.Parekh Chair in Indian politics at the University of Hull and Principal Lecturer in the School of Humanities De Montfort University.

He is currently working on two projects: the partition of India and the Sikhs, and Leicester: the making of a multicultural city.

Dr Sharma has been a long-established member of the University of Leicester community for over 10 years and has had voluntary roles on Philanthropy Board, Audit Committee, as a lay member and Vice-Chair of the University Council. She was also the inaugural Chair of the Equity, Diversity and Inclusion Board and has helped support numerous University fundraising efforts, particularly in the area of health. She was given an honorary degree for her contribution and service in 2014. In her role as Pro-Chancellor for community engagement at Leicester, she will act as an ambassador and advocate for the University, supporting campaigns and the Our Citizens strategic theme. She will also engage with stakeholders in various groups including the community locally and internationally, philanthropy and fundraising, outreach and inclusion, and heritage and culture.

Dr Sharma pioneered the concept of a national public service radio station targeting the Asian diaspora living in Britain within the BBC. Dr Sharma is a trained social worker completing her masters in social work from University of Warwick. She was appointed as the first race relations advisor to the chief executive of Leicestershire County Council before joining the BBC Radio Leicester as an education producer.

Elodie Laurent Volcy is a historian and researcher whose work focuses on the intersection of gender and race in the lives of women in Mauritius. Her research on enslaved women adopts an intersectional approach, examining the violence they endured, their forms of resistance, and their roles and occupations within the colonial society.

Her work also engages with the decolonisation of historical narratives and the reinterpretation of the history of slavery in Mauritius. Through this research, she seeks to contribute to the remembrance and memory of slavery, as well as to ongoing discussions on reparations and reconciliation, while using the study of the past to better understand and critically reflect on the present.

Vijaya Teelock was Associate Professor of History at the University of Mauritius until 2021, where she founded the Centre for Research on Slavery and Indenture in 2006. She served as Chairperson of the Aapravasi Ghat Trust Fund, a parastatal body created to prepare the nomination dossier for the Aapravasi Ghat’s inscription as a World Heritage Site, which was achieved in 2006.

She was also Vice-Chairperson of the Mauritius Truth and Justice Commission, a Presidential Commission established to enquire into and make recommendations on the consequences of slavery and indenture in Mauritius. She specializes in the history of slavery and other forms of unfree labour in Mauritius. She is currently Co-Investigator for Mauritius in the PDMH Project with Professor Clare Anderson as PI.

Janeille Zorina Matthews is a multi-disciplinary criminal justice scholar at the University of the West Indies (UWI), Cave Hill campus in Barbados where she teaches courses in criminal law and criminology and serves as Deputy Dean for Graduate Studies and Research.

Her scholarship focuses on criminal law, crime policy and penal reform in the Anglophone Caribbean, with particular attention to the Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States. Dr. Matthews is currently engaged in research focused on the persistence of colonial legal frameworks within contemporary Caribbean criminal justice systems.

Her work explores themes of decarceration, the decriminalisation of minor offences and the role of narrative and storytelling in advancing social justice, with a broader aim of reshaping how crime and punishment are understood in the region. Dr. Matthews is called to both the New York State Bar and the Bar of Antigua and Barbuda.

She most recently served as Research Coordinator of the UWI Rights Advocacy Project (U-RAP), a collective of public law scholars committed to advancing human rights, equality and social justice in the Caribbean through strategic litigation and socio-legal research.

Joel Valerie works with stakeholders of History and Heritage in the Southwestern region of the Indian Ocean. He has experience advocating for community engagement through collaborative projects for the Conservation of Memories and Identities.

Joel strives to combine his creative work with social inclusion, aiming to raise awareness and evoke emotional connections to social issues. He is devoted to supporting exchanges and the development of interdisciplinary activities to deliver impactful and sustainable outcomes.

Salima Bacchus-Hinds is a Guyanese gender specialist and Caribbean feminist with over 15 years of experience advancing gender equality across the Caribbean.

She has worked with women’s rights organisations, regional institutions, governments, and international development partners to support gender-responsive policy, research, and programming. Her recent work focuses on gender analysis, and the use of participatory and community-based research to inform policy and practice.

She has extensive experience in qualitative and feminist research methods, including participatory approaches, and has contributed to studies on gender, governance, and social justice in the Caribbean context.

Grounded in an intersectional feminist perspective, Salima examines how gender intersects with race, class, poverty, and disability to shape inequalities and access to resources. She holds a Master’s degree in Gender Analysis in International Development.

Dr Meagher is an independent consultant in strategic change in research and higher education, specialising in the development and evaluation of innovative approaches including interdisciplinarity, impact-generation and capacity-building, as well as in writing about and providing masterclasses/workshops on these processes. Along with peer-reviewed articles, she has co-authored the book Interdisciplinary Research Journeys: Practical Strategies for Capturing Creativity, available in paperback or free online, Bloomsbury Press.