Queen's University Belfast

Organiser of ECR Day

Dr Alison Garden is a Senior Lecturer and UKRI Future Leaders Fellow at Queen’s Queen’s University Belfast, where she leads the interdisciplinary project, ‘Acts of Union: Mixed Marriage in Modern Ireland’.

Alison is the author of The Literary Afterlives of Roger Casement, 1899-2016 (Liverpool 2020) and is currently writing Love Across the Divide: desire and colonial culture in Northern Ireland, 1970-present.

Alison is an inaugural member of Young Academy Ireland, a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society and a Fellow of the Mitchell Institute for Global Peace, Security and Justice.

Connect with Alison on Twitter: @NotSecretGarden

National Museums NI

Dr Sarah Baccianti is the Research Manager at National Museums NI. In her role she manages the implementation and development of National Museums NI’s Research Policy and Research Plan and reviews and monitors all research and academic partnerships.

Before moving to the museum/heritage sector, Sarah lectured in Old English and Old Norse literature at the University of Oxford, Université de Lausanne, University College Cork and Queen’s University Belfast.

Sarah obtained her doctorate at the University of Oxford where she researched the narrative structure of chronicles and historiae written in Old Norse, Old English, and Anglo-Latin. Her latest project – which was funded by the British Academy, and that she continues to research in her spare time – focuses on the reception and transmission of scientific and medical knowledge in medieval Denmark and Iceland.

You can find Sarah on Twitter: @SarahBaccianti

Department of Foreign Affairs (Ireland)

Dr Alison Meagher earned her PhD from the School of History, Anthropology, Politics and Philosophy at Queen’s University Belfast in 2017. Her research considers U.S. foreign policy towards Northern Ireland under President Jimmy Carter. Specifically, it focusses on the effectiveness of lobbying efforts by Irish-American political elites, in conjunction with John Hume and Irish officials in Washington, during the Carter presidency and beyond.

A former QUB Convocation Scholar and recipient of the Centre for Cross Border Studies’ Universities Ireland scholarship, Alison's work has been featured in such publications as Diplomatic History, and her doctoral thesis is in the process of being published as a book.

Alison is currently Permanent Representation of Ireland to the European Union, Department of Foreign Affairs.

You can find Alison on Twitter: @DrAlisonMeagher

Queen's University Belfast

Dr Sophie Cooper is a Lecturer in Liberal Arts at Queen’s University Belfast where she has been based since 2021. Though based in the School of Arts, English and Languages, Sophie is a historian of Ireland and the Irish diaspora, particularly focusing on migration, gender, and the built environment.

Sophie's first book, Forging Identities in the Irish World: Melbourne and Chicago, c.1830-1922, was published by Edinburgh University Press in 2022 and was recently awarded the Lawrence McCaffrey Award for books on Irish America.

Sophie is currently obsessed with Belfast’s places of worship and ideas of identity and belonging, so can usually be found ‘collecting’ photos of churches like they’re some particularly niche Pokemon. For more on this project see @mappingbelfast on Instagram.

You can find Sophie on Twitter: @SophcoCooper

University of Roehampton

Anouska Lester is a PhD Candidate and Visiting Lecturer at the University of Roehampton. She is due to submit her thesis, ‘Ephemeral Matters: The Materials and Documents of Early Modern Performance in England’, in 2023.

Anouska received her BA from the University of Oxford and her MA from University College London. During her studies she received diagnoses of depression, anxiety, and fibromyalgia (chronic pain and fatigue), and so she has firsthand experience navigating the complexities of pursuing a career in academia while living with disabilities.

Anouska's research draws on voluntary and professional experience with arts and heritage organisations such as the V&A Museum, Shakespeare Birthplace Trust, Shakespeare’s Globe, National Theatre, and London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art. She is the co-founder, with Sierra Carter, of the Revels Office, a virtual network for early modern postgraduate and early career researchers.

You can find Anouska on Twitter: @MrSoupSpoon

University of Edinburgh

Dr Lena Wånggren is a researcher and teacher at the University of Edinburgh. She works on nineteenth-century literature; literature and science/medicine; gender, intersectionality and social justice; with publications including Corporeality and Culture: Bodies in Movement (2015) and Gender, Technology and the New Woman (2017).

Lena is a trade union representative with many years of experience working on equalities and anti-casualisation, most recently serving as President of UCU Scotland. 

Director of the Leverhulme Trust

Professor Anna Vignoles FBA CBE is Director of the Leverhulme Trust: one of the largest, all-subject providers of research funding in the UK. She took up her new post in January, 2021. She was previously a Professor of Education at the Faculty of Education, University of Cambridge and a Fellow of Jesus College, Cambridge.

Professor Vignoles’ research has focused on issues of equity and value in education – in particular the relationship between educational achievement and social mobility and the role played by education and skills attainment in the economy and society.

She has advised numerous government departments, including the Department for Education, the Department of Business, Innovation and Skills, and HM Treasury. She has also acted as a Trustee of the Nuffield Foundation, Member of Council of the Economic and Social Research Council, and Member of the Advisory Board of the Sutton Trust.

Professor Vignoles was elected a Fellow of the British Academy in 2017 and awarded a CBE in 2019 for services to social sciences. You can find her on Twitter: @AnnaVignoles

University of Birmingham

Dr Fariha Shaikh is Associate Professor of Victorian Literature at University of Birmingham. Her research interests are in the nineteenth-century, empire and and its legacies. Her monograph, Nineteenth-Century Settler Emigration in British Literature and Art was published by Edinburgh University Press in 2018.

Her monograph, Nineteenth-Century Settler Emigration in British Literature and Art was published by Edinburgh University Press in 2018. Fariha has appeared on BBC 1, BBC 2, Channel 4, BBC Radio 3, and in podcasts and festivals, talking both about her own research and on the nineteenth-century more broadly. She is an AHRC/BBC Radio 3 New Generation Thinker 2021.

You can find Fariha on Twitter: @DrFarihaShaikh

Swansea University

Dr Mai Musié is an ancient historian and a public engagement professional. She has been a key voice in the UK for engagement with the humanities for over a decade. Her research focuses on race and ethnicity in the ancient world.  She is passionate about exploring the interconnectivity between the ancient Mediterranean world and North-East Africa. As a public-facing historian Mai has appeared on podcasts, TV, and radio discussing topics such as decolonisation, anti-racism, repatriation, and stories of ancient and modern migration. As a public engagement professional Mai has worked on history and heritage projects that foster co-curation, co-production, and building equitable relationships between communities and researchers.

Mai is a trustee of  Classics for All - a national campaign to get classical languages and the study of classical civilisations back into state schools. She is also a trustee of The Roman Society, which aims to advance the understanding of ancient Rome and the Roman Empire. Mai is the co-founder of the Classics in Communities partnership project between the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge, and The Iris Project (an educational Classics charity). The project aims to promote and encourage the teaching of Latin and Ancient Greek at primary and early secondary school level (and beyond) in UK state schools. Mai is the co-editor (with Dr Arlene Holmes-Henderson and Steve Hunt) of the book Forward with Classics: Classical Languages in Schools and Communities, which investigates the motivations of teachers and learners behind the rise of Classics in the classroom and in communities. It also explores the ways in which knowledge of classical languages is considered valuable for diverse learners in the 21st century.

Furthermore, Mai is a board member of Ways of Working (a social enterprise), and Archive for Performances of Greek and Roman Drama (APGRD) at the University of Oxford. In addition, she is an external advisor for the Faculty of Classics EDI Committee at Oxford, and a member of NCCPE’s Inclusion Advisory Group for Race Equality. Mai was awarded the Classical Association Prize for Outreach in 2019; the prestigious Classical Association Prize aims to recognise outstanding contributions to the promotion of Classics in the UK and is awarded annually to the person, group, or project whose work is felt to have raised the profile of Classics in the public eye. You can find her on Twitter: @Dr_MaiMusie