People

Susan L Robertson is Professor of Sociology of Education in the Faculty. She is a political sociologist of education, well known for her work on transformations of the state, globalisation and regionalisation, multi-scalar governance, teachers labour and social justice. Susan is also Fellow of Wolfson College, Distinguished Professorial Fellow at the University of Aarhus, Distinguished Adjunct Professor, Beijing Institute of Technology, and founding editor and Editor-in-Chief of Globalisation, Societies and Education which she began in 2003. Susan has published 10 books on education politics and policy (including Public Private Partnerships in Education (2012), Global Regionalisms and Higher Education (2016) and Space, Place and Education Settings (2021) and well over 100 papers in international journals and book chapters. She is regularly invited to give keynotes at leading international conferences, while her portfolio of grants has included major awards from the UKRI’s ESRC, the European Commission’s Erasmus and Horizon fund, and the UK’s Department for International Development. Susan is a committed supervisor of graduate students; she has successfully completed around 60 doctoral students and supervised 16 post-doctoral scholars.

My name is Elly Tai, a Ph.D Candidate in Education from Homerton College. My current research addresses global governance in education and teachers’ labour, exploring the policies and practices of teacher work and training. Having lived overseas for most of my life and attended schools in different countries, I’m particularly interested in international large-scale educational assessments, and my doctoral research focuses on the OECD’S PISA and TALIS programmes. While an abundance of studies exist on global governance of education and PISA, few have investigated the impact of this globalised influence on policy agendas and critical stakeholders, especially teachers. My research, therefore, listens to teachers’ voices and perspectives, empowering their position through my research. Prior to joining the Faculty in 2018 as an MPhil, I explored several areas of education while undertaking a bachelor’s degree at the Institute of Education, Univeristy College London. I enjoy organising conferences, bringing together researchers and practitioners to bridge the gap between theory and practice, and during my final year at the IOE I co-founded UCL’s Undergraduate Research Poster Conference (URPC). During my first year at Cambridge I became co-chair of the Kaleidoscope Conference, and more recently, in 2021, I have joined the Cambridge China Education Forum (CCEF), also as co-chair. I cannot wait to see where the Forum will lead us to this year!

Originally from Romania, Simina is an ESRC-funded PhD researcher at Cambridge, where she has been living for the past 5 years. Her research revolves around knowledge-making, nationalism, racialization, and the politics of memory and history, as well as critiques of the nation-state. Her work mostly focuses on anti-Roma racism in Romania and (Eastern) Europe more broadly. She received a Distinction from the University of Cambridge for her MPhil dissertation titled “State experiments and the temporalized figure of ‘the Roma’ in the Romanian landscape: the (necro)politics of knowledge production and Roma representations between 1919 and 1945″. She loves teaching and working collaboratively, and is an organizer at the Race, Empire and Education and The Politics of Representation Collectives.

I am a doctoral researcher at Cambridge interested in educational policies and critical studies in education, and a member of the Cambridge Latin-American Research in Education Collective (CLAREC). I graduated as an educational psychologist from the University of Chile where I collaborated in research projects related to teachers’ work and their autonomy in different school settings. Before moving to the UK in 2018 where I completed a MA in Policy Studies in Education at the IOE-UCL, I participated in governmental teacher education projects and research-practice partnerships between schools and universities in Chile. Currently, in my PhD project, I examine the global and national policy ensemble of teacher accountability policies in Chile over time, for which I draw on a critical realist stance and a critical socio-spatial lens anchored in state theory.

I am a fourth-year PhD candidate. A member of St Johns College, my research interests include education and conflict (EAC), education in emergencies, the role of education for peacebuilding, recovery and conflict transformation. I have an academic background in Education and International Development (MPhil, University of Cambridge & MA, University of Birmingham). My PhD research focuses on the Higher Education Sector in Syria. It explores the responsibility of a university to a society experiencing conflict and its options for response. Philosophically and theoretically speaking, I employ critical realism and decolonial thinking to explore key questions such as: How can we pursue transformation through higher education amidst and despite continuing violence? How can we remain attentive to local and international regimes of power that exclude, violate, and discriminate without deflecting attention away from the main reason why EAC remains a crucial field of study: alleviating the suffering of those living the consequences of violence and attending to their hopes for a life with liveable conditions? My research and blogs can be found here: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1388-3282.

My research focuses on the intersection between higher education policy and territorial politics. More specifically, I am interested in how nationalism permeates higher education policy and practice in contexts of multinational federal states. I am currently a visiting research fellow at the Faculty of Education, Cambridge, and Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Danish School of Education, Aarhus University. In this capacity, I am involved in a comparative study on the impact of neonationalism on higher education in Europe.

I am a Chilean PhD researcher, with a background in communication studies, media and education. I studied Journalism and a Master in Communications in Chile and an MPhil in Sociology at the University of Cambridge. I am currently a PhD researcher at the Faculty of Education, University of Cambridge. I am interested in the multidisciplinary intersections and interactions between the fields of media and education. Presently, I am interested in mediatization research focused on the educational field, conducting a comparative study that seeks to explore the practices and visions of schoolteachers from England and Chile regarding media and technology. Considering the different approaches and sometimes discrepancies among mediatization researchers, I am also informed by Critical Realist Social Theory and social morphogenesis approach to examine ontological assumptions and associated blind spots in media and mediatization research.

Dr. Matthew W. Hughey is Professor of Sociology at the University of Connecticut (USA). He also holds affiliate faculty positions at the University of Cambridge (England), the University of Barcelona (Spain), and Nelson Mandela University (South Africa). He has also served as a visiting scholar at Columbia University (USA), University of the Free State (South Africa), Trinity College—Dublin (Ireland), University of Warwick (England), and the University of Kent (England). Professor Hughey’s research examines the forms and functions of race, media, organizations, science, and religion. He is the author of over eighty peer-reviewed articles and nine scholarly books, some of which include The White Savior Film: Content, Critics, and Consumption (Temple University Press, 2014) and White Bound: Nationalists, Antiracists, and the Shared Meanings of Race (Stanford University Press, 2012). Professor Hughey has received numerous awards and support from sources such as the American Sociological Association, Fulbright Commission, National Science Foundation, Russell Sage Foundation, and the Society for the Study of Social Problems, including the 2014 Distinguished Early Career Award from the American Sociological Association’s Section on Racial and Ethnic Minorities and the 2016 Mentoring Excellence Award from the Society for the Study of Symbolic Interaction. He sits on several editorial boards of scholarly journals and currently serves as editor of Sociology Compass—Race and Ethnicity.

Morten Hansen is a Research Associate on the Universities and Unicorns project, and a PhD student at the Faculty of Education, University of Cambridge. Morten specialises in education markets and has previously worked as a researcher at the Saïd Business School in Oxford.

Beiming is a PhD student at the Faculty of Education, University of Cambridge, under the supervision of Prof. Steven Watson. He focuses on Luhmann’s Social Systems Theory and knowledge sharing within social media and multicultural enterprises. Also interested in topics such as gender and equity in education. Before his PhD studies, he had a solid knowledge of the business area and obtained his second master’s degree in Education, Gender, and International Development at UCL IOE. He is a current member of PESGB and the Deputy Head of PR at CSSA Cambridge and has administrative work experience in higher education.

Since gaining his PhD in 2015, Dmitrii Sergeev has primarily focused on cultural meaning and its dependence on social determinants and cultural variables, analysing culture-related processes of meaning-making and the development of new forms of cultural texts. He investigates how cultural codes and production of cultural texts function within a particular social group that is underrepresented. His research visit to the Laboratory for Social Anthropology of the Collège de France in 2011 enhanced his knowledge of modern methodology applied in sociological research. His interest in illustrated literature with its connection to societal and cultural development stemmed from his study at the University of Versailles-Saint-Quentin in 2013. He questioned the fact of the emergence of illustrated children’s literature particularly with its connection to social and historical contexts. This led him to develop a theory of pragmasemantic behaviour which enriched the analytical instrumentation with new approaches, particularly, the sociology of the text and social semiotics. Later he linked the studies of illustrated texts and culturally underrepresented groups. His paper in the Sociological Studies Journal on the pragmasemantic theory through the emergence of children’s picturebooks was recognized as the best publication of 2016 in the “New Approach in Social Analysis” nomination category. In 2018 he worked on the development of syllabus of the “History of Children’s Picturebooks in the United States” in the Fulbright Faculty Development Program at Illinois State University.

I am interested in working towards education for peace and non-violence and access to quality educational resources for learners from disadvantaged backgrounds, in the context of India. I believe that in an increasingly polarised world, education must equip the learners with the values and skills for peaceful co-existence and non-violence. Through my research, I wish to identify workable models of peace education for the young adults of India. I draw inspiration from the Gandhian philosophy of non-violence and constructive programme, which informs my work and research interests in education. I obtained an integrated degree in Law and Science (BSc LLB (Hons)) from Gujarat National Law University in 2020. At law school, I actively contributed to the projects of the Legal Services Committee and the Centre for Law and Society to make law and the legal system accessible to the young adults of Ahmedabad and Gandhinagar. Prior to Cambridge, I worked at Rashtriya Raksha University to set up a department for industry-relevant vocational training programmes. I, along with a few friends, run a community library that provides quality educational resources to learners from thirty-six villages of Uttar Pradesh.

I am an educator and activist from India. My work explores identity in the classroom and how policy and pedagogy interplay to address issues of equity, inclusion and access in schools. My areas of focus include understanding how policies are understood and translated to the classroom context, especially for learners from underserved groups. I have a background in education, as well as in the development sector, with degrees in language and conflict analysis and peacebuilding. I have worked on research, documentation and advocacy on identity-based violence in South Asia. I moved to education to understand how it can mitigate polarisation and socio-economic marginalisations. As an educator, I have worked with teachers across the country to understand combining policy, practice and pedagogy with curriculum towards contextually congruent and inclusive education. The policies I focus on include the Right to Education Act and National Education Policy of India, and their implementation for economically weaker section and socio-cultural and linguistic minority learners. This includes comparative education policy analyses to understand the purpose and practice of education in multi-ethnic, heterogeneous societies.

I am a doctoral researcher primarily attached to the Research for Equitable Access and Learning (REAL) Centre in the Faculty of Education and a member of Homerton College. I am also the Head of Commonwealth Scholarships at the Association of Commonwealth Universities. My academic research interest is in education for development with a focus on higher-education mobility and international scholarship programmes. My doctoral research explores access to aid-funded scholarships by refugees and internally displaced people in East Africa.

BA Education from University of Birmingham Currently working on HE employability and vocational education!

Zichen Huang graduated from Peking University (China) with a bachelor degree in Philosophy, Politics and Economics (PPE). During her undergraduate studies, she mainly focused her academic interest in Rousseau’s political philosophy and education theories. In June 2020, she published the article Rousseau’s Method of Moral Education: Desire and Love Reconstruct the Liberty in Civil Society. She was also the research assistant at the Center for Studies in Politics and Law (Peking University) and was responsible for the translation and edition of global government articles. As for her internship experience, she focused on the protection of children’s rights and education inequality. She once worked(or volunteered) for Distressed Children and Infants International (DCI, USA), Beijing Children’s Legal Aid and Research Center (China), African Girls Empowerment Network (AGE, Nigeria).

Consuelo is a Ph.D. student at the Faculty of Education, working in the sociology of education and critical youth studies. She has a background in sociology and social policy and previous to her Ph.D. worked in Chile on issues related to the privatization of the education system, class segregation, and civic knowledge. Her doctoral research looks into the educational system in Chile and how it has been shaped by neoliberal policies and modernity-coloniality forces that produce inequitable and segregated systems with long-lasting consequences for young people to fully participate in society. Her specific focus is on how young people schooled and living in marginalized urban areas of Santiago, Chile, experienced inclusion/exclusion, belonging, and political engagement in times of rapid social change and political struggles. She is also interested in exploring epistemological and methodological approaches to these questions that challenge western-centered perspectives mainly by tapping into embodied knowledge from Latin America.

My research focuses on critical youth studies, state theory, feminist politics and decolonial practice in the Levant and beyond. I am also interested in transnational mutual aid and political organising against injustice within the international development and humanitarian aid industries.

I am a Brazilian doctoral student at the Faculty of Education, University of Cambridge. My research examines the role of higher education which goes beyond the traditional functions of teaching and research. I am particularly interested in how universities engage with communities, social movements and other sectors of society, contributing to the development of alternative futures (eg. Buen Viver, human flourishing), social justice, democratic societies and emancipated individuals. In this academic journey, I have a particular motivation to explore dialogical and ethnographic approaches and the philosophy of critical realism. I have a MBA and a degree in marketing, where for 20 years, I worked mainly with technology and innovation projects. I am particularly interested in and a member of networks such as the Cambridge Latin American Research in Education Collective (CLAREC), the National Association of Graduate Studies and Research in Education (Anped); the Knowledge, Power and Politics (KPP) research cluster; the Center for Global Higher Education (CGHE); the Cambridge Global Challenges (CGC); the Cambridge University Brazilian Society (CUBS) and the European Group for Organizational Studies (EGOS).

John currently teaches a variety of marketing, strategy, and international business courses at the undergraduate, MBA, and executive levels at the Stephen M Ross School of Business at the University of Michigan (USA). He also serves as Co-Director of the School’s Yaffe Digital Media Initiative. Previously, he was Academic Director of the School’s weekend and evening MBA programmes, and Director of Educational Outreach at the University’s William Davidson Institute. John also holds an appointment at the University’s Center for Russian, East European, & Eurasian Studies. Although his disciplinary home is business and management studies, John’s scholarly activity centres on teaching, learning, and educational administration. In a current project, he is exploring education hubs, specifically through the lens of industry clusters. He is also interested in virtual exchanges as an alternative to traditional face-to-face international experiences. And he is the editor for the ‘Contemporary Issues in Higher Education’ series from Info Age publishing. Forthcoming volumes focus on the internationalisation of higher education, black experiences in higher education, and the branding of higher education.

Adelaide is a PhD candidate at the Faculty of Education, researching educational governance and ideological tensions between civil society and the state. Her geographical focus is Poland. She is a Cambridge Trust Scholar. Adelaide holds an MPhil from the University of Cambridge in Knowledge, Power and Politics in Education. From 2014 to 2020 she was actively involved in international initiatives of the European Youth Parliament (EYP), an educational project aimed at empowering young Europeans to become active citizens. She was also the President of the organisation in Poland, in 2019. Apart from being involved in the third sector, Adelaide has experience working in the public sector internationally. She interned at the European Parliament and the US Congress. Adelaide holds a BA in Philosophy and History of Art from University College London (UCL). She is one of the Co-Chairs of the Cambridge Peace and Education Research Group for 2022/23.

For half the year, I enjoy the privilege of space to think, read and write in the Faculty of Education. For the other half, I work in education consultancy, including projects in the South Caucasus (exploring minority rights in conflict-affected settings), India (implementing low-tech solutions to improve English teaching) and East Anglia (redesigning professional development communities for schools, in response to the COVID-19 pandemic). I’m interested in thinking critically about the interaction between the future of education, democracy, difference and politics, particularly in response to conflict and climate crises. Currently, I’m using ethnographically rooted methods to explore the idea of ‘town and gown’ borders in Cambridge, as they are experienced by young people. I am a member of CLAREC and Hughes Hall. 

Tyra Amofah-Akardom

Doctoral Student (tea31@cam.ac.uk)

I am a current Cambridge Trust (Harding) and ESRC funded PhD student at the Faculty. My research focuses on Black Women’s Activism at “elite” British and American universities. Using a myriad of creative, qualitative research methods, I examine Black Women’s political action as a love language and conceptualise university spaces as violent battlegrounds for the nation-state. Prior to doctoral studies, I completed my MPhil in Knowledge, Power and Politics and my BA in Education (Policy and International Development) also at the Faculty. I am currently the President of the Black Cantabs Research Society, and Student Co-Chair of Cambridge’s Black Advisory Hub.

Jordi Collet-Sabé is an associate professor of sociology of education at the University of Vic-UCC (Barcelona), where he was the Vice-rector for Research (2019-2022). His research interests are education policy at global, national regional and local level; family-school relations; and education for the common (good). 

My research focuses on the intersection of sociology and politics of higher education, including critical pedagogy and the role of ideology in education and learning as a resistance practice. My current project explores education made by political emigrates; drawing on a socio-spatial perspective, the project aims to investigate educative and knowledge-making hubs to understand them within (de)colonial discourse of Eastern Europe.

Dr. Nomisha Kurian

Teaching Associate (nck28@cam.ac.uk)

Nomisha is currently researching how human-centred design can produce empathy-driven technology. Her forthcoming publications examine the role of digital storytelling, Artificial Intelligence, and gaming technology in promoting wellbeing, inclusion and peace. Embracing interdisciplinary thinking, her PhD integrated psychology and sociology and focused on designing safe and supportive environments to promote child wellbeing in high-poverty and trauma-affected communities in India. She recently became the first Education researcher to win the Cambridge Applied Research Award for socially impactful research, out of 260+ applicants, for translating her research into interventions for 286 low-income pupils across the UK to widen participation in higher education. Previously, as a Yale University Henry Fellow, she used international human rights law to design an anti-bullying framework for marginalised learners. Her work on wellbeing, inclusion and peacebuilding has most recently been published in the Oxford Review of Education, the British Educational Research Journal, the Journal of Pastoral Care in Education, the Palgrave Handbook of Citizenship and Education, the Journal of Peace Education and the International Journal of Human Rights. She co-chairs the Cambridge University Wellbeing and Inclusion Special Interest Group and previously co-chaired the Cambridge Peace and Education Research Group

Alys is now a PhD researcher at the faculty of education after completing her masters in Knowledge, power and politics in 2021. Her current research under the supervision of Dr Elizabeth Maber, looks at discourses of nations and nationalism in educational institutions. Her past work has seen her exploring themes of identity, citizenship and belonging. Originally from Wales, her research focuses on Welsh educational contexts. Alys favours qualitative and post-structural methodologies but welcomes collaborative opportunities to work with others using alternative methods and frameworks.

Dr. Dan Zhang is an Associate Professor of Sociology of Education at the Institute of
International and Comparative Education, East China Normal University (ECNU), and
currently a Visiting Scholar at the Faculty of Education, University of Cambridge, the UK.
Dr. Zhang holds two PhD degrees: a PhD in Sociology from the Center of Max Weber, École
Normale Supérieure de Lyon, France and a PhD in Education from ECNU, China. She was a
Visiting Scholar at Berkeley School of Education (BSE) (02/2011 – 06/2011), the USA and
the Department of Education (09/2019), University of Hamburg, Germany. Her research
interests cover education policy at global, national, and local levels from a comparative
perspective; educational equity and gender socialization with migrant children; and
internationalization of French higher education reform. As a PI, Dr. Zhang is well funded by
many national and international funding bodies, including National Social Science
Foundation (BDA190070), Ministry of Education of Republic of China (15YJC880123) and
Sino-French program (JoRISS). She was recognized for her academic achievements by the
highly competitive and selective talent programs, including ShuGuang Talent Program and
PuJiang Talent Program.

Duaa is a Postgraduate Student at the Faculty of Education, University of Cambridge. She is the elected student representative for the Staff Student Consultative Committee for the Knowledge Power & Politics route. Duaa’s research interest lies in how educational and social policy influences British Muslims’ lives and the impact of the Relationship and Sex Education legislation on the different stakeholders. Duaa also seeks to develop an understanding of how governmentality of minority communities is enacted through policy. Her research touches on areas such as identity, race, culture and critical race theory, and focuses on the relationship between religion, knowledge and power.