Research Fellow in psycho-social aspects of women’s health in mid-later life at work, The University of Edinburgh Dr Belinda Steffan has a PhD in Management from University of Edinburgh (2020) and is a Chartered Management Accountant (qualified 2003). She earned an MSc in Strategic Management Accounting from London Metropolitan University (2002), a Graduate Diploma in Psychology from Monash University (2016), and an MSc in Psychology of Individual Differences from University of Edinburgh (2017). Research Interests Belinda researches how experiences of gendered ageing, age bias and age-related stereotyping at work influence continued labour force participation in mid to later life. She is particularly interested in the individual within the organisational context of work. Her research has a focus on women’s health in the workplace, specifically menopause. Current projects include a 3-year investigation into hidden health factors affecting how workers over 50 engage with work (SHAW Project), a separate longitudinal study on menopause and flexible work and an exploration in to the intersectionality of menopause and neurodivergence at work.
PhD Candidate, Department of Sociology & Criminology, University of Windsor Bridget Nicholls is a PhD candidate in Sociology and Social Justice at the University of Windsor and was recently appointed as an Associate Fellow to the Oxford Centre of Animal Ethics. Bridget also works with the Animal and Interpersonal Abuse Research Group. Her research examines the power and depth of the human-animal relationship through a governance lens.The areas she is most interested in is the sociology of law, multispecies labour, and green harms/crimes. Bridget's work is interdisciplinary having earned a BA with honours in labour studies and an MA in social justice and equity studies from Brock University where she also served as a humane jobs fellow.
Associate Professor, Université de Montpellier Dr. Sea Matilda Bez is an associate professor at Montpellier Management Institute (University of Montpellier). She has been involved for three years in the project steering committee in the Horizon 2020 project DiHECO specialized on digital platform in health. She has published several papers in academic journal on patient feedback platform, coopetition, open-innovation and artificial intelligence. She completed her Ph.D on “Strategizing and Managing Coopetition”. Her Ph.D. highlighted one of the most successful coopetitive projects: a coopetitive project that generated 100 billion dollars. The interested stake of her research describes how competitors can share their core competitive advantage transparently and even teach each other how to become stronger. It is counter-intuitive and in contradiction with the traditional strategic approach of keeping secret firms’ core competitive advantage. Then, she did a post-doctoral research with Henry Chesbrough at Berkeley California University on open –coopetition. Moreover, in addition to academic activities, she has given invited presentations in front of innovation directors and alliance managers from the Silicon Valley or French companies, and be in charge of fostering a collaborative environment between the academic and practitioner for Avery Dennison, Enel, Tech Mahindra.
Postdoctoral Research Associate in SCHARR, University of Sheffield I come from a bioscience background, having completed an integrated MBiolSci degree in Plant Sciences at The University of Sheffield. Following this, I completed an interdisciplinary PhD focusing on the food security and health and well-being benefits of urban horticulture in the UK and global North, also at The University of Sheffield. My interest in nutrition and health promotion led me to join the Section of Public Health of ScHARR, where I have held my current role as a Postdoctoral Research Associate since April 2023. My research focuses on the potential role of biofortified foods in improving nutrition in the UK, contributing to the H3 (Healthy Soil, Healthy Food, Healthy People) project. Prior to this, I worked as a casual research assistant on a couple of projects, and as a General Teaching Assistant in the School of Biosciences at The University of Sheffield, which allowed me to gain AFHEA status.
Lecturer, Monash University I am a Lecturer and Researcher at Monash's Human-Centred Computing Group, specializing in mixed-methods research, user experience, usability, and data analysis. I am fortunate to work on fascinating projects delving into Human-AI Interaction and gaining deep insights into human emotion and cognition. My passion lies in merging cognitive psychology and ubiquitous computing, allowing me to develop cutting-edge techniques for comprehensive, long-term mental state assessments using everyday devices. Through my interdisciplinary approach, I strive to create computing systems that adapt to users' needs, facilitate information processing, and enhance overall well-being.
Professor in Political Violence, University of Bath Professor Brad Evans is a political philosopher, theorist, and writer, who’s work focuses on the problem of violence. He is the author of twenty books and edited volumes, along with over a hundred and fifty academic and international media articles. Brad is the founding director of the Centre for the Study of Violence, which was launched in 2023, and holds a Chair in Political Violence & Aesthetics at the University of Bath, United Kingdom. He has previously held academic positions at the University of Bristol and the University of Leeds, while also teaching at Columbia University. Throughout 2015-17, he led a dedicated series of discussions on violence for The New York Times opinion section (The Stone). Brad later continued the conversation as lead editor in a column dealing with violence and the arts/critical theory with the Los Angeles Review of Books, which he ran from 2017-2022. He has recently been co-directing an international collaborative project titled, “State of Disappearance” (with Chantal Meza), which brings together the arts, humanities and social sciences to rethink what disappearance means in the 21st Century. A recipient of a number of grants and scholarships, in 2018, Brad's Portraits of Violence book won a prestigious Independent Publishers Award. His works have been translated into many languages including, Spanish, Italian, French, German, Russian, Finnish, Dutch, Chinese, Turkish and Korean. Launched in 2011, Brad is founder of the Histories of Violence project, which has a user base spanning 148 different countries. While producing its educational content and managing its online presence, he has also directed its global research projects on dedicated themes related to the problem of violence and its implications. These have included “Disposable Life,” which interrogated the meaning of mass violence in the 21st Century, along with the “Ten Years of Terror” project, which notably received international acclaim, including the screening of its associated film at the Solomon K. Guggenheim Museum, New York, during the commemorative events that marked the 10th anniversary during September 2011. Committed to education in the public interest, Brad works in consultation with a number of global organisations in both the policy and cultural fields, most recently including Save the Children. In 2016 he co-directed a forum in collaboration with the International Committee of the Red Cross in Geneva titled “Old Pain, New Demons”, on the occasion of the International Day in Support of Victims of Torture. Brad has also worked with cultural organisations such as Opera North, UK, co-directing initiatives on the theatrical and performative nature of violence. Recently he has hosted and led a series of discussions under the rubric of a “Century of Violence” to mark the 100th anniversary of the journal The Philosopher by interrogating with leading authorities the most important books on violence during that period. Brad has been a visiting fellow at the Committee on Global Thought at Columbia University, New York (2013-14) and distinguished society fellow at Dartmouth College, New Hampshire (2017). More recently, he has been a visiting fellowship at the Käte Hamburger Centre for Apocalyptic and Post-Apocalyptic Studies (CAPAS) at Heidelberg University in Germany (2023). Brad regularly makes television and radio appearances discussing his research and wider political, philosophical, and cultural concerns. He continues to write for many prominent international news outlets such as the New York Times, Newsweek, the Times (U.K.), the Guardian, the Independent, The Times Higher Education, World Financial Review, Al Jazeera, TruthOut, Counterpunch and Wales Arts Review. His projects have been featured in various outlets including NME, Business Standard, The Telegraph, Metro, The Indian Times, Pakistan Today, Hamilton Spectator, CBS news, ABC news, El Pais, Art Review, and Art Forum to name a few. In terms of broadcast conversation and more popular forms of entertainment, Brad was the inaugural guest on Russell Brand's podcast show Under the Skin, which debuted at No.1 on the iTunes charts in United Kingdom and Australia & No. 3 in USA and Canada. It held its No.1 download positions in both respective countries for over a week. Brad would later feature several times on the podcast covering a variety of topics from terrorism, the pandemic onto fascism. Together, they also co-hosted a 4 part series “Books with BraNd” in which they discussed timely and timeless classics. Alongside this, Brad would also appear numerous times on Brand's "True News" series The Trews and his YouTube videos, where they analysed worldly events. These podcasts and videos have been downloaded over 8 million times. Working alongside the comedian Jimmy Carr, Brad was a credited academic advisor for the Netflix show The Fix launched in December 2018. Brad's published books include Ecce Humanitas: Beholding the Pain of Humanity (Columbia University Press, 2021); When the Towers Fell: Commemorating the 20th Anniversary of 9/11 (The Los Angeles Review of Books Press, 2021) Conversations on Violence: An Anthology (Pluto Press, 2021); The Quarantine Files: Thinkers in Self-Isolation (The Los Angeles Review of Books Press, 2020); The Atrocity Exhibition: Life in the Age of Total Violence (The Los Angeles Review of Books Press, 2019); Violence: Humans in Dark Times (with Natasha Lennard, Citylights, 2018); Histories of Violence: Post-War Critical Thought (with Terrell Carver, Zed Books, 2017); Portraits of Violence: An Illustrated History of Radical Thinking (with Sean Michael Wilson, New Internationalist, 2016); Disposable Futures: The Seduction of Violence in the Age of the Spectacle (with Henry Giroux, Citylights: 2015), Resilient Life: The Art of Living Dangerously (with Julian Reid, Polity Press, 2014), Liberal Terror (Polity Press, 2013), and Deleuze & Fascism: Security - War - Aesthetics (with Julian Reid, Routledge, 2013). Forthcoming books include the co-curated State of Disappearance (with Chantal Meza, McGill-Queens University Press, 2023) and How Black was my Valley: Life & Fate in a Post-Industrial Heartland (Repeater/Penguin Random House, 2024).
