PhD Candidate in Political Science, Emory University I am a PhD candidate in the Department of Political Science at Emory University. I am also Princeton Dissertation Scholar at the Mamdouha S. Bobst Center for Peace and Justice, Emerging Scholar at the Harry Frank Guggenheim Foundation, and EPOVB Early-Career Fellow at APSA’s Elections, Public Opinion, and Voting Behavior Section. I study how political communication, elite strategy, and psychology shape (1) the dynamics of conflict escalation and (2) public opinion on international cooperation and democracy, with a focus on East Asia, the United States, and their interactions. I hold an MPhil in Economic Research from the University of Cambridge, where I was Hughes Hall Scholar and Hong Kong Scholar. I also hold a BEcon in Economics, Politics, and Public Administration from the University of Hong Kong, where I was John Swire Scholar, Undergraduate Research Fellow, and a first-generation-to-college student. Growing up in Hong Kong’s public housing shaped how I think about social inequality, social justice, and social policy. It also drew me closer to the masses, whose formation of political attitudes is the crux of my research agenda. My research has been published or is forthcoming in Comparative Political Studies, International Organization, Political Behavior, Political Science Research and Methods, Science, The Journal of Politics, and other journals.
Research Fellow in Clinical, Education and Health Psychology, UCL I am a Research Fellow at UCL with an interest in how we can support better mental health in people who have experienced early adversity, including those who have spent time in the care system living in foster care or children's homes. I am especially interested in how we can use relationships with other people as a way to support positive mental health outcomes after trauma or adversity. In 2022, I took up a post as a post-doctoral Research Fellow on the ReThink study, a project focused on understanding what makes a difference to the mental health of care-experienced young people moving to secondary school or turning 18, under the Principle Investigator, Professor Rachel Hiller (UCL) and Professor Lisa Holmes (University of Sussex). I completed my undergraduate degree in Experimental Psychology at Jesus College Oxford before training as a secondary school science teacher with a specialism in Physics. During this time I became involved in the project that has become Lighthouse Pedagogical Trust, a not-for-profit children's residential care provider and innovator in the sector. Through this and my teaching experience became increasingly focused on trying to better understand what can be done to better support care-experienced young people. I completed my MSc in Developmental Psychology and Clinical Practice at the Anna Freud Centre and UCL in 2018. I completed my PhD entitled 'Understanding long-term fostering relationships: phenomenological and contemporary attachment theory perspectives' in 2023 at UCL. I have worked on several collaborative projects with care-experienced collaborators including the co-developed children's book 'Where Did My Dinosaur Go?' published with Coram BAAF.
Lecturer, Law School, Macquarie University Dr Ebony Birchall is a Lecturer at Macquarie Law School, Deputy Director of the BHR Access to Justice Lab (A2J Lab), Executive Board Member of Macquarie University's Ethics and Agency Research Centre, and Lawyer on Macquarie University's Ethics Committee. Ebony runs Macquarie Law School's Strategic Litigation Clinic, which provides the opportunity for law students to design strategic litigation on a range of social justice issues, with assistance from leading Australian litigators. She convenes two law subjects: Refugee Law and The Law of Torts. She also supervises several honours and post graduate research students. Ebony is a researcher with impact, as recognised through her success in securing several research prizes and grants, including the Macquarie University's Emerging Scholar Award for Research with Impact in 2022. Her area of research focus relates to challenging human rights abuse by powerful actors such as business and governments. Her work is motivated to strengthen legal and non-legal mechanisms for overcoming power imbalances, with the aim of improving access to justice. Prior to joining Macquarie University, Ebony practised as a human rights lawyer for over a decade. Her litigation practice was at the forefront of Australian-based strategic litigation. Cases included the Manus Island Class Action, Australia’s largest human rights case at the time of resolution, which resulted in the Australian Government and several businesses who operated the detention facility paying $90million in compensation and costs. She also acted on behalf of almost 10,000 people from refugee backgrounds in the 2014 Immigration Data Breach Litigation, the first matter to use Australian privacy legislation to achieve accountability through compensation for a mass privacy breach. Other cases include the Essure Contraceptive Device Class Action and the Strip Search Class Action against NSW Police. Ebony partners with several community legal centres and advocacy networks. She has appeared in all of Australia’s major media outlets and is a sought-after speaker at community/advocacy events. She holds a PhD in law, and undergraduate degrees in law and business from the University of Wollongong. She completed postgraduate studies in human rights at the University of Sydney, and studied international human rights law (business and human rights) at the University of Oxford.
Research Assistant, Environmental Change Institute and PhD Candidate, Nature-based Solutions Initiative, University of Oxford Emma holds a B.A in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology from Princeton University and a MSc. in Sustainability, Enterprise and the Environment from University of Oxford. She has research experience in Bermuda and Palau on coral reef and reef fish ecology and on the nature-related risks of UK-based financial institutions. Emma previously worked at Aon, a financial services firm, in their Climate Change Unit on analytics and reinsurance products for climate- and ESG-related risks in London and New York. Currently, she is a PhD student in Biology under the supervision of Nicola Ranger (Environmental Change Institute (ECI)) and Nathalie Seddon (Nature-based Solutions Initiative). Alongside her PhD, Emma serves on the Advisory Board for BSI's Standards for Biodiversity Markets and has holds a research assistant position with the ECI's Global Finance and Economy group, focusing on greening finance for nature.
Senior Lecturer and Programme Leader BA International Studies, Auckland University of Technology The dynamics within and between language learning and teaching, language teacher education, and intercultural communicative language teaching have always fascinated me. My doctoral thesis explored language teachers’ conceptualisations and practices of intercultural communicative language teaching (iCLT). Findings demonstrated teachers had an implicit potential for intercultural teaching and that targeted intercultural professional development appeared to be the best strategy to unlock this potential. I am now branching out into coloniality and decolonising (inter)cultural studies.
Assistant Professor in Media and Digital Cultures, University of Groningen My research area is widely concerned with digital culture + society, with a special interest in the processes by which citizens and communities learn, resist, and appropriate digital media. More specifically, I have experience studying data subjectivities, online violence, and digital literacies, among others. I hold a Ph.D. from the University of British Columbia, and I am currently working as a post-doctoral fellow at Royal Roads University.
