Senior Research Assistant Law Health Justice, University of Technology Sydney Eugenia Tsihlis is a Senior Research Assistant within the Law stream of the UTS Ageing Research Collaborative. Her key focus areas are access to legal services for older people, the prevention of elder abuse and the evolving regulatory landscape of the aged care sector. Prior to joining UTS, Eugenia worked as a lawyer in Wills and Estates. She has also held the Young Lawyer Representative position on the Elder Law, Capacity and Succession Committee of the Law Society of NSW.
PhD in Geography and Sustainable Development, University of St Andrews Most recently, I have completed a postdoctoral research fellowship with the School of Geography and Sustainable Development with the University of St Andrews (Nov 22 - Aug 23), conducting field work in the Outer Hebrides, Scotland, to understand how peatland restoration is perceived by rural crofting communities beset with pressures and opportunities from policy and private finance. The outputs from this project include a short Correspondence piece for Nature (https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-023-03539-9), and a website, a public-facing output targeted at the researched community, comprising a booklet, FAQ, Glossary, executive summary in Gáidhlig and English, to assist with decision-making on peatland restoration (https://peatland-restoration-guide.wp.st-andrews.ac.uk). I hope to write a Conversation piece highlighting our research and outputs regarding these. Presently I am pursuing a PhD with the school of Geography and SD at the University of St Andrews, which focuses on the commune-form as the newly emergent, pre-figurative Event for ecological futures, analysed spatially and temporally using case studies in North America and Europe. I'm also editor-in-chief for the interdisciplinary journal INTER-, published by the Graduate School in St Andrews, with our first issue forthcoming May 2024.
Senior Lecturer in Dress and Belonging, Manchester Fashion Institute, Manchester Metropolitan University I am a senior lecturer in Dress and Belonging at Manchester Fashion Institute. Originally from the States, I worked in printing and publishing in NYC before settling in Manchester, UK. I lecture across fashion studies subjects including critical theory, brand development, marketing principals, and graphic communication practice for fashion. I am associate editor of the journal Fashion, Style and Popular Culture, an imprint of Intellect Books. My research is multidisciplinary in nature. I seek connections between cultural memory, autoethnography, human geography, dress, identity, disability, belonging and wellness. I co-organised and co-led the January 2021 international symposium Face Off: The Provocation and Possibilities of Masks and Head Coverings which emerged from my interest in how society changed and adapted through the wearing of the COVID face masks during the pandemic. My paper for the conference, ‘Who is the Sick One Here: Mask Refusal and Ambivalent Social Identity in COVID America’, explored the links between American cultural memory of ‘The Frontier’ and the cultural trope of ‘Pioneer Spirit’ in the visceral rejection of the COVID medical mask as a symbol of fragility and sickness. This will soon be published as a chapter in an edited Intellect Books volume. I am guest editor of the Fashion, Style and Popular Culture Special Issue, 'Dressing through Pandemics'. I co-edited the Bloomsbury volume Memories of Dress: Recollections of Material Identities (2023). Her solo chapter, 'The American Look: Memories of Not Fitting In', introduced the term ‘body dressing work’ to articulate my experience negotiating the social norms and expectations of clothing the suburban American female body with the anxiety of living with a spinal deformity and was highlighted in The Guardian (2022). I have developed the concept of 'cultural memory of dress' where national popular history and popular culture are woven as narratives into clothing tastes and styles. This is explored in my Bloomsbury solo chapter (above) and the publications “The American Look”: The transformation of women’s sportswear in 1930s and 1940s America’ (2023) and 'The Shift Dress as Cultural Meaning' (2018). I am also interested in the ways in which collaborative learning enhances students' creativity, self-confidence, and sense of self. My practice-based doctorate, The Artist’s Book: Making as embodied knowledge of practice and the self, considered the role of creativity and the pedagogy of making in the development of identity via working through personal and cultural memory with visual practice. Since 2020 I have collaborated yearly with colleagues from Pearl Academy in Delhi and Mumbai to develop 'The Global Artisan Project', a collaborative online international learning (COIL) project. This co-creative project connects undergraduate fashion students in the UK and India with Indian artisans and their underrepresented brands. My Pearl Academy colleagues and I presented a paper introducing this project at the Future of International Fashion and Design Education hosted by Istituto Marangoni in 2022 which will soon be published as a chapter in a Routledge edited volume. I am also an artist bookmaker. Her handbound artist's books have been exhibited in the UK, Ireland, Germany, and the United States. Qualifications PhD (2017): The Artist's Book: Making as emodied knowlege of creativity and the self (2017), University of Chester (practice-based, pass with no corrections) MA: Visual Culture (2008), MIRIAD, Manchester Metropolitan University (Distinction) Postgraduate Certificate of Eduation (2004): Higher, Further & Adult Education BA (Hons) Graphic Design (2003): Manchester Metropolitan University (First Class Honours) Recognitions Fellow of the Royal Society of Art (FRSA) Higher Education Academy: Senior Fellow (SFHEA) Previous Employment 2018-2019 Senior Lecturer, Academic Professional Development, University Teaching Academy, MMU 2017-2018 Staffordshire University, Head of Department of Art & Design 2013-2017: Senior Teaching Fellow, Faculty of Arts and Media, University of Chester 2009-2017 University of Chester, Programme Leader of Fashion Marketing and Communication, Senior Lecturer Graphic Design, MA Design, MA Fine Art and Senior University Teaching Fellow.
PhD in English Literature, University of Sheffield Ellis Walker is a PhD English Literature candidate at the University of Sheffield. Her research excavates the digital and material spaces and places where black British authors and their books are discussed. As a member of the Black Writers' Guild she is invested in raising awareness of racial inequalities in the publishing industry, which forms a large part of the thesis. In 2017 she completed her MA in Black British Writing from Goldsmiths University, with a research project that became a survey of blackness in Britain from the Windrush era to present day. Post-PhD, Ellis hopes to open a publishing imprint in the north of England to help other curious minds become more aware of the blackness in Britain outside of the major cities.
Chancellor's Fellow - Journalism, Media and Communication, University of Strathclyde I specialise in the critical analysis of gender, race and digital media/technology. My current research examines this intersection from the perspective of digital justice and equality, looking A.I., smart tech, social media and other technopractices in everyday life that oppress, marginalise and disadvantage minority groups. My most recent books include: 'Digital Disengagement: Covid-19, Digital Justice and the Politics of Refusal' (2023)(w/ A Kuntsman and S Martin); 'Paradoxes of Digital Disengagement: In Search of the Opt-out button' (2022)(w/ A Kuntsman); and 'The Gendered Motorcycle: Representations in Society, Media and Popular Culture" (2018). I am have a forthcoming book on digital identities and virtuality (Routledge). Beyond publications, I am currently a member of OFCOM's Making Sense of Media Research Working Group, and have also been part of the Scottish Government's Independent Expert Group, working on the Unlocking the Value of Scotland's Public Sector Personal Data Programme (2022-23). My articles have appeared in international media outlets such as The New York Times and Newsweek Japan, and have appeared on BBC 10 o'clock News, BBC Radio 4 and BBC Radio Scotland to discuss issues around technology and/or gender.
