Professor of Practice in International Relations, University of St Andrews Before taking up his post at the University of St Andrews Stephen Gethins served as the MP for North East Fife. During his time in parliament, Stephen was twice selected to sit on the Foreign Affairs Select Committee. He was also the SNP spokesperson on Europe and International Affairs. He worked on issues such as the UK’s response to the war in Syria, relations with Russia, the Syrian refugee crisis and the conflict in Libya among others. He was also closely involved in cross party efforts to deal with Brexit and was one of the few UK parliamentarians to have worked in the EU institutions. Stephen has made regular appearances in UK and international broadcast media as well as writing for print media. He has also written about Scotland’s Foreign Policy footprint and raised the issue in the House of Commons. Before entering Parliament Stephen worked in democratisation and peace-building in the western Balkans and South Caucasus. He was also a Special Adviser to Scotland’s First Minister on EU and International Affairs as well as Energy and Climate Change. Stephen was a member of the House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee over two parliamentary terms from 2015 to 2019. The Committee published reports on military operations in Syria, China, Russia, Libya, South America and the Rohingya crisis, amongst others. He also led and participated in committee delegations to a number of countries, including Iran, Colombia, Saudi Arabia and Russia. During his time in Parliament Stephen was an Office Bearer on the All Party Groups for Refugees, Climate Change, Georgia and Bosnia among others. He has made visits to Refugee Camps along the Syrian border as well as areas affected by conflict such as those in Georgia and Ukraine. He also co-authored cross party legislation around Brexit in October and November 2019 along with colleagues from other political parties such as Dominic Grieve, Keir Starmer, Phillip Hammond and Jo Swinson. Stephen Gethins is on the Board of Trustees of the John Smith Trust and a Special Adviser to Beyond Borders Scotland. He is also a member of the Judging panel for the Civility in Politics Awards. Stephen was a Special Adviser to Scotland’s First Minister from 2009 to 2012 focusing on issues such as International and EU affairs, Energy and Climate Change among other issues.
PhD Candidate, Cardiff University During my BSc in Zoology at Cardiff University, on a placement year I conducted a research project studying the habitat use of Samango monkeys in relation to their food availability, first sparking an interest in a career in research. For my dissertation I used genetics to assess the success of translocations of the critically endangered Bojer's skinks among the islands surrounding Mauritius, which was published in Conservation Genetics shortly after I graduated in 2017. In 2018 I started a Masters by Research at the University of Bristol looking at plant plasticity and roots under environmental stress, of two altitude-specific ragwort species found on Mt Etna, Sicily. I submitted this thesis and successfully defended it May 2020. In October 2019 I returned to Cardiff to begin a PhD with the Cardiff University Otter Project and Molecular Ecology groups, using the newly sequenced otter reference genome and samples from the otter archive to study the demographic history of populations within the UK. During the pandemic I begun learning the skills required for population genomics, and initiated the collborations from which I have developed our range-wide whole genome dataset of 63 samples. During my PhD I have spent time working at the Smithsonian's National Zoo and Conservation Biology Institute with one of my supervisors, Dr Klaus-Peter Koepfli, thanks to a Welsh Government Researcher Mobility Grant. I have also spent three months working at the Centre of Evolutionary Hologenomics, at the GLOBE Institute in Copenhagen with Prof Tom Gilbert learning about ancient and historic DNA lab and bioinformatic methods, thanks to an EMBO Scientific Exchange Grant.
Assistant Professor, Opole University of Technology Doctor of Economics, graduated from the Faculty of Law, Administration and Economics of the University of Wrocław (2004). She defended her doctoral thesis at the Faculty of Engineering and Economics of the Wrocław University of Economics (2010). Since 2007, she has been an employee of the Opole University of Technology (Faculty of Economics and Management, Department of Regional Policy). Scholarship holder of the Foundation for Polish-German Cooperation. She completed research internships at Humboldt-Innovation GmbH in Berlin and at the University of Mannheim. It is a member of the National Migration Network. He cooperates with local government institutions, including: with regional development strategies. He is a member of the expert group developing the Regional Program for the Integration of Foreigners in the Opole Voivodeship. She carried out research projects devoted to migration. In 2010, she conducted research among foreign students studying at universities in the Opole Voivodeship (project financed by the Opole University of Technology). In the years 2012 - 2013, expert and co-author of the report prepared in the project entitled Development of remedial systems facilitating integration as a result of comprehensive research on selected case studies of third-country nationals in the Opole Voivodeship, which was co-financed by the European Fund for the Integration of Third-Country Nationals. In 2014-2015, she participated in an international project financed by European funds entitled Effective transfer of knowledge from science to industry in the Opole Voivodeship , which included, among others: return migrant entrepreneurs. In 2017-2018, she led a research project titled Economic immigrants in the senior care services sector in Poland (case study from the Opole Voivodeship). Methodological challenges , which was financed by the National Science Center. In 2019, she was a co-author of a study carried out for the Marshal's Office of the Opole Voivodeship entitled Entrepreneurship of immigrants as a competitive advantage of the Opole Voivodeship . In his scientific work, he deals with issues related to the labor market and the changes taking place there, as well as migration processes, in particular immigration to Poland. She is the author (and co-author) of five monographs and dozens of scientific articles.
Associare Professor, College of Medicine and Public Health, Flinders University Associate Professor Sonja Klebe is a senior staff specialist in Diagnostic Pathology at Flinders Medical Centre and a Clinical Academic Associate Professor at Flinders University. She has a special interest in pleuropulmonary pathology and molecular pathology with a focus on mesothelioma and asbestos-related diseases. Sonja graduated from Medicine at the Free University of Berlin, with a MD in Biochemistry. She completed a PhD in Immunology and Gene Therapy at Flinders University in Adelaide in 2000 and obtained her Fellowship from the Royal Australasian College of Pathologists (RCPA) in 2005. She is a Member of the International Mesothelioma Panel, the Pulmonary Pathology Society and the International Mesothelioma Interest Group (IMIG) and IASLC staging committee. She is also a member of Lung Expert Group for development of Lung Cancer Structured Reporting Protocol for the RCPA and heads the mesothelioma structured reporting. She is a contributor to the WHO blue books. She regularly serves as an expert on diagnosis in mesothelioma to the courts. She has been an invited speaker for the Australian Society of Cytology Annual Conference, the Australian Lung Cancer Conference, World Lung Cancer Conference and the Australasian Pleuropulmonary Society as well as COSA. She has successfully supervised 7 honours and 6 PhD students to completion. Her interests have focussed on clinically relevant basic research applications, and her 7-year appointment as Chief Examiner for the RCPA underscores her standing as an expert in pathological processes. She has published 5 book chapters and over 100 peer-reviewed publications.
Associate Professor of Psychology, University of York I lead the Emotion Processing and Offline Consolidation (EPOC) Lab at the University of York. Our research addresses the mechanisms through which sleep disturbances give rise to mental health problems, with a focus on neurobiological perspectives. We use a range of methods to do this, including behavioural studies, sleep electroencephalography (EEG) and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). Our findings have helped us to better understand what goes wrong in the brains of people who are not sleeping well, and how we can target these impairments to improve the prospects of people at risk of psychiatric disorders.
Senior Lecturer (Associate Professor) in Gender and Politics, The University of Edinburgh Sarah Liu is Senior Lecturer (Associate Professor) in Gender and Politics at the University of Edinburgh. Her research broadly focuses on the cross-national comparison o gender and politics, specifically the ways in which contexts – women's political representation, women's movements, immigration, and COVID-19 – shapes the gender gaps in political opinion and behavior. Her works are cross-regional with a specific focus on Asia. She has been recognized as one of the 50 most influential scholars by Apolitical Foundation and as an Emerging Diversity Scholar by the University of Michigan’s National Center for Institutional Diversity. She has also published in major political science and gender studies journals and appeared on international media, such as BBC World News and France 24.
