Senior Research Fellow, Microbiology, University of Aberdeen Dr Sylvia Duncan is a senior Research Fellow at the Rowett Institute, University of Aberdeen. She has considerable experience in anaerobic microbiology and conducts research on a large bacterial strain collection used for research purposes. Her research interests include elucidating the composition of the human gut microbiota, the impact of diet and gut environmental factors on modulating the gut microbiota to promote health and prevent disease.
Associate Professor in English, University of Cambridge, and Fellow and Director of Studies in English, Queens' College, University of Cambridge Sarah is an Associate Professor at the Faculty of English. She is also Director of Studies in English, Lecturer, and Fellow at Queens’ College, Cambridge. Sarah works on long-eighteenth-century British writing, visual art, and culture, and has a special interest in the intersections of literary and cultural studies, philosophy, theology, and anthropology. She has written about theories of gift-giving and exchange; phenomenologies of timing and tempo; practical geometry, line-drawing and know-how; and folds as idea and practice in letter-writing. Sarah is also an expert in the study of William Blake, having most recently contributed an essay to the exhibition catalogue for William Blake’s Universe, held in Spring 2024 at the Fitzwilliam Museum and Summer 2024 at the Hamburger Kunsthalle. Sarah went to her local comprehensive school before reading English at Cambridge. She was appointed to a Junior Research Fellowship at Oxford, and lectureships at Southampton and Newcastle, before taking up her current post. Sarah has variously authored, co-authored, edited, and co-edited four books about William Blake, including her first monograph, Blake’s Gifts: Poetry and the Politics of Exchange (CUP, 2010) and William Blake in Context (CUP, 2019). In 2017-18, she held a Leverhulme Trust Research Fellowship, and in 2016-17, she was an Early Career Fellow and the Crausaz-Wordsworth Fellow in Philosophy at CRASSH, the Centre for Research in Arts, Social Sciences, and Humanities. She is currently on sabbatical, finishing a book about present time and kairos in Romantic-period British writing and visual culture. This includes chapters on Young’s Night Thoughts and its illustrators; spiritual autobiographies by Equiano, Whitefield, and John Newton; revolutionary writing by Helen Maria Williams; poems by Smith and Barbauld; love letters by Richardson, Chesterfield, Piozzi, Judith Madan, Wollstonecraft, Keats, and Austen; and periodical writing by Hazlitt and Hunt. Sarah teaches a Faculty MPhil Specialist Seminar related to her current research, and offers undergraduate lecture courses on ‘things’ and material culture; travel, trade and empire; love-letters; and theories and practices of line-drawing, among other topics, for the Visual Culture (II.18), Love, Gender and Sexuality (II.9), Long-Eighteenth Century (IB.6) and Practical Criticism (IA.1) papers. At Queens’, she teaches Practical Criticism and Critical Practice from Plato to the present, and long-eighteenth century writing (IB.6, II.9). She also acts as Director of Studies (academic tutor) for Queens’ English Finalists, and participates in undergraduate admissions. At Cambridge and previously, Sarah has won or been nominated for student-led teaching awards for outstanding lecturing, outstanding feedback, and contributions to pastoral care.
Lecturer, Social Work, University of Strathclyde My research, teaching, and social work practice have focused on supporting people who have experienced violence. I am passionate about uplifting the perspectives of service users/survivors. I am especially interested in Disability Studies, Mad Studies, and feminist research methods. My current research focus is on institutional violence and the pathologisation of youth in the USA 'troubled teen industry'. For my PhD, I conducted in-depth interviews and surveys on the experiences of former therapeutic boarding school students. Prior to moving into academia, I was a social worker who specialised in supporting LGBTQ+ victims/survivors of domestic abuse and LGBTQ+ homeless youth.
Director of the USC Dornsife Brain Health Observatory, University of Southern California Dr. Soeren Mattke is a Research Professor of Economics at the University of Southern California Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences and the Director of the USC Dornsife Brain Health Observatory. The Observatory work on health system aspects of brain disorders with a focus on Alzheimer’s disease. So far, the Observatory has published analyses of health system preparedness to deliver a disease-modifying Alzheimer’s treatment in 14 countries as well as analyses of diagnostic technologies and the economics of those treatments. Dr. Mattke serves on the Editorial Board of Alzheimer’s & Dementia, on ADI’s Medical and Scientific Advisory Panel, the CTAD Workgroup on Blood Based Biomarkers and a Consensus Panel for early detection of cognitive impairment in primary care. Dr. Mattke has authored over 150 peer reviewed journal papers and technical reports Prior to joining USC, Dr. Mattke was a Senior Scientist at RAND Health, a global think tank, where he led the private sector healthcare practice, and worked at the OECD in Paris on benchmarking healthcare systems in industrialized countries, in the healthcare practice of Bain & Company in Boston, at Abt Associates, a policy consulting firm in Cambridge, MA, and at Harvard University. He trained as an internist and cardiologist at the University of Munich and got his doctoral degree in health policy at Harvard.
Associate Professor, Communication Studies, Auckland University of Technology Sarah Baker is an Associate Professor in the School of Communication Studies at Auckland University of Technology. She is a member of the AUT Communication for Social Change research centre, a member of the AUT Journalism, Media, and Democracy Centre (JMAD), and the co-founder of the AUT Popular Culture Centre and the AUT Media Observatory Group. She is a Senior Fellow and a member of the AUT Academy, and a PhD Convenor. Her research interests include current affairs and political economy, often exploring the intersections between television and film in mediated popular culture through the lens of Gothic, Horror, Sexuality, and Gender.
Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Sauder School of Business, University of British Columbia I am currently a postdoctoral fellow at the Montalbano Centre for Responsible Leadership Development in the Sauder School of Business at the University of British Columbia and will be joining the Haskayne School of Business at the University of Calgary as an assistant professor in the Fall of 2024. She received her PhD from the University of Utah. My research broadly focuses on how employees’ cognitions and emotions affect their interpersonal outcomes, with an emphasis on understanding the causes, consequences, and alleviation of women’s distress in organizations. I have published in major outlets in the management and psychology fields, including the Journal of Organizational Behavior and Organization Science.
