Alongside a formal commitment to the Athena Swan Charter Principles, the School has a vibrant community of teaching, research and professional services staff engaged in gender equality work.
School of Law
Pamela Ferguson, Professor of Scots Law – Pamela teaches the criminal law of domestic abuse/coercive control and sexual offences in her Scots Criminal Law and Evidence module. While the victims of these crimes may be male or female, the vast majority are women. She also undertakes research into feminist aspects of criminal law/criminal procedure..
Dr Kyela Leakey, Lecturer in Law (Teaching and Scholarship) – Kyela is the School’s Athena Swan submission lead. Kyela previously served on, and chaired, the School of Law Athena Swan Self-Assessment Team at the University of Glasgow. She is committed to incorporating equality, diversity and inclusion principles into her teaching practice. Kyela is on the organising committee of Women in Public Law and a member of Women in the Law UK.
Matthew Ogden, Lecturer in Law (Teaching and Scholarship) – Matthew teaches feminist theories of law as a part of the module Critical Approaches to Law. In his teaching on Law, Technology and Innovation and Privacy, Cybersecurity and Surveillance, he runs classes on prejudice within technology with an emphasis both on distinct forms of prejudice but also intersectional issues. This also reflects themes that he works on in his research, such as the forthcoming paper ‘Tears to a Sea of Doors: Feminist Challenges to Law in BioShock Infinite’ at due to be presented ay the upcoming LLHAA Conference in Hong Kong in December 2024.
Humanities
Perry Willson, Professor of Modern European History – Perry is an historian of women and gender. She works mainly on the Fascist period in Italy (interwar, twentieth century) and has published widely on this. Her publications include three books on Italian women’s history and she was one of the founders of Gender and History Journal. Perry has also been involved in organising the University’s LGBT+ History Month over the past few years.
Education and Society
Louise Campbell, Lecturer in Education – Louise is the School’s Lead for Equality, Diversity and Inclusion. She has been involved with a range of EDI policies and initiatives in education nationally, including working to support the implementation of the Anti-racism in Initial Teacher Education Framework and the Scottish Council of Deans of Education’s National Framework for Inclusion, as well as contributing to Education Scotland’s Children’s Rights and Participation Network. This work has given her understanding of the intersectional nature of issues around marginalisation, discrimination and silenced voices.
Dr Richard Holme, Reader in Education Studies – As a lecturer in Education Richard is committed to including theorists and theories from a diverse range of backgrounds/demographics into his teaching practice. This includes the MEd full-time on-campus module PD50189 Reflecting upon Practice and PD50192 Innovation in Education in which he explicitly encourage students to move beyond the typical ‘male, pale, and stale’ theorists. The students respond well to this and they students have introduced a range of alternative and new theorists to the programme. Staff from diverse backgrounds have also been invited to present about theorists who influenced their thinking and development. In sessions with PGDE Education (teacher trainees) students Richard speaks openly about everyday sexism and stereotypes in STEM subjects and this includes discussing the Bechdel test and Harvard Implicit Association (unconscious bias) Test. Richard is also interested in the concept of Allyship and how this may be embraced by teachers, academics, and researchers.
Di Cantali, Senior Lecturer in Education Studies – Di was a board member for Dundee Women’s Aid for nine years, spending four years holding the Vice Chair role. She sits on the University Equally Safe in Higher Education (ESHE) working group, and is one of the trained Gender Based Violence First Responders. Di led the university’s participation in the national Equally Safe research in 2019 and led a team from the ESHE group who reported findings and proactive work being done to all School boards in 2020. She is an Advance HE national panellist for Athena Swan, and was was one of the writing party for the School’s recent Bronze award renewal.
Susan Wylde, Lecturer (Teaching and Scholarship) – Susan teaches on the MA Education undergraduate degree. She teaches education studies which looks at a wide range of issues relating to gender equality in first/third and fourth year. She runs a second year internship module and organises students placements in organisations working on gender equality such as Women’s Aid.
Psychologies
Amrita Ahluwalia-McMeddes, Lecturer (Teaching and Scholarship) – Amrita Co-produced the interdisciplinary podcast series first released in 2021 called ‘The Age of Consent’ to disseminate research on topics of sexual consent, gendered violence, law and social narratives. Available here.