I am a PhD candidate in Law at Liverpool Hope University, supported by the VC Doctoral Scholarship, researching COVID‑19, conspiracy narratives, and political extremism in the UK context. I hold two master’s degrees: an LLM in Intellectual Property Rights and Data Protection (Technische Universität Dresden/Queen Mary University of London) and an LLM in Corporate Laws (National Law University Odisha), as well as an LLB from Utkal University, and I am an Indian bar‑qualified Advocate. My professional experience spans guest professorships, ed‑tech consulting, and university tutoring, alongside a growing publication record on contemporary legal and socio‑legal issues. I am particularly interested in the intersections of law, technology, and social phenomena, and I welcome opportunities for collaboration, supervision, and public engagement in these areas.

I am an academic with a multidisciplinary background, holding a PhD in Accountancy, an undergraduate degree in Law, and a Master’s in Human Resource Management. My research explores the role of accounting in society, focusing on sustainability, gender issues, and regulatory practices. A significant part of my work examines the impact of gender relations on the accounting standard-setting process, utilising frameworks such as Goffman's dramaturgical analysis and combining textual, visual, and thematic methodologies.

Additionally, I am expanding my research into the intersection of business and sports, emphasising financial sustainability and societal impacts. My teaching experience spans a range of courses in financial and management accounting, social and environmental accounting, business law, finance, and the evolving nature of work, with a focus on technological advancements such as Artificial Intelligence.

I am currently leading research projects on gender and performance in accounting standard-setting and the financial impact of Covid-19 on the football industry.

I am a Senior Lecturer in Language, Media and Communication at the School of Humanities at Liverpool Hope University. I am a Senior Lecturer in Language, Media and Communication at the School of Humanities at Liverpool Hope University

I had my primary education in Dhaka, Manchester, and Kuwait in the 1970s and secondary and higher secondary education in Dhaka, Bangladesh in the 1980s. I then went to India to study at the famous Aligarh Muslim University where I completed my BA (Hons), MA, and PhD in Linguistics winning the University Gold Medal for the highest academic achievement. My PhD dissertation was on the language of advertising in Bangladesh under the supervision of Professor A R Fatihi, one of the most prominent linguists in India.

As a social work practitioner and academic with over 20 years of dedicated experience, I have consistently focused on advancing social work and child protection practices with Romani and Traveller communities. I am recognised as a leading expert in this field, with a substantial portfolio of publications and an extensive track record of delivering presentations at high-level platforms, including the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights, the House of Lords, the Welsh Assembly, and both national and international conferences.

My research contributions demonstrate my influence on social work practice, policy reform, education, and ethical development. My work has also led to measurable societal benefits, such as enhanced social work practices for marginalised communities, advancements in policy, and a global exchange of knowledge. My established collaborations, both locally and internationally, further strengthen my ability to produce a significant and far-reaching impact across multiple sectors. 

I also support the development of culturally grounded, evidence-informed child welfare practices that respond to local needs while contributing to the global discourse on child protection and systemic reform.

Dr. Hamzah Al-Zu'bi joined Liverpool Hope University in 2024 as a Lecturer in Computer Science. He was also a Course Leader in Big Data at the University of Westminster, where he led modules on data science and machine learning.
He completed his undergraduate degree in Computer Engineering at Al-Balqa’ Applied University in 2007, graduating with first-class honors. He went on to earn an MSc in Computing and Information Science from Masdar Institute of Science and Technology in collaboration with MIT, followed by a PhD in Electrical Engineering from the University of Liverpool in 2015. His doctoral research focused on using machine learning to analyze behaviour and predict mental states like stress levels.
Dr. Al-Zu'bi has extensive experience in both academia and industry. He has worked as a Senior R&D Engineer at Oxford Technical Solutions and a Lead R&D Engineer at CSols Ltd, contributing to cutting-edge developments in machine vision, signal processing, and data analytics. 
He has published peer-reviewed research in top journals and conferences, presenting his work internationally. Dr. Al-Zu'bi is passionate about advancing technology through teaching, research, and collaboration, inspiring the next generation of innovators.

My undergraduate studies included Philosophy, English Literature and Biblical Studies (Leeds University and Sheffield University) and Directing at The Academy of Music and Dramatic Arts in Bratislava, Slovakia. After a stint in Thailand in the education sector I returned to the UK upon winning a fully funded PhD scholarship at the School of Arts and Performance at The University of Plymouth.

I joined Liverpool Hope University in 2007. My research interests reflect my wide training and learning but my principal areas of publication and exhibition are in the fields of Live Art and Applied Theatre. My current areas of research are triangulated by my interest in critical education, social justice and radical performance practices. Recent projects include The Institute for the Art and Practice of Dissent at Home, The Free University of Liverpool, and the Family Activist Network which has spilled over into publications, performances and events that I co-create with artists, scholars and activists. My latest publications are collaborations with international scholars in the fields of Live Art and Philosophy, specifically in the area of prison education where I am curently specialising in ways to provide education opportunites to people living in prison settings.

I graduated from Liverpool John Moores University (LJMU) with a first class honours degree in Sport and Exercise Science and then went straight into studying for my PhD, also at LJMU, which I completed in early 2012. My PhD was examining the effects of Androgenic Anabolic Steroid use/abuse on the cardiovascular system, with a specific focus on the effect on the heart. Prior to completing my PhD I started working as a Strength and Conditioning Coach at LJMU, working with athletes from the English Institute of Sport, including Olympic and Paralympic Athletes, as well as working athletes supported by the LJMU Sports Scholarship Scheme and the Talented Athlete Support Scheme. This gave me valuable applied experience and helped me to develop my applied practitioner skills. In early 2013 I was then afforded the opportunity to to join Liverpool Hope University. 

In addition to my teaching responsibilities I am still a keen and active researcher, and have published articles on the effect of anabolic steroid use on the CV system in a number of international journals, as well as an applied practitioner. My research interests include the impact of different training methods on improving CV health in different populations as well as using novel approaches to facilitate greater CV adaptations. Further to this, I am also interested in research related to improving sporting performance. My applied work still allows me to work with high level athletes from a range of martial arts disciplines as well as working with professional mixed martial arts fighters. 

My research builds on a sustained body of work on high‑altitude platforms (HAPS), UAV networks, and non‑terrestrial networks (NTN), spanning autonomous multi‑HAPS coordination, routing–autonomy integration, antenna design, reliability modelling, BVLOS operations, and NTN/3GPP frameworks. I examine connectivity as a multi‑layer systems challenge, integrating autonomy, energy constraints, platform behaviour, and network performance.

My perspective on AI is shaped by my PhD research, where I applied reinforcement learning and swarm intelligence methods to autonomously coordinate multiple solar‑powered HAPS for communications coverage under tight energy and environmental constraints. This foundation now informs my work on architecting and stress‑testing autonomous decision‑making for resilience under uncertainty, scale, and limited human oversight. 

I also work on sustainability in space, applying machine learning to space debris characterisation, risk modelling, and long‑term orbital safety, recognising that the resilience of future communication infrastructure depends on sustainable access to shared orbital environments.

Before academia, I spent more than a decade in telecommunications engineering and network operations, including large‑scale deployments and technical leadership roles at Huawei Technologies. I contribute to standards and policy discussions through the Commonwealth Telecommunications Organisation (CTO) and the Telecommunications Working Group (TWG) of the HAPS Alliance, aligning my work with industry efforts on HAPS reference architectures, NTN integration, and the evolution of 5G/6G connectivity.

I have worked at Liverpool Hope University as the PGCE Business course lead since 2020. Upon appointment, my role included setting up the new PGCE Business course, researching and designing the curriculum, recruiting trainees and implementing and delivering a training programme for mentors across a number of partner schools. I have liaised and collaborated with other colleagues at other UK Universities, the EBEA subject association. I have collaborated with exam board curriculum leads on the ongoing development of our PGCE Business curriculum, in particular our ITaP which was launched as a pilot this year.

In addition, I have been an Initial Professional Development Tutor, responsible for a group of trainee teachers professional development. I teach in seminars and tutorials, delivering sessions to support the secondary master’s assignment brief. I am an examiner for secondary and primary master’s assignments, as well as a standards verifier.  

External to Liverpool Hope, I was appointed an External Examiner for the Institute of Education this year and will be moderating the Business trainees assignments this summer.  I am an associate examiner for Pearson, marking GCSE and BTEC Level 3. I marked for this exam board for 13 years. 

Prior to working at hope I spent 6 year teaching Business and ICT in secondary schools. I was a Business lead for two years and a lead internal verifier for BTEC level 3. 

In 2017 Carly joined Liverpool Hope University. She is a Senior Lecturer in Education Studies, and holds a Senior Fellowship with the Higher Education Academy (SFHEA). Her current research examines schools’ approaches to teaching on refugee experience, and supporting the resettlement of new arrivals. Her work also focuses on critical pedagogy, critical children's literature, and PAR with vulnerabilized communities. She is actively involved in publishing, teaching and leading L&T events on these areas, often growing from interdisciplinary collaborations. In recognition of her research-informed teaching and course design, she recently recieved the VC Learning and Teaching Prize (2024).

Carly currently serves as an L&T Lead (Education), Faculty of Education and Social Sciences Representative on Hope's Equity and Diversity and Inclusion Committee, is joint co-ordinator of FESS' Pedagogy and Practice Research Group Seminar Series and joint Co-ordiantor of FESS' Student Enhancement. 

With I.R.Funds, Carly has developed the following research resource for staff and students avialable on Hope's website and here: Decolonising Praxis: A Researcher's Handbook

I am an interdisciplinary academic working at the intersection between politics and sociology and looking at the impact of colonialism and postcolonialism on the issues of conflict and underdevelopment. I analyse this reproduction of global inequality and peripherality in a variety of global shatter belts, but particularly sub-Saharan Africa and the Western Balkans. I draw links between the legal and identitarian heritage of colonialism proper and the more contemporary structures of coloniality which are maintained through the global capitalist world system. My theoretical background, which draws on world-systems, eco-feminist and dependency theory, is influenced by literature that originated in the Global South (Latin American and India) in order to decolonise academia and provide space for the voices of those who have little access to representation. My key research achievement is the role of my research on the development of the field of genocide studies by proposing and analysing the innovative category of postcolonial genocide.

 In relation to teaching, I have significant experience and have taught across all levels, but my main investment is in the MA Sociology and MA Social policy programmes, including the single honours year 2 and year 3 modules on neoliberalism and racial capitalism. I am particularly interested in decolonisation and internationalisation of the curriculum, and I have developed a number of key postgraduate modules, including the CORE modules: Advanced Research for Social change and Advanced Social Theory. As MA programme lead for Social Sciences, I have managed a team of colleagues from across the department and have developed strategies the purpose of which was to improve student experience of both home and international students. 

I am currently Professor of Education and Associate Dean for Research, Scholarship and Knowledge Exchange  in the Faculty of Education and Social Sciences at Liverpool Hope University. 

My research is concerned with transformative pedagogy, citizenship and values education. It has been published in the Oxford Review of Education, British Journal of Educational Studies, Education and Training, the Journal of Beliefs and Values, Journal of Curriculum Studies and also Education, Citizenship and Social Justice. I completed my PhD with the Centre for Human Rights and Citizenship Education at the University of Leeds where I developed a conceptualisation of transformative learning drawing upon the student experience of International Service Learning.

I have secured funding and been principal investigator on projects funded by the Department for International Development (136K 'Embedding a Global Dimension in the Curriculum'), Higher Education Academy (30K 'Internationalising the Curriculum for Engaged Global Citizens in Education') and Church Colleges of England Education Fund (20K Anglican Character through Service in the Core Curriculum'). I have co-authored funding bids and been co-investigator on research funded by the John Templeton Foundation ($189K '‘The Self, Virtue and Public Life: Personal Liberty, Mutual Respect and Tolerance: from Values to Virtues’) and European Uniion (30K '‘Global Teachers Award in Hungary, Latvia, Ireland and England’). 

I am a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy, Associate-Director of the UK Teacher Education for Equity and Sustainability Network and a board member of the International Journal of Development Education and Global Learning.

Drawing on my experience in educational development in Papua New Guinea, India and Malawi, I have helped establish Global Hope and the Service and Leadership Award at Liverpool Hope University. I was the founding Director of the Centre for International and Development Education based in the Faculty of Education. I have been awarded the International Association of University Presidents International Education Faculty Achievement Award for outstanding leadership in curriculum development, teaching and research in global citizenship

At Liverpool Hope University I was Head of the Department of Education Studies from 2014 to 2020 before being appointed Assistant Dean and Head of the School of Education from 2019 to 2021.

I currently work at Liverpool Hope University as a Senior Professional Tutor. Having previously held the role of PGDE in Further Education Course Lead, I now work in a part time capacity as Subject Kowledge Enhancement Course Lead and as a SCITT tutor. 

Outside of my roles at LHU, I am CEO of Phoenix Education Reports and Services Ltd, where I have acted as Education Consultant for Everton Free School since 2012. 

Associate professor Silvia Battista is a visual and performance artist/scholar, who has engaged, over the last thirty years with a multidisciplinary set of artistic languages - performance, drawing, photography, video - and research methodologies - hermeneutics, phenomenology and semiotics. Her research lies in the intersection between visual art, performance, installation and theatre, particularly in the study of meditative, contemplative and ecstatic practices/technologies employed for creative and epistemological purposes. She researches, teaches and publishes on contemporary performance and art, religion and spirituality involving audiences, readers and students to reflect on perception, ecology and our relation to inner and outer environments.

She holds a PhD (2008-2014) in performance studies (Royal Holloway University) with a thesis focused on the notion of the numinous in contemporary performance/live art practices; an MA (2004-2006) in Communication Art and Design (Royal College of Art and Design, London) with a thesis on the work of Alejandro Jodorowsky and the theatricality of his psychomagic practices; and a First Class Honours degree (1992-1996) in Fine Art (Academy of Fine Art, Rome).

She began her artistic career in 1998 by winning funding for two participative, performance-art-projects: 

• A Message Before Leaving was realised in USA, in the maximum security prison in Huntsville, with the support of Washington University, the charity Hands off Cain and The Texas Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty (TCADP);
• The Shock of the Real: McDonald’s in Prague was devised between Prague and Rome with the support of FAMU University (Prague) and the Ministers of Foreign Affairs of Italy and Czech Republic.

Since then, she has been interpreeating social and ecological justice themes through myths, mythopoiesis and non-linear narratives employing drawing, sound, performance and writing. She celebrates the practice of weaving as research methodology weaving the symbolic, the religious, the mythological and the folkloristic with post-human feminist theories to re-think the meanings of being 'human' in the 21st century. Her work has been shown internationally, in UK, USA, South Africa, India and Europe. Lately, she presented her work at the Williamson Gallery and Museum (2024), RUINS festival (2021), performed at the Angelfield Festival (2020), Tate Gallery in Liverpool (2019), Liverpool Biennial (2019). In 2023, together with Angelo Madonna, John Elcock, Patric Rogers she formed the cooperative MATERIAL MATTERS , which she has been chairing to date.

I joined Liverpool Hope University in March 2021 after holding a similar position in a previous institution. I possess a PhD in Marketing Communications, an MBA in Marketing, a BA in Marketing, and a Diploma in Management. With 11 years of industry experience in Sales and Marketing within the medical and construction sectors, I bring practical, real-world examples to the classroom.

Clinical Tutor in Sports Rehabilitation & Physiotherapy 

Level C lead 

Module lead for MSc Sports Injury and Prevention - Sports Medicine, Exercise & Health

I am a Senior Lecturer in Psychology with responsibilities for teaching and leading courses across the undergraduate and postgraduate programmes. I specialise in social psychology, with a particular interest in identity. 

Prior to working at Liverpool Hope University, Lindsey worked in primary schools in London and Cheshire across the  EYFS and key stages one and two. In these roles, she worked within the Senior Leadership Team as the Head of Prep  and was responsible for managing pupils’ Pastoral Care and Personal Development. In January 2022, Lindsey joined the Primary English Team for Initial Teacher Education at Liverpool Hope and as a professional tutor, she is involved in the curriculum development and delivery of the BA (QTS) and PGCE English curriculum.

I am the course leader for dance at Hope, I studied for my undergraduate degree at Middlesex University London, and I hold a PhD from the same institution. I am a  fellow of the Higher Education Academy (FHEA) and I have worked in Higher Education for 20 years. I have trained and performed at the Limon Institute in New York. I have performed and delivered at conferences Nationally and Internationally, and the pleasure of touring work in France, New York, Switzerland & Spain.

My research explores dance and sited practices, maternal and feminist ethics, performance in the home and domestic sites, employing installation and film practices. I co-direct Our Dance Democracy with Karen Gallagher, an international dance conference based in Liverpool. Broadly ODD addresses dance, performance and heritage practices which positively disrupts Western canons, and encourages the artist voice, agency and endeavour which enhances critical art practices. I am co-editing Our Dance Democracy- Ethics, Equity and Reach, an edited anthology with Dr Gina Giotaki.

My recent research engages with Merseyside Dance Initiative dance archive, spanning 30 years of dance across Liverpool and the North West.

David Bolt is Professor of Disability Studies and Interdisciplinarity, Programme Leader on the Disability Studies MA, Director of the Centre for Culture and Disability Studies, and Chair of the Faculty of Education and Social Sciences’ Professoriate at Liverpool Hope University, where he has chaired the School of Social Science Ethics Committee and Research Committee, and teaches multiple aspects of cultural and disability studies to students ranging from 1st-year undergraduates to doctoral candidates. Starting with an AHRC-funded literary disability studies PhD completed more than 20 years ago, his work in disability studies has been recognised ineducation, the humanities, and the social sciences. He is Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Literary and Cultural Disability Studies (Liverpool University Press/Project MUSE/Scopus/Web of Science), a quarterly publication founded in 2006. He is also Editor-in-Chief of the Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Disability Studies (Oxford University Press), a major international online project on which he commenced work in 2024. He is Book Series Editor of Autocritical Disability Studies (Routledge) and, with Elizabeth J.Donaldson and Julia Miele Rodas, of Literary Disability Studies (Palgrave Macmillan/Springer) and General Editor, with Robert McRuer, of the six-volume project A Cultural History of Disability (Bloomsbury). He has authored The Metanarrative of Blindness: A Re-reading of Twentieth-Century Anglophone Writing (University of Michigan Press, 2014), Cultural Disability Studies in Education: Interdisciplinary Navigations of the Normative Divide (Routledge, 2019), Disability Duplicity and the Formative Cultural Identity Politics of Generation X (Routledge, 2024), and The Playground Model of Disability: Dis/honesty Tropes in Contemporary British Sociocultural Representation (Routledge, 2026); articles in journals such as The Explicator, Textual Practice, Disability and Society, The Midwest Quarterly, Journal of Visual Impairment and Blindness, British Journal of Visual Impairment, New Zealand Journal of Disability Studies, Mosaic, and Journal of Further and Higher Education (some of which have been translated into Spanish); and chapters in edited books such as the Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Literature (2024), Critical Readings in Interdisciplinary Disability Studies: (Dis)Assemblages (2020), Dance, Disability and Law (2018), Beginning With Disability (2017), The Disability Studies Reader (2016), Short Story Criticism (2014), Routledge Handbook of Disability Studies (2012/2020), and Language, Bodies, and Health (2011). He is Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy and has been Honorary Research Fellow of the Centre for Disability Research, Lancaster University. He is editor of Changing social attitudes toward disability: Perspectives from historical, cultural, and educational studies (Routledge, 2014, translated into Korean, 2018), Metanarratives of Disability: Culture, Assumed Authority and the Normative Social Order (Routledge, 2021), Finding Blindness: International Constructions and Deconstructions (Routledge, 2023), and Cultural Stations of Disability: A Moment in Discourse (Routledge, 2026) and has collaborated on the editing of other projects, including Disability, Avoidance and the Academy: Challenging Resistance (Routledge, 2016), The Madwoman and the Blindman: Jane Eyre, Discourse, Disability (Ohio State University Press, 2012), and a special issue of the Review of Disability Studies (2010).

Robert is a Senior Lecturer in Philosophy and Ethics, specialising in environmental philosophy and phenomenology.

He has published work in Environmental Values, Angelaki, Environmental Philosophy, Journal of Philosophy of Education, The Anthropocene Review, and The Springer Encylopedia of Phenomenology. His first monograph - Becoming a Place of Unrest: Environmental Crisis and Ecophenomenological Praxis - is out now with Ohio University Press. He has been at Hope since 2021, prior to which Robert completed an MA (Distinction) and PhD in Philosophy (passed without corrections) at the University of Liverpool. He also holds a PGCE in Post-Compulsory Education and Training from Sheffield Hallam University. Robert was a Research Fellow at the University of Georgia, and has also held fixed-term lecturing roles at the University of Manchester, and the University of Liverpool. 

Robert has the following School Roles

Student Voice Lead for the School of Humanities

Assessment Coordinator for ECWMC (English, Creative Writing, Media and Communication) and TPRS (Theology, Philosophy and Religious Studies) 

First Year Lead for Philosophy and Ethics

Module Coordinator for:

• 'Ethics, Freedom, and Human Nature'
• 'Knowledge, Value, and Life's Meaning'
• 'Practical Philosophy'
• 'God After the Death of God'
• 'Philosophies of Nature'
• 'Philosophy and Ethics Research Project'

I am an Associate Professor in the School of Psychology at Liverpool Hope University, UK. I have had responsibility for designing and leading British Psychological Society accredited programmes of study (BA/BSC Combined Honours, Psychology Major; BSc Psychology, Single Honours) which include Foundation Year and Placement Year for many years.  Currently, I lead the MSc Applied Developmental Psychology programme.  This is a new programme developed to enhance the response of the University to major issues for young people and their families in the Liverpool community (i.e., language and literacy; relationships and belonging; and life chances and equality). Based on an understanding developed through communities of practice informed by experts from other disciplines, policy makers and practitioners, students support local organisations to develop impact in their work.  I also supervise PhD students on developmental and education related topics.

My primary field of expertise is in cognitive developmental psychology and children's writing development in Primary School.  Those interests have been extended to other populations including students in Higher Education presenting with anxiety and/or dyslexia.  Across all research the focus is on executive function including emotion regulation and the impact this has on academic achievement as well as the implications this understanding has for interventions in schools and communities.  We know that differences in the rate of progress of young children can be accounted for not only by language skills and phonological awareness but also the integration of visual processing and attention skills. This not only impacts on writing development but also how young people approach and engage with the task.  There is much we can do together to develop appropriate pedagogy for young writers that recognises the challenges with cognitive and emotion regulation.

We have developed comprehensive lab facilities to support Developmental Research at Liverpool Hope University. Our facilities include observational laboratories with equipment to enable sensitive recording of people's abilities,  eye-tracking technology, electroencephalography (EEG), and extensive psychometric tests. The lab area is also a welcoming space for stakeholders, families and young people.  I have also dedicated much of my career so far to taking my lab out to the community especially schools as such much of my work is dedicated to supporting an understanding of the development of young people across different contexts.

I am a social work academic and practitioner with over two decades of experience across mental health, substance use, and integrated care systems. My work focuses on understanding and addressing the structural, moral, and epistemic conditions that shape how people experiencing co-existing mental distress and substance use are governed, treated, and often excluded within systems of care. I am particularly known for my critical and phenomenologically informed analyses of service fragmentation, moral injury, and epistemic injustice in health and social care practice.

My research has contributed to national and international debates on co-existing mental health and substance use, integration policy, and ethical practice. Drawing on critical realism, phenomenology, and moral philosophy, I have published work that challenges dualistic models of care and advances justice-oriented, relational frameworks for practice, education, and policy reform. This includes the development of the Integrated Morphogenetic Care Model, which is increasingly used to inform teaching, practitioner reflection, and system-level analysis.

Alongside my academic work, I maintain a strong commitment to practice-relevant scholarship and public engagement. I regularly contribute to practitioner education, policy discussion, and public discourse through invited talks, professional training, and accessible writing aimed at bridging the gap between theory, lived experience, and frontline practice. In my current role at Liverpool Hope University, I contribute to teaching, programme leadership, and research development, with a focus on strengthening socially just, critically informed social work education that is responsive to contemporary practice realities.

I am a professional tutor in Primary Education. Prior to this, I worked as a Primary school teacher. Before entering the field of Education, I worked as a research scientist in the field of Medicinal and Organic Chemistry.