Project team

Pro Vice-Chancellor, Research and Global Partnerships

Professor Linda King is the Pro Vice-Chancellor for Research and Global Partnerships at Oxford Brookes University (OBU) and the Project Primary Investigator. She has led two successful Athena Swan Bronze Institutional applications and a Faculty Silver award; she leads on Athena Swan for OBU. She played an integral role in the establishment of Oxford Expression Technologies (OET), trading initially under Oxford Brookes Enterprises Ltd from 1997, and was co-founder of spinout OET Ltd in 2007.

Director of Equality and Diversity, Mathematical and Physical Life Sciences Division, University of Oxford

Professor Helen Byrne is an applied mathematician whose research focuses on the development and analysis of mathematical models of biomedical systems. She is Director of Equality and Diversity at the Mathematical, Physical and Life Sciences Division at the University of Oxford.

Senior Research Fellow, Oxford Brookes Business School

Dr Louise Grisoni is a Senior Research Fellow with over 30 years’ experience in Higher Education. Formerly she worked as Head of Department and ADRKE. Her current research focus is on equality and gender, gendered relationships, women’s career and work-life balance. She is widely published in this area.

Research Assistant

Heather Griffiths joined the Centre for Diversity Policy Research and Practice as a Research Assistant after completing her PhD in Sociology at the University of Warwick. Her ESRC-funded doctorate explored how gender is embedded in flexible working practices, paying particular attention to the ways time and work are negotiated between employees. Heather’s research interests are around gender and work, work-life balance and feminist organisational theory, and she is keen to extend these interests to include feminist theories on time, to critique the rhythms and routines of everyday life.

Consultant and Executive Coach

Alison Mitchell is an internationally recognised consultant and executive coach working with senior executives, funders and research leaders in organisational capacity building, systems change and talent development, specialising in equality, diversity and inclusion in research cultures. Alison has undertaken research into entrepreneurial behaviours of researchers, and led a nationwide campaign highlighting researchers as entrepreneurs. Alison has worked at senior level with a wide spectrum of education, business, funders and government agencies, maintaining a strong commitment to enhancing opportunities for all. As Director of Development for Vitae, Alison led large scale national programmes for UK Research Councils and Funders to embed researcher development across UK universities and position the UK as world leading in progressive professional development for researchers. Focusing on global challenges, Alison facilitated capacity building in Africa, Australasia, South East Asia, North America and Europe. In addition to consultancy, Alison is Director of Inclusive Development at University of Lincoln with a special interest in inclusive research leadership.

Manager of the International Labour Standards, Rights at Work and Gender Equality Programme at the International Training Centre of the International Labour Organization (ITCILO)

Benedetta Magri has worked for ITCILO as an expert in training and capacity building for gender equality and non-discrimination in the world of work for some 25 years. She has managed many large-scale capacity building projects - at international and EU level - and authored toolkits and training materials on this topic. She has extensive experience in gender mainstreaming and in participatory gender audit methodologies, as tools for change and gender action planning at organisational level, including in higher research institutions. More recently, she has been particularly active in programmes aiming to prevent and address gender-based violence and harassment in the world of work.