People

Graduate School

Director

Dr Morven Shearer

Morven is the head of the Graduate School and has overall responsibility for its academic and administrative operations.

Deputy Director

Dr Walter Pedriali

Walter is responsible for the academic operations of the Graduate School. Walter is the Graduate School's director of teaching and also fulfils the duties of assessments officer and academic misconduct officer.

School Manager

Mrs Lisa Neilson

As School Manager, Lisa is responsible for the planning and coordination of the administrative operations of the Graduate School. This includes the role of Careers Link and Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Officer.

Headshot of Lisa Neilson

Senior Administrator

Miss Claire Brodie

Claire provides administrative support to the Graduate School. Claire is the Graduate School's Disabilities Coordinator and is clerk to the Module Examination Board and the Degree Classification Board.

Administrator

Mrs Donna Marr

Donna provides administrative support to the Graduate School. She covers reception duties, supports teaching administration, and processes applications for incoming students. She is also clerk to the Student Staff Consultative Committee.

Social Media Assistant

Bina Avdich

Bina is in charge of creating content for the Graduate School for Interdisciplinary website and social media accounts (X/Twitter and Instagram). Bina is also a 2nd year PhD student at the School of Medicine

Headshot of Bina Avdich

Graduate School Links

Team Manager (Careers Management Team)

Amy Kinsman

Amy is the Graduate School's Business Partner from the Careers Department. Amy has over ten years of experience in higher education and recruitment, working at both the University of Stirling and Newcastle University. She is a dedicated careers professional with a strong enthusiasm for coaching and supporting students, colleagues, and graduates in reaching their full potential.

Academic English Service Director

Paula Villegas Verdu (IELLI)

Paula is the Academic English Service Director at IELLI and is interested in links between educational research and classroom practice. Paula's EdD focused on Flipped Learning and Motivation in the EAP classroom, and she continues to research this area. Academic Literacies and pedagogies in the higher education context are key areas in Paula's research.


MSc and MLitt Programme Directors and Module Co-ordinators

Energy Policy and Finance MSc Programme Director

Dr Emilka Skrzypek

Emilka is the director of the MSc in Energy Policy and Finance, and the deputy director of the University of St Andrews Centre for Energy Ethics. Emilka’s research is focused on issues associated with supplying so-called energy transition metals for the global energy transition, and the expansion of extractive industries in the Pacific under conditions of climate change.

Energy Policy and Finance MSc Module Co-ordinator

Dr Sean Field

Sean is a Module Co-ordinator on the MSc in Energy Policy and Finance programme. Sean is also the Director of Policy at the Centre for Energy Ethics and a Senior Research Fellow at the University of St Andrews. He is Lead Analyst with the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero where he oversees the monitoring and evaluation framework for the UK Government’s flagship Local Net Zero Accelerator programme and where he works closely with the analyst team at Great British Energy.

Gender Studies MLitt - Co-Director

Dr Jade Fletcher

Jade is Co-Director of the MLitt in Gender Studies, Deputy Director of the St Andrews Institute for Gender Studies, and a Lecturer in the Department of Philosophy. Jade's research focuses on a variety of issues in feminist philosophy and social metaphysics.

Gender Studies MLitt - Co-Director (Semester 2 only)

Dr Ana Gutierrez Garza

Ana is Co-Director of the MLitt in Gender Studies and director of the St Andrews Gender Institute. Ana's research interests include migration, gender, economic anthropology, inequality, care, labour, morality and ethics.

Ana Gutierrez Garza Profile

Gender Studies MLitt - Module Co-ordinator (Semester 1 only)

Dr Isabel Segui

Isabel is a Module Co-ordinator on the MLitt in Gender Studies and also a feminist film historian specialising in Bolivian and Peruvian cinema.

Global Social and Political Thought MLitt - Co-Director

Dr Milinda Banerjee

Milinda is co-director of the MLitt in Global Social and Political Thought. Milinda's research draws on global intellectual history, critical theory, and political theology.

Milinda Banerjee

Global Social and Political Thought MLitt - Co-Director

Dr Stephen Tyre

Stephen is Co-Director on the Global Social and Political Thought MLitt. Stephen's research follows post-war French colonial and foreign policies. He has published on the Algerian war of independence, and is currently working on French decolonisation in North Africa and its legacy.

Global Social and Political Thought MLitt - Co-Director

Dr Vassilios Paipais

Vassilios is co-director of the MLitt in Global Social and Political Thought. His research focuses on three areas: the theory and history of realism as an ethico-political response to the crisis of liberal modernity in the 20th century, the question of ontology in politics and international relations, and the study of political theology in world politics.

Health Data Science MSc - Co-Director

Dr David Harris-Birtill

David is co-director of the MSc in Digital Health. David's research interests include remote sensing, image and signal processing, and machine learning for patient benefit.

David Harris-Birtill

Health Data Science MSc - Co-Director

Professor Silvia Paracchini, FRSE FRSB

Silvia is co-director of the MSc in Digital Health. Silvia's research focuses on the genetic component of neurodevelopmental disorders such as dyslexia.

Silvia Paracchini

Museum and Heritage Studies MLitt - Co-Director

Dr Catherine Eagleton

Katie is co-director of the MLitt in Museum and Heritage Studies.Throughout her career, Katie’s work has combined library, archival and museum collections. Moving into the cultural heritage sector after completion of her PhD at the University of Cambridge, she became a curator in the British Museum developing new projects on global history and the history of Africa, and then Head of Asian and African Collections for the British Library, initiating a number of large digitisation projects, international collaborations, and service improvement projects. Katie joined the University as Director of Museums in July 2019 and was appointed Director of Libraries and Museums on 1 August 2020.

Museum and Heritage Studies MLitt - Co-Director

Dr Nicôle Meehan

Nicôle is co-director of the MLitt in Museum and Heritage Studies. Nicôle's research focuses on digital museum objects, networks of interaction, audience engagement and inclusion, museum education and critical data ethics.

Museum and Heritage Studies MLitt- Deputy Director

Matthew Sheard

Matt is Deputy Director of the MLitt in Museum and Heritage Studies. He is also Head of Experience and Engagement for the University Museums, where he is responsible for audiences, programming, learning, accessibility, audience research and evaluation, digital engagement, and marketing.

Matthew Sheard Profile Picture

Museum and Heritage Studies MLitt - Module Co-ordinator

Dr Bruno Brulon Soares

Bruno is a Module Co-ordinator on the Museum and Heritage Studies MLitt. Bruno is also a museologist and anthropologist trained in Brazil, and his research interests have focused on the relationships of museums with society, practices of collecting, and the political uses of heritage.

Museum and Heritage Studies MLitt - Module Co-ordinator

Dr Lisa McDonald

Lisa is a Module Co-ordinator on the Museum and Heritage Studies MLitt. Lisa is an art historian and curator whose current research explores the relationship between culture and the UN Sustainable Development Goals, with focus on Africa and the Pacific. Lisa’s research also encompasses visual, material and intangible heritage; the anthropology of art; postcolonial studies; and participatory research methods. She has collaborated on a range of international research projects including the UKRI funded One Ocean Hub.

Museums, Heritage and Society (PGCert, PGDip, MLitt) - Co-Director

Dr Gonul Bozoglu

Gonul is Co-Director of the Museums, Heritage and Society (PGCert, PGDip, MLitt). Gonul's current work is about engaging with marginalised communities whose heritages have been suppressed.

Museums, Heritage and Society (PGCert, PGDip, MLitt) - Co-Director

Eilidh Lawrence

Eilidh is the Programme Co-Director on the Museums, Heritage and Society (PGCert, PGDip, MLitt). Eilidh's research surrounds Common Ground - a project that partners with Fife Council's ESOL department, pairing ESOL learners of migrant and refugee backgrounds with secondary school pupils from SIMD40 postcodes to create an exhibition in the Wardlaw Museum. Focused on wellbeing, social integration and skills development. Currently funded by Museums Galleries Scotland.

Sustainable Development MSc - Director

Dr Jessica Hope

Jessica is the Director of the MSc in Sustainable Development. Jessica is a political ecologist who extends political ecology’s concern for environmental justice with geographical treatments of infrastructure and materiality. Her current project investigates how new roads in the Amazon change environmental knowledges and politics, using these roads as a new conceptual entry point for understanding the global sustainable development project. Completed projects investigated the early-take of the SDGs in Bolivia (a place where there are both intensifying commitments to resource extraction and radical alternatives) and the political ecology of post-neoliberalism in Bolivia (specifically, the TIPNIS). Jessica was previously a Vice-Chancellor’s Research Fellowship at the University of Bristol, Lecturer at the University of Cambridge & Teaching Fellow at UCL. Her PhD (2015) is from the Global Development Institute (GDI), University of Manchester, where she was supervised by Prof Dan Brockington & Dr Tanja Bastia

Sustainable Development MSc - Programme Co-Director

Dr Tim Stojanovic

Tim is Programme Co-Director on the Sustainable Development MSc. Tim's research focuses on sustainability issues, particularly unique challenges faced in marine and coastal environments.

Sustainable Development MSc - Module Co-ordinator

Dr Christopher Schulz

Christopher is a Module Co-ordinator on the Sustainable Development MSc and is an interdisciplinary researcher with interests in environment and development, environmental values, and water governance.

Honorary Staff

Honorary Lecturer

Dr Alasdair Gordon Gibson

Alasdair has worked for over twenty years with the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement planning and managing humanitarian programmes in emergency relief and economic security. He holds a PhD from the University of St Andrews with research focusing on examination of how the discourse around humanitarian principles and practice can be re-cast in the contemporary political environment to enable greater impact and relevance to communities affected by crisis. Alasdair contributes to teaching on the International Development Practice MSc.

Interdisciplinary Masters degrees

Interdisciplinary learning is at the heart of the Graduate School and its programmes. You will be encouraged to develop a more rounded, interdisciplinary of understanding of your subject and to use ideas from different disciplines to illuminate your studies.