Co-Director: Dr Zanele Nyoni-Wood

Zanele is a lawyer and academic with a particular thematic interest on the role of cultures, religion, and politics on the development of national laws that criminalise and regulate same-sex relationships and LGBT rights in sub-Saharan Africa. Zanele has a broader interest on the strategies and approaches employed by LGBT rights activists and the impact that this has on changing or shaping the law. Zanele is interested in collaborating with those interested on these areas, or a wider interest in collaborating with those interested in exploring how cultures, religion and politics impact the lived experiences of individuals.

Co-Director: Dr Yakubu Salifu

Yakubu is a Senior Fellow of Advance HE (SFHEA) and a registered nurse in Ghana and the UK. His research is primarily influenced by his professional background as a nurse and an educationist, focusing on palliative and end-of-life care, family caregiving, masculinity, stigma, and palliative care health policy, particularly in Africa. He is passionate about research aimed at addressing poverty and financial insecurity at the end of life, fostering compassionate communities, and seamlessly integrating research into care provision. Yakubu has also been involved in the large EU-funded consortium project MyPal and serves as the CEO of COMPASS Ghana, a charitable organisation registered in both the UK and Ghana, aiming to improve access to palliative care in resource-poor communities

Associate Director of Research: Nkechi Azinge-Egbiri

Nkechi's core research interest is in anti-money laundering and counter-terrorist financing (AML/CFT) law and policy. Her current research projects focus on the compliance challenges of African countries with the global AML/CFT standards in the face of their recent sanctioning. She has also recently started looking at the linkage between AML/CFT governance and critical reporting actors (including lawyers, high value dealers, etc).

Associate Director of Engagement: Professor Charlotte Baker

Charlotte Baker is Professor of French and Critical Disability Studies and Co-Lead of the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences Health Research Hub. She was previously Principal of Lonsdale College and Faculty Associate Dean for Postgraduate Research.

Her research focuses on disability and stigma in sub-Saharan Africa, with a particular interest in the genetic condition albinism. She has published widely on the socio-cultural realities of living with albinism, cultural representations of albinism, and the human rights abuses against people with albinism.

Associate Director of Education: Dr Gemma Charters

Gemma is a Lecturer in Population Health

https://www.lancaster.ac.uk/dsi/about-us/members/gemma-chaters

Mentor: Professor Kirk Semple

As Director of International Engagement in the Lancaster Environment Centre and then the Assistant Dean International for the Faculty of Science and Technology, Kirk is involved in international activities and partnerships for the University. Most of his international activities have been in Sub-Saharan Africa, where he has supported collaborations with universities and research institutes, private sector organisations and government/policy experts in Sierra Leone, Ghana, Nigeria, Cameroon, Kenya, Uganda, Malawi, Zambia, Botswana and Angola.

Mentor: Professor Roger Pickup

Roger is a Professor of Biomedicine and Life Sciences within the Division of Biomedical and Life Sciences of the Faculty of Health and Medicine. His research interests lie in 'Environment and human health' with expertise in molecular microbial ecology/environmental microbiology. He is particularly interested in non-tuberculous mycobacteria and their environmental routes for human exposure. Other interests include: antibiotic resistance in the natural and hospital environments, gene transfer in the environment and sanitation and health in sub-Saharan Africa.

Mentor: Dr Manoj Roy

Manoj's research interests include: urban poverty analysis; ecosystem services/disservices-urban poverty linkages; climate change adaptation; and human settlement design and planning; and informal land and rental markets.

In the pursuit of policy relevant findings, he applies novel interdisciplinary methods combining technical analysis (e.g. architectural and planning, spatial analysis and modelling) with a social (e.g. livelihoods, wellbeing) and political (governance, institutional) analysis. His research countries include: Bangladesh, India, Ethiopia and Tanzania.

Postgraduate Representative- Hajara Mohammed

Hajara is a PhD student whose thesis examines the literary appraisal of the Al-Majiri child scholar in fictions as a lens through which Al-Majiri begging, its causes and consequences can be viewed and better understood. Using postcolonial theory as its lens and interviews for its methodology, the research will investigate the extent to which imaginative art is an appropriate and effective channel for elucidating human experiences such as that of the AlMajiri child scholar in Born on a Tuesday, Songs of Almajiri, No Sweat, Kasko and Dan AlMajiri. These texts have captured the pain and struggle of the Al-Majiri in their various ramifications. They will help scholars, researchers, policy makers, and the general public better comprehend the life of the Al-Majiri child scholar/beggar, including their personality.

Communications Lead - Dr Reuben Larbi

Reuben is currently on secondment at the Blackpool Council on a National Institute of Health and Care Research (NIHR) Health Determinants Research Collaboration (HDRC). His research focuses on socio-ecological determinants of health and wellbeing, particularly in low-income urban settings. He is passionate about addressing the unjust deprivations and socio-economic conditions under which people live, grow and work, and the consequent inequalities in health and wellbeing. He has experience assessing vulnerability of the urban population to climatic and other environmental hazards and implementing feasible adaptation measures in different ecological contexts.