About the HERE team
The HERE Project is managed and developed by an interdisciplinary team with expertise from across the sector.
The HERE Project is based in the University of Nottingham School of Education. It has been developed and managed by an academic team with expertise that is informed by various interrelated disciplines. The HERE project is supported by a steering group, members of which have considerable expertise as practitioners, policy makers and academics.
HERE Team
Professor Joanna McIntyre
Principal Investigator
University of Nottingham
Jo McIntyre has extensive experience researching how, through the field of Education, we can understand and improve the lives of those who are marginalized or disadvantaged by society. Her work in the field of refugee education looks at the barriers and opportunities schools face when working to support refugee children. This has included work with teacher educators in different international contexts to consider issues of global migration and initial teacher education. Alongside the development of the HERE project, Jo has led research which explored the role of arts in fostering a sense of belonging for newly arrived young people in cities in Europe and a project with Swedish educators looking at the implementation of an inclusive model of education for refugee pupils. She has published widely on these topics including a book on refugee education based on case studies of best practice in English schools and colleges.
Dr. Chris Stone
Research Fellow
University of Nottingham
Chris Stone has a background in the sociology of sport, with a particular focus on football as a tool for community engagement and development. He has extensive experience of collaborative research and knowledge exchange with professional football clubs and community organisations such as Football Unites Racism Divides (FURD) and City of Sanctuary (CoS). His research around the role of football in the lives of refugees encouraged the development of various initiatives including the English FA’s Refugees and Football Network, Amnesty UK’s Football Welcomes programme and CoS’s Football Club of Sanctuary Award structure. As part of the HERE project he is developing this work to explore the informal educational and development capacities of sport in the context of forced migration.
Yousef Khalifa Aleghfeli
Research Fellow
University of Nottingham
Yousef Khalifa Aleghfeli is a DPhil graduate of the University of Oxford’s Department of Education, where they wrote on the educational resilience of unaccompanied and separated children (UASCs) by investigating the educational trajectories, outcomes, and experiences of UASCs in Jordan and Greece. An avid methodologist and trained data scientist, Yousef enjoys integrating quantitative and qualitative analytical traditions to answer questions about the provision of education and social care services to vulnerable child and youth populations. Prior to their doctoral studies, Yousef worked in research, policy, and data analytics for various NGOs, governments, and United Nations agencies internationally. Yousef also holds a Master of Education from Harvard University, a Master of Public Administration from Columbia University, and a Bachelor of Arts in International Studies from the American University of Sharjah. You can read more about their work on Google Scholar.
Lucy Hunt
Research Fellow
University of Nottingham
Lucy Hunt is a DPhil graduate of the University of Oxford’s Department of Education – as well as a qualified teacher and proponent of bringing the arts into research as both a process and product. In her current studies and wider professional life she focuses on issues at the intersection of education and migration, with a particular interest in the impact of forced migration on young people’s post-primary education. Her doctoral project, funded by the ESRC, ethnographically explores the challenges and meaning of education for refugee and asylum-seeking youth in Greece. This involves trying to unravel education’s role as a space and practice of ‘hostipitality’ towards newcomers, and how young refugees navigate conditions of liminality in/through different forms of learning. You can read more about her work on Google Scholar.
Dr. Jo-Anna Russon
Senior Research Fellow
University of Nottingham
Jo-Anna Russon is a Senior Research Fellow involved in research on the relationship between the private sector and development, particularly in the context of UK foreign aid. Jo-Anna is Co-I on an ESRC funded project examining the role of consultants and contractors in foreign aid, leading the work on consultants and UK aid spending on education in Africa. Jo-Anna is also responsible for supporting research projects and partnerships on vocational education and training in sub-Saharan Africa, bringing an interdisciplinary perspective based on her expertise on the private sector and international development. Finally, Jo-Anna provides research management support to the HERE project.
Alexia Ball
Project Admin
University of Nottingham
Alexia Ball has spent two decades working in international education, firstly as an EFL/ESOL teacher, then as an international student adviser, and now as an editor and mentor, working with doctoral research students and academics. She has worked with the British Red Cross and STAR to provide specialist English language support for refugees seeking to enter UK universities and served on the organising committee for Nottingham Refugee Week. Alexia also manages the peer review process for an education journal and supports the HERE project. Alexia’s research has focused on the Palestinian diaspora and the use of poetry as a form of cultural resistance and an expression of displaced and hybrid identities.
HERE Steering Group
Mialy Dermish
Executive Director
SIRIUS (Policy Network on Migrant Education)
Mialy Dermish is an education specialist, previously working with the UNHCR’s Regional Representation to the European Union in Brussels. She is now Executive Director of SIRIUS, the international leading Policy Network on Migrant Education and the EU’s privileged advisor on these topics since 2012. SIRIUS brings together key stakeholders in migration and education from around Europe, including policy makers, researchers, practitioners and representatives of migrant communities, with the aim of transferring knowledge and influencing policy to help pupils from a migrant background achieve the same educational standards as their native peers.
Professor Fabio Dovigo
Department of Social Work, Education and Community Wellbeing
Northumbria University
Fabio Dovigo’s research interests are in the area of inclusive education and early childhood education and care. He has coordinated the EU project ITIRE, aiming to design, implement, and disseminate a specific transnational training programme on refugee education at all school levels. The project, addressed to future and in-service teachers, was developed in cooperation with HE institutions from Austria, Denmark, Iceland, Norway, and the UK. He is convenor of the Network “Inclusive Education” of the European Education Research Association. His recent publications include, ‘Special Educational Needs and Inclusive Practices’ (Sense Publisher, 2016), ‘Challenges and Opportunities in Education for Refugees in Europe: From Research to Good Practices’ (Brill, 2018), ‘Beyond the vulnerability paradigm: fostering inter-professional and multi-agency cooperation in refugee education in Italy’ (International Journal of Inclusive Education) and ‘The Social Dimension of Higher Education in Europe: Issues, strategies and good practices for inclusion’ (Brill, 2020).
Catherine Gladwell
Chief Executive
Refugee Education UK
Catherine Gladwell is the founder and Chief Executive of Refugee Education UK, and has worked with refugee and asylum-seeking young people in a variety of education related programmatic, policy and research roles since 2004. She has led large-scale multi-national programmes and research initiatives across the UK, first countries of asylum and countries of origin both for REUK and organisations including UNICEF, UNHCR and Save the Children. She is also a founding director and board member at Jigsaw, a social enterprise building evidence in education; and a regular speaker at conferences and in the media. She is an honorary fellow at Winchester University, and a qualified teacher.
Associate Professor Michelle Proyer
Centre for Teacher Education and Department of Education
University of Vienna
Centre for Teacher Education and Department of Education – University of Vienna
Michelle Proyer has expertise in the field of inclusive education, with a particular focus on transculturality in the context of flight/escape/migration and the intersection of education, disability, and refugees. She was in charge of research activities in Thailand within the project Classifications of Disabilities in the Field of Education in Different Societal and Cultural Contexts (CLASDISA) at the Department of Education, University of Vienna. She co-founded SOLIdee – a refugee initiative associated with the Department of Education, University of Vienna in the context of the university’s initiative “Uni Hilft”. She has been coordinating requalification and research activities in the context of Internationally Educated Teachers.
Professor Wayne Veck
Department of Education and Childhood Studies
University of Winchester
Wayne Veck is Professor of Education and Pathway Leader Education Studies (Special and Inclusive Education) and is widely published on the topics of education and inclusion. He co-edited a special issue of Frontiers in Education on forced migration, education, and disability and has organised a Symposium at the European Educational Research Conference entitled, Forced Migration and The Global Education 2030 Agenda: From educational research to policy and practice, funded by the European Educational Research Association. He is also part of a consortium made up of partners from five different countries working on the Erasmus+ funded project, Improving teaching to improve refugee education.
Professor Volker Wedekind
Head of the School of Education
University of Nottingham
Volker Wedekind is Professor of Education and Convenor of the UNESCO-UNEVOC Centre in Nottingham. The Centre leads the Migration strand of the BILT: Bridging Innovation and Learning in TVET project and fed into the TVET section of the Global Monitoring Report that focused on migration. His teaching and research focuses on the intersection between societal and policy changes and how these affect the people working in the education and skills system. He has a particular interest in the relationship between migration, education and work. He has also been directly involved in policy processes at national level in South Africa, serving on a number of ministerial committees, government task teams, statutory committees and consultancies.