project manager, British Council
Michael has worked for the British Council for 20 years. He started his career as a teacher of English as a Foreign Language and worked in Japan and Slovakia before moving to Berlin in 2001. As Project Manager for the British Council’s work supporting the teaching and learning of English in Germany, Michael works closely with local education authorities, teacher training institutes and schools.
Michael has a first degree in German from the University of Durham, and having studied in Berlin during his student year abroad, he has now made Berlin his home.
retired psychiatric nurse
Ian was born in Oxford and lived in the south of England until age 10, when his family moved back to his parents’ home town of South Shields where he’s lived ever since. He studied sociology at Newcastle Polytechnic. On graduating, Ian had no definite career plan, and did a variety of jobs; labouring, bar work, survey work, retail management, and archaeological excavation. Eventually, he decided to train as a psychiatric nurse. He worked in the NHS for 23 years, and the private sector for 7 years. He loves history and art, and has read more social theory than is probably good for him. His interest in politics has waxed and waned, but has dramatically increased since the referendum. Married for 37 years, he has two sons aged 24 and 30, and grandchildren aged 5, 7 and 9. He boxed and did karate in his younger years, later doing distance running, He exercises daily. The things he holds dear are family, fitness, education, democracy, and free speech.
student and barrista
Sam Glendenning is hoping to study PPE or social policy at university in 2020. He previously studied veterinary medicine, and misses how little animals mentioned Brexit. An avid Labour supporter, he attended last year’s conference, but sadly forgot his fiddler’s cap and was rudely ejected after failing to greet a fellow attendee as comrade. Currently working as a barista at a Café Nero in Newcastle, he is hoping to find an exciting internship for next year. An opinionated vegan, he enjoys hiking, running and travel.
philosophy student, University of Sheffield
Katie is a second year philosophy student at the University of Sheffield with plans to complete a Masters there. Katie is a committee member of both the Philosophy Society and the Equality and Diversity Committee. She is excited to be interning at the Academy of Ideas before returning to university in September.
Event Coordinator
Molly has a background in architecture and design. She is coordinator of Oxford Arts Society and runs Chilworth Events, specialising in organising and hosting parties and ‘Question Time’ events.
editor in chief of Roar News; student, King’s College London
Will Nestor-Sherman is an undergraduate Comparative Literature student studying at King’s College London. He is currently the editor in chief of the university’s award winning student newspaper Roar News having previously trained as a journalist at Highbury College in Portsmouth. He is also the presenter and producer of KCL Radio’s flagship programme and podcast “The Civil Row”, a political panel show that aims to bridge the gap between students and people in positions of responsibility in the discussion of society’s big issues. He is currently interning at the Academy of Ideas.
director, Academy of Ideas
Claire Fox is the director of the Academy of Ideas, which she established to create a public space where ideas can be contested without constraint. She convenes the yearly Battle of Ideas festival and initiated the Debating Matters Competition for sixth-formers. She also co-founded a residential summer school, The Academy, with the aim to demonstrate ‘university as it should be’.
In May 2019, she was elected as an MEP for the North West England constituency of the UK in the European elections. During her tenure, she is taking a temporary sabbatical as Battle of Ideas festival convenor, but remains on the editorial board.
She is a panelist on BBC Radio 4’s The Moral Maze and is frequently invited to comment on developments in culture, education, media and free speech issues on TV and radio programmes in the UK such as Newsnight and Any Questions? She regularly appears on Sky Paper Review. Claire is a columnist for TES (Times Educational Supplement) and MJ (Municipal Journal). She is author of a book on free speech, recently republished as I STILL Find That Offensive! (Biteback, 2018), and No Strings Attached! Why arts funding should say no to instrumentalism (Arts&Business, 2007).
Claire is involved at a board level in the international debate network, Time To Talk. In 2018, she did a three-month residency as a presenter of the weekly three-hour radio magazine show, Fox News Friday, on LoveSportRadio.
head of Learning and Participation, Pitt Rivers Museum
Andrew is manager of the Learning and Participation team and previously managed Education at the Pitt Rivers Museum for the past seventeen years. Over that time, he has worked with a huge range of audiences, from schools and families to universities and community groups. The joy of working in a museum is how people learn from physical objects, and the stories and creativity that this encourages. His background is in history and education, but the collections of the Pitt Rivers have changed that focus towards the creative arts. Andrew is an active artist interested in life drawing, street drawing and landscapes. He also has a strong commitment to his local community and is actively involved in community arts in East Oxford.
associate marketing manager, Oxford University Press
Kim Behrens is an associate marketing manager at Oxford University Press, where she works on the promotion of the Very Short Introduction series, among other titles. Kim started her publishing career in the journals department at Taylor & Francis and has been working with OUP for nearly five years.
Executive Director, Programme & Impact, New Writing North
Anna is Executive Director (Programmes and Impact) at New Writing North, the development agency for creative writing and reading in the North of England. As part of the Executive team Anna is responsible for initiating and developing programmes of work, delivery partnerships, and funding models which engage people in the agency’s work, especially those from under-represented communities. This includes talent development programmes, events and festivals and extensive community engagement programmes.
Besides working closely with writers and artists to realise their ambitions, Anna is interested in the role of arts and culture in supporting connected communities, combatting loneliness and in promoting wellbeing and literacy.
Anna is Chair of Newcastle Cultural Education Partnership – a group of school and cultural leaders who aim to provide every young person in the city with a rich and accessible cultural offer and is part of the Newcastle Cultural Compact, the group which produces the city’s cultural strategy and action plan. She is a Trustee of Open Clasp Theatre Company and Sunderland Empire Theatre Trust and is on the board of Directors and Advisory Group for Digital start up, The Living Archive.
