teaching fellow in Early Modern History
Newcastle University
Katie is currently a teaching fellow in Early Modern History at Newcastle University, having previously held a Leverhulme Early Career Fellowship with the University. Her research focuses on early modern intellectual culture, particularly the aspects of that culture which contributed to the formation of radical political and religious ideas. Katie has a particular interest in how public debate helped shape early modern ideas, and the different intellectual tools used to manage these exchanges. These are the themes of her first monograph, The Radicalization of Cicero: John Toland and Strategic Editing in the Early Enlightenment (2017).
visiting professor
Northumbria University/North East Culture Partnership
Jonathan was the senior Government civil servant for North East England for about ten years, including the 2004 referendum to create and Elected Regional Assembly for the region, retiring in 2011.
He is currently advisor to the twelve
North East local authorities for the Case for Culture, author of Borderlands:
Rescaling Economic Development in Northern England in the context of Greater
Scottish Autonomy, independent trustee at Tyne and Wear Archives and Museums
and chair of Alnwick Garden Trust.
Formerly Regional Director, Government Office North East, Director One North East, Regional Director English Partnerships, and Director Newcastle City Challenge.
Recently chair of New Writing North and
St Chads College Durham University.
anthropology student, Oxford Brookes University
Saskia debated with Ravensbourne School, making it to the 2017 National Finals with her team. She has interned with the Academy of Ideas, worked for the NHS and as a swimming teacher. She is now a student of anthropology at Oxford Brookes University with the goal of going into teaching in the future.
senior lecturer in Intellectual History
Newcastle University, UK
Rachel Hammersley is an intellectual historian based at Newcastle University. She is interested in the history of political thought – particularly concepts such as republicanism, democracy and revolution – and in the ways in which political ideas intersect with religious beliefs. She is the author of several books and a number of articles including: French Revolutionaries and English Republicans: The Cordeliers Club, 1790-1794; The English Republican Tradition and Eighteenth-Century France: Between the Ancients and the Moderns; and (as editor) Revolutionary Moments: Reading Revolutionary Texts. Her intellectual biography of the seventeenth-century political thinker James Harrington is due to appear with Oxford University Press in the autumn. Rachel also writes a regular blog which explores early modern political ideas and their relevance today: http://www.rachelhammersley.com
regional support official
University and College Union
Jon works as an official at the University and College Union (UCU). He has been involved in trade unions all of his working life, having previously been a leading lay representative for NATFHE – one of the predecessor unions of UCU. Prior to his current role, he worked in further education colleges across the north east and led the union’s national negotiations on pay and conditions. Jon has a background in sociology and social research, having come to the North East to study and then teach.
Active in his local community, Jon is treasurer of The Great Debate, chair of the neighbourhood association where he and his family live, governor at a local primary school and sits on the board of the Ouseburn Learning Trust.
Jon is a Debating Matters Angel
Jon has written about further education, poker, and gambling. You can follow him on Twitter at: @jonbryan and @JonBryanPoker
Emeritus Professor of History
University of Sunderland
Kevin’s research interests include assisted suicide and assisted dying, the intellectual history of race in the twentieth century United States, social movements in American history, and morality and the relationship of the individual to the state. He is currently working on a book about the 1924 Immigration Act, His books include Assisted Suicide: The Liberal Humanist Case Against Legalization (2013, 2015), The Second Amendment and Gun Control (2017, ed., with Joe Street) and Richard Nixon and the Rise of Affirmative Action (2006). Kevin sings in Durham Choral Society.
national coordinator, Debating Matters
Mo is the national coordinator for Debating Matters. She is also a programme coordinator for the Academy of Ideas and co-convenor of the Buxton Battle of Ideas Festival. Mo is an experienced events manager, having worked both nationally and internationally on a range of festivals and cultural programmes, most notably as Artistic Director for national Holocaust Memorial Day at London’s Guildhall in 2010 and as programme manager for the Swallows Project, a cultural partnership between the North East of England and the Eastern Cape of South Africa.
Mo read PPE at the University of Oxford and completed her doctoral research at the University of Northumbria, examining the application of arts and culture policy in areas of economic deprivation. She is a lecturer, public speaker and a commentator on TV and radio where she reviews the newspapers for Sky News, Times Radio and BBC Five Live as well as being a panel guest on Neil Oliver Live & Tonight Live with Mark Dolan for GB News.
Mo is passionate about debate and recently wrote Why Debating Matters for the Academy of Ideas’ series, Letters on Liberty.
Follow Mo on Twitter at @M0L0VATT
CEO, Thackray Museum of Medicine
Nat is the Chief Executive of the Thackray Museum of Medicine in Leeds. As a museum curator and community activist, Nat has worked in museums, galleries and archives for 30 years – developing exhibitions, education and community-based projects as well as major capital projects. Nat is the author of Caledonia’s Last Stand: In search of the lost Scots of Darien, in which he tries to find something to smile about in the history of Scotland’s disastrous Darien Scheme.
senior lecturer
Northumbria University
Sasha has 30 years experience in the health and social care sector, much of which was spent working in the NHS, working with children with chronic illnesses and latterly in a public health role. She currently teaches health professionals and social workers at Northumbria University. Her research interests exploring the factors that affect students’ success in higher education, mental health in children and young people, digital technology and its impact on the health of children, and finally politics and the student nurse. Outside of work she is an Ironman, which she says sounds good, but just means she is crazy enough to completed a mammoth triathlon. She is a school governor at a local secondary school, has two teenage children and loves travelling.
programme director, international programmes, University of Oxford
The backbone of Alison’s career is journalism, initially specialising in medicine and more recently broadening into biography, features and arts including writing a weekly column for the Oxford Mail and broadcasting on BBC Radio Oxford. Since 2012 she has also directed programmes for the University of Oxford’s Department of Continuing Education’s international programmes in leadership, public policy, higher education and economic management.
