Profiles
Dr Lindsay Stringer, Former Simon Research Fellow, appointed 2005; current Lecturer in Environmental Social Sciences, Leeds University
Background
I studied Physical Geography at the University of Sheffield from 1997-2000. I remained in Sheffield to study for an MSc in Environmental Monitoring and Assessment in Drylands and my PhD (2004), which examined the implementation of the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) in Africa. During my PhD studies I took 3 months academic leave to undertake an internship at the UNCCD Secretariat in Bonn, Germany. I then held a number of short-term contracts at the Universities of Leeds and Sheffield, moving to the University of Manchester in 2005.
Contributions to my professional career
Since starting my Simon Fellowship I have been based in the Institute for Development Policy and Management, within the School of Environment and Development (SED). My research is interdisciplinary and looks at the environmental impacts of political and economic transition in Eastern Europe and Central Asia. In particular I am interested in exploring the ways in which transition has affected people's capacities to respond to environmental changes (particularly their responses to land degradation and drought).
I am shortly going to Romania for an extended period, in order to collect the primary data to inform my research. This has been made possible due to the flexibility and funding associated with my Simon Fellowship, together with an additional grant from the SED Research Support Fund. In addition to engaging in my new research, my Simon Fellowship has allowed me to build a strong publications record based on my thesis and the work undertaken during my short-term contracts. Thus, it has provided a valuable contribution to my overall career development.
In addition, my Simon Fellowship has allowed me to not only undertake research and attend international conferences but also to engage in other activities within the SED. I currently supervise some Masters dissertation students. I also convene a research and reading group which meets fortnightly to discuss publications and research that broadly focuses on environment-development issues. This is very rewarding and involves staff and students from across the SED and School of Social Sciences, and provides a supportive forum for the discussion of research ideas, publication plans and so on.
Dr Anindita Ghosh, former Simon Research Fellow (1999-2000), current Lecturer in History
I obtained my first degree in History from Presidency College, Calcutta, in 1989 (first class) and my Masters degree in Modern History from Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, in 1992. I came to the UK for doctoral studies in 1993, and completed my PhD from Clare College, Cambridge University in 1998. I joined the History Department at Manchester University in October 1999 as a Simon Research Fellow. I was offered lectureship in Modern Extra-European History in the same department in September 2000.
Contributions to my professional career:
I took up the Simon Fellowship in October 1999 for three years intending to work on "The hidden voices of the "lowly" woman and the Muslim: Gender and communal identity in popular Bengali print literature in the nineteenth century". The idea was to write two new and very significant chapters for my manuscript, "Politics of Language and Culture: Print, Popular Publishing and Reform in Bengali Society", c. 1800-1920 (provisional title), that Cambridge University Press had shown an interest in. I would have moved on from this work to undertake new projects, in the course of time.
During my period as a Simon Fellow, I was able to undertake crucial research at the British Library in London and various archives in Calcutta; research which has now been published in several academic journals. I attended various conferences and I also undertook some teaching for a core course in a joint degree programme at level one which equipped me with the required experience for a teaching career. The general academic environment of the department was very vibrant and I was immediately drawn into a series of reading groups and regular seminars. I had managed to complete some of the research necessary by the end of 2000, when I began my tenure as a permanent lecturer in History. The remaining research was completed over the next two years, and the monograph is due to be published later this year (2005).
I am currently teaching courses in modern Indian history, colonialism and nationalism, and the making of identities in South Asia. I am also contributing to all levels of undergraduate and postgraduate studies, and supervising three PhD students. Having recently completed a monograph on print in colonial Bengal (Power in Print: The Politics of Language and Culture in a Colonial Society (forthcoming: Oxford University Press 2005), I have moved on to research the emergence of colonial cities and public spheres in India, by focusing on Calcutta. I organised an international workshop on "Women in India: A Contour of Resistance" (August 2004), with the help of funds from the British Academy.
Dr Sasha Handley, Former Simon Research Fellow, appointed 2007; currently Lecturer in Early Modern History, University of Northumbria
Background
I obtained my BA (1998), MA (2000) and PhD (2005) in History from the University of Warwick and my doctoral research comprised a cultural history of ghost beliefs in English society between 1660 and 1800. Following a valuable year as a teaching fellow at the University of Manchester in 2006-7, I was awarded a Simon Fellowship in 2007. In September 2009 I became a Lecturer in History at the University of Northumbria.
Contributions to my professional career
I began my Simon Fellowship in October 2007, and having recently completed my first monograph Visions of an Unseen World: Ghost Beliefs and Ghost Stories in Eighteenth-Century England (London: Pickering & Chatto, 2007), I used my time to write an additional chapter from this project. ‘Apparitions and Anglicanism in 1750s Warwickshire’ has since been published in P. Clarke & A.M. Claydon (eds) The Church, the Afterlife and the Fate of the Soul, Studies in Church History, Volume 45 (Woodbridge: Boydell Press, 2009).
After completing this chapter, I used the rest of my fellowship to begin a brand new project investigating practices and perceptions of sleep in early modern England. Much of my time was spent in archives across the UK (British Library, Wellcome Library, National Archives, John Rylands Methodist Archive, Geffrye Museum, Museum of London) gathering data on domestic sleeping practices and environments from a large sample of household inventories, medical literature and personal testimonies. The project examines the changing cultural meanings attached to the biological act of sleep in late seventeenth and eighteenth-century England, alongside its philosophical and spatial relocations. The Simon Fellowship was invaluable for providing me with the time and resources to get this project off the ground, and it is now nearing completion with a number of academic journal articles and a forthcoming monograph Bedroom Stories in Early Modern England, currently in progress. Thanks to the fellowship, I was also able to take up a Summer Fellowship at the University of Montreal in 2009 and the foundations of this research project have since allowed me to secure an AHRC Early Career Fellowship (2011) to complete the research and writing.
In addition, I was able to participate in a number of conferences and workshops that were invaluable for shaping the intellectual framework of my research and I also undertook some undergraduate teaching which enhanced my teaching profile. The active interdisciplinary atmosphere at the University of Manchester was an excellent environment in which to work and I made a number of valuable networks, having recently returned to speak at the ‘Researching Ethereality and In/tangibility’ workshop at the Museum of Manchester in March 2011. I have no doubt that the Simon Fellowship was a crucial stepping-stone in my progression to a permanent academic position at the University of Northumbria.
Dr Marianne Sensier, Former Hallsworth Research Fellow, appointed 2004; current Research Fellow, IPEG, University of Manchester.
Background
I obtained both degrees (BA in Economics with Econometrics and PhD) from the University of Sheffield. I joined the staff at Manchester in November 1997 and worked on a number of research projects in addition to my Hallsworth Fellowship.
Contributions to my professional career
The Hallsworth Fellowship was based within the Centre for Growth and Business Cycle Research (http://www.socialsciences.manchester.ac.uk/cgbcr/) in Economics. During the Fellowship, I collaborated with colleagues internationally, in the Manchester Business School (MBS) and the Institute of Political and Economic Governance (IPEG). The collaboration with MBS colleagues (Ser-Huang Poon and Stuart Hyde) led to two successful grants applications (from the Bank of England and Inquire, UK) and with IPEG colleagues (Alan Harding and Mike Artis) led to a successful ESPON (European and Spatial Planning Observation Network) grant which provided me with further employment based in the Manchester Regional Centre in IPEG (see: http://www.socialsciences.manchester.ac.uk/ipeg/research/mrec/).
In total 17 academic papers were produced over the course of this Fellowship with 6 of these published in journals, 2 as book chapters, 2 have “revise and re-submit” from journals and 7 are working papers. I made 5 academic presentations of my work as a visiting academic and at a national conference (the Royal Economic Society Meeting). We have circulated our work to users outside the academic community, including the Bank of England, Inquire and the Welsh Assembly.