Meet our members

Discover more about our researchers and their interests.

Academic staff

  • Professor Helen Stalford (Director) – The impact of Brexit on children’s rights; children’s access to and experiences of justice processes; asylum and migration, with a particular focus on unaccompanied children; participatory methods.
  • Dr Nicolás Brando (Deputy Director) - Philosophy of childhood and children's rights; social and political theory; civil and political rights; the capabilities approach.
  • Professor Amel Alghrani – The rights and welfare of children born as a result of new reproductive technologies. Education law, exclusions and the rights of children with special educational needs and disabilities. 
  • Professor Nicola Barker - Feminist approach to the broad areas of constitutional and family law.
  • James Betts - Education law, disability, and children's rights.
  • Professor Anna Carline - Criminal law and criminal justice (in particular domestic violence and sexual offences), family law and feminist/gender theory. 
  • Dr Eleanor Drywood  – Children’s rights under EU immigration and asylum law; developing children’s rights-based approaches to regulating the football industry and other sports.
  • Professor Marie Fox - Legal governance of human and animal bodies, legal conceptions of embodiment and regulation of reproduction.
  • Professor Barry Goldson - Youth justice law and policy at domestic, European and international level; human rights and youth justice reform; poverty and access to welfare rights for young people.
  • Dr Ed Horowicz - Ethical and legal issues that arise in the provision or non-provision of medical interventions for intersex and gender diverse children and adolescents.
  • Dr Zaina Mahmood - Surrogacy, pregnancy, reproductive technology. 
  • Dr William Shankley - Intersections between asylum and modern slavery frameworks on migrant communities, participatory/trauma-informed methods with migrants, asylum, and statelessness.
  • Deborah Tyfield – Special education needs and social care for children. Manages a specialist law clinic for the families of child patients at Alder Hey Children’s Hospital.
  • Paul Walmsley (Liverpool-based youth worker and founder of the Lewis Dunne Foundation) – Particular experience of working with children at risk of criminal exploitation/county lines.
  • Dr Sacha Waxman - Medical ethics.
  • Dr Sophie Wickham (Department of Public Heath, Policy, and Systems) - The impact of policies that aim to reduce child poverty on child and maternal mental health and health inequalities. 
  • Dr Sarah Woodhouse (Law Clinic Practitioner) – Children’s rights under immigration/asylum law.
  • Dr Jasmine Warren (Department of Psychology) - Reproductive psychology. 

 

External members

Our external members bring a wealth of frontline experience and intellectual rigour to ECRU’s work, enabling us to maximise the relevance and impact of our research, and helping us to link up directly with children and young people on the ground.

  • Professor Aoife Daly (University of Cork) - Human rights based approaches and children's rights in areas which include environmental rights, climate activism, and access to justice.
  • Tony Dobson (Former Social Worker and researcher with The Children’s Society) – Particular expertise in participatory approaches to decision-making; child poverty and social exclusion.
  • Dr Lucy Frith (University of Manchester) - Pregnancy and childbirth, research ethics, the organisation and funding of health care provision (priority setting), reproductive technologies.
  • Dr Leah Gilman (University of Manchester) - Social, cultural and legal perspectives on reproduction, childhood, personal relationships and medicine.
  • Dr Hannah Hirst (University of Sheffield) - Child law and children's rights, gender and the law, healthcare law, family law. 
  • Michael Jones (Former Social Worker, researcher, and Manager with The Children’s Society) – Particular expertise in participatory approaches to decision-making; child poverty and social exclusion.
  • Frances Kadioglu - Particular interest in immigration law, children's rights, and statelessness. 
  • Dr Nazia Yaqub (University of Leeds) - Child rights, gender justice, Islamic law and international human rights law.

 

Postgraduate researchers

Postgraduate researchers form an integral role in ECRU. They participate in the annual international PhD children’s rights symposium, which was launched by ECRU in 2012 and is now run in collaboration with the Children’s Rights European Academic Network (CREAN). They also help organise the monthly children’s rights reading group, manage the University’s Young Persons Advisory Group, and collaborate with established academics on consultancy and research. If you are interested in pursuing postgraduate research with ECRU, please contact one of the Directors who will be happy to discuss your proposed project with you.

  • Matilda Clough - Tilly's thesis title is: 'An Investigation into the Charitable Status of Independent Schools'.
  • Deborah Lawson - Deborah's thesis title is: 'Article 19 UNCRC - Balancing Protection, Understanding Violence: Indigenous Child Protection in Colonial Settler States'. 
  • Monique Mehmi - Monique's thesis title is: 'Age Assessments: Blurring the Boundaries of Childhood and Adulthood'. 
  • Alison Wolfreys – Alison's thesis is on children's participation in cross-border child abduction proceedings. 

 

ECRU's Formal Associations

Collaborative Academic Institutions and Individuals

Collaborative NGOs

 

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