Contacts and Committee

Shadaab Rahemtulla is Senior Lecturer in Islamic Studies at the School of Divinity. He has also served as the School's Director of Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion, winning the CAHSS Advancing Inclusion Award in 2022. A Muslim liberation theologian, Shadaab's  interests lie in the relationship between religion, power, and resistance, exploring how sacred texts can be (re)interpreted to challenge systems of domination. He is the author of the book - Qur'an of the Oppressed: Liberation Theology and Gender Justice in Islam (2018) - and the editor of the volume, The Future of Islamic Liberation Theology  (2023). Before joining the University of Edinburgh in 2019, he was an Assistant Professor at the University of Jordan in Amman, where he taught for six years.

Lauren Hall-Lew is Personal Chair of Sociolinguistics and a Professor in Linguistics and English Language in the School of PPLS. Her research focusing on the social and cultural aspects of human speech, including studying variation between speakers of different social backgrounds and in different social contexts, and how speech changes over time. She also studies linguistic variation as a social signal and the impact of accent on speakers' credibility and economic success. She is co-editor of the volume, Social Meaning and Linguistic Variation, with Cambridge University Press, and two forthcoming volumes with Oxford University Press: Sociophonetics: Implications for Phonetics and Phonology, and Dimensions of Linguistic Variation.

Daisy Bao is a PhD candidate at Moray House. With nearly a decade of experience promoting inclusive student development in higher education, both as a former HE policy maker and now as a doctoral researcher, her work focuses on issues of inclusion, equity, and justice in student engagement and students as partners in HE. Motivated by a commitment to ensuring that students and staff from all backgrounds have equitable opportunities for growth, Daisy joined the UoE Staff BAME Network and now co-coordinates the BAME Mentorship Programme alongside Professor Lauren Hall-Lew. They actively promote the programme to raise awareness and increase participation. Daisy hopes that her ongoing contribution to the mentorship initiative, though modest, can help extend meaningful support to more BAME staff across the University. 

Victoria Cunto is Communications Manager within the University of Edinburgh’s Information Services Group and currently serves as Communications Coordinator for the Staff BAME Network. A first-generation immigrant from Argentina, Victoria brings over 15 years’ experience in media, journalism, PR, graphic design, and institutional communications.

An award-winning journalist, Victoria’s commitment to equity and anti-racist practice is deeply rooted in her lived experiences. At the heart of her work lies the belief that inclusive communication can shift narratives and transform systems. Drawing on her Latin American heritage, she is committed to using storytelling to challenge inequities, build community, and amplify underrepresented voices across the University.

Victoria is also an alumna of Advance HE’s Diversifying Leadership Programme, designed to address and challenge the under-representation of Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic staff in leadership roles within UK higher education.

Regina Hansda is a Lecturer in Development and Justice at the Institute of Geography and the Lived Environment (RIGLE), School of Geosciences. Regina is an interdisciplinary social scientist, and her research interests are on the politics of food, agriculture, gender, environment, and development in India/South Asia. Her current research interest is on indigenous food, and indigenous education and she is developing her work in that direction. Regina is committed to questions of social and ecological justice and draws extensively from critical development theory, political ecology, post/de/anti-colonial theory, feminist methodologies, and Indigenous epistemologies for both her research and teaching. Before joining the academia, Regina worked for more than seven years in the environment and development sector as a development professional. She has worked on issues of poverty, inequality, rural livelihoods, biodiversity conservation, and climate adaptation amongst others in different states in India across a range of institutions—NGOs, government amongst others including the UN(FAO) in Rome. Regina is from the Santal tribe of Jharkhand in Eastern India, and she is the Co-Founder of the Adivasi Mentorship Network—a voluntary collective, that mentors Adivasi (Indigenous) students to access higher education.

Shipra Bhatia is a Research Fellow/ Investigator Scientist at the Institute of Genetics and Cancer. Following on from a doctoral degree obtained at the University of Delhi in India, she joined the MRC Human Genetic Unit for my postdoctoral work in January 2010. She was awarded the Leverhulme trust early career fellowship and the Caledonian fellowship from Royal Society of Edinburgh in 2014. Her research focusses on understanding how disease-associated changes in the noncoding ‘junk’ DNA lead to human genetic disorders. Currently in her role as an Investigator Scientist at the MRC Human Genetics Unit, she championed the use of zebrafish and organoid culture systems as models for her research. She is passionate about supporting career development of early career researchers, with a keen interesting in providing mentoring opportunities and showcasing the work of long-term research staff at the university. She is a member of the Research Cultures Collaboration committee, helping to support and guide researcher careers and issues related to research culture, and serves on the IGC postdoctoral society committee. She is also very passionate about communicating science to wider public, including patients/their families and children and she actively participates in the public engagement events at IGC.

Samie Mansoor grew up in Birmingham, his mother is Iranian and father Iraqi. Samie studied English Literature in London before moving to China for three years to teach, first in Suzhou then in Shanghai. He then returned to the U.K. to do a Master’s degree in Arabic and Middle Eastern Studies at the University of Edinburgh. After graduating, Samie worked for a number of years as an Anti-Racist Educator for an Edinburgh-based charity. As part of that role, he worked in high schools to provide support to students experiencing racism, build communities and provide advice on anti-racism to staff. In addition, he worked with other charities, typically supporting those who experience racism and/or queerphobia, and helping organisations embed anti-racist practices in their work. Samie currently works as a Student Adviser in the Law School.