Who we are

Professor Julian Preece  (Chair) is Chair of German at Swansea University. He joined CDBU in 2012 in response to a founding commitment to promote smaller degree programmes, briefly known at that time as SIV’s (‘strategically important vulnerable subjects’). He has played a key advocacy role at the University Council for Languages (UCFL), where he was a vice-chair 2016-2020.

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Dr Sean McMahon (Deputy Chair) is a Reader in Astrobiology at the University of Edinburgh. He is interested in microbial palaeobiology and the search for life on Mars. He has studied or conducted research at five other universities (Oxford, Aberdeen, Yale, Durham, and London).

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David Wolton (Treasurer) is a publisher and long-term charity organiser.

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Dr Carlos Azevedo is a Visiting Research Fellow at the Open University Business School and an associate lecturer at the University of the West of Scotland.

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Professor Ronald Barnett is Emeritus Professor of Higher Education, University College London Institute of Education, where he was Pro-Director and Dean. For some decades, he has been a leader in the development of the new field of the philosophy of higher education, is the inaugural President of the Philosophy of Higher Education Society and acts as a consultant.

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Becca Bashford (Press Officer) is a Philosophy PhD candidate at Royal Holloway, University of London researching recognition and identity-formation. She also works for Prison Reading Groups researching the benefits of reading for pleasure in prisons. 

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Professor Susan Bruce is Professor of English at Keele and co-Chair of Keele’s EDI steering group. She is co-Chair of the Arts and Humanities Alliance and a former Chair of University English.  She has written on a range of topics, including utopias, photography, literature and memory, TV medical drama and the NHS, and Brexit.

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Professor Andrea Cornwall is Professor of Global Development and Anthropology and Pro-Director (Research & Enterprise) at SOAS, University of London. She’s written on the politics and paradoxes of participation, citizenship, empowerment and rights. 

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Christopher Cunningham is a PhD candidate at the University of Essex. His research investigates the relationship between the policy and practice of widening participation and political narratives of social mobility. Having joined Essex in 2007 as a member of staff working in the security department, he began his BA Sociology with Social Anthropology in 2013 and is due to submit his Sociology PhD thesis in December. 

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Professor Aneez Esmail is a Professor of General Practice at the University of Manchester where he has served on its Governing Body and is a member of its Senate. He continues to work as an NHS GP.

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Professor John Holmwood is professor emeritus at the University of Nottingham. He was president of the British Sociological Association in 2012-14. He was co-founder of the Campaign for the Public University in 2010 and has written widely on higher education, as well as on the Trojan Horse affair and the alleged plot to Islamise schools in Birmingham. 

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Professor James Ladyman is a professor of philosophy at the University of Bristol and works primarily in philosophy of science. 

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Professor Benedikt Löwe is a researcher connecting mathematics, computer science, philosophy and the social sciences. He is the Professor of mathematical logic and interdisciplinary applications of logic at the Universität Hamburg and is the chair-holder of the CIPSH chair ‘Diversity of Mathematical Research Cultures and Practices’. He is a member if the Académie Internationale de Philosophie des Sciences (AIPS), the Secretary General of the International Union of History and Philosophy of Science and Technology (IUHPST).

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Dr Kelli Rudolph is a senior lecturer in Classics and Philosophy and Head of the Department of Classical and Archaeological Studies at the University of Kent. Her research focuses on Presocratic and Stoic philosophy, and her interests in higher education policy centre on issues related to academic freedom, self-governance and equal access.

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Professor Anne Sheppard  is professor emerita of ancient philosophy at Royal Holloway, University of London. She has twice served as head of classics at Royal Holloway and has also been an academic staff member of the college’s council and in that capacity participated in a review of the college’s statutes.

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Professor Mark Tibbett is a plant and soil scientist with over 25 years’ experience in research and teaching. Having completed postdoctoral, academic and industry appointments in the UK, he spent 10 years in Australia at CSIRO Land & Water and as the director of the Centre for Land Rehabilitation at the University of Western Australia. 

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