Lesley’s research interests lie in the general areas of the sociology of punishment and the sociology of law and deviance. Particular interests include: youth crime and juvenile justice; gender justice and community well-being; the politics of crime control; and comparative criminal justice. She is Co-Director (with Susan McVie) of theEdinburgh Study of Youth Transitions and Crime, and directs the Edinburgh Futures Institute.

Ewan has helped build the award-winning map of Scottish witch trials – the Scottish Accused Witches project – using WikiData.

Her academic thinking and writing focuses mainly on the ethics and politics of work in a global context. In particular, she is interested in the role of difference (primarily, race and gender) in the emergence and distribution of new forms of work. More recently, she has been thinking about the eugenicist underpinnings of discourses on technology.

Meryl’s research interests bridge the intersection of gender politics, party politics, territorial politics, and institutional approaches to the study of politics.

As Dean of Research, she is keen to promote research and engagement on issues of gender and sexuality across all of the arts, humanities and social sciences disciplines covered in the College.

Her research is concerned with histories of women and gender in modern Britain, as well as with histories of policing and surveillance, crime, deviancy, childhood, youth and sexuality.

Rachel originally trained as an archivist, and now manages archivists, librarians, and curators responsible for the University’s cultural heritage collections and welcomes IASH fellows to the Centre for Research Collections at the University. Rachel is Chair of the UK UNESCO Memory of the World Programme.