Your conference team
Professor Simon Rushton - Conference Chair
Simon is a Professor of International Politics in the School of Sociological Studies, Politics and International Relations at the University of Sheffield. Simon’s research interests focus on the global politics of health, peace and conflict, and participatory research methods. His work has looked in particular at international responses to infectious diseases; the links between health and international security; the changing architecture of global health governance; healthcare delivery in conflict and other crisis situations; and post-conflict peacebuilding. His current research projects are in Nepal and Colombia. Simon joined the BISA Executive Committee as an elected trustee in 2020.
Juliet Dryden - BISA Director/CEO
Juliet has worked in the field of international relations for the last 25 years specialising in programme management, international development/humanitarian affairs and donor relations.
Juliet has previously worked at the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS), the Royal Institute of International Affairs (Chatham House), the London School of Economics (LSE Ideas) and for 15 years with the United Nations in Cairo, Gaza and Jerusalem (UNRWA, UNOCHA, UNOHCHR). Her most recent position prior to joining BISA was at the West Asia - North Africa (WANA) Institute in Amman where she was the Director of Programmes. Juliet holds an MA in International Relations from the University of East Anglia.
Juliet has been a member of the Chatham House Council since July 2021 and currently chairs the Council Research Committee. She is also an adviser to the British Foreign Policy Group (BFPG).
Outside of BISA, Juliet loves reading political biographies, outdoor swimming, spending time with her family and living a quiet life after years of living dangerously!
Ella Bullard - Events and Communications Assistant
Ella joined BISA in September 2024 as a recent politics and international relations graduate. Throughout her studies she gained varied experience in fundraising and event planning for charities and football clubs.
Outside of BISA, Ella enjoys unwinding with a good book, exploring new coffee spots, and spending time outdoors with her dog.
Chrissie Elliot-Duxson - Marketing and Communications Director
Chrissie has worked in marketing communications for over 15 years with experience of both the public and private sectors. Her most recent positions prior to joining BISA were at the University of Warwick and spanned marketing, communications, recruitment, student experience and project management.
Chrissie has also run her own business and was formerly the Chair of her local branch of the Federation of Small Businesses as well as Chair of Coventry and Warwickshire First Young Professionals.
Outside of BISA, Chrissie is in various bands, an avid parkrunner and triathlete, and enjoys travelling.
Freya Jones - BISA Administrator
Freya joined BISA as Administrator in January 2021 on a part-time basis alongside her other roles as a School Bursar and a Ticketing Administrator for the Friends of Oxford Botanic Garden. Previously she worked as an Account Director for an Event Management agency for nine years, organising a variety of events across the globe.
Outside of BISA, Freya enjoys Pilates and reading (when time allows!), and has recently taken up playing the piano again after a 25 year hiatus.
Dr Elena Barabantseva – University of Manchester
Elena Barabantseva is Professor of Chinese and International Politics at the University of Manchester. Her research focuses on the intersections of borders, identity, gender, migration, intimacy, and citizenship in the context of globalising China. She is the author of Overseas Chinese, Ethnic Minorities and Nationalism: De-Centering China (Routledge, 2010) and Post-Soviet Brides in the China Dream (Cambridge, 2026). She has also co-produced and co-directed the documentary features British Born Chinese (2014) and A Letter to Chinatown (2025). Her research has been published in leading journals including Geopolitics, International Political Sociology, Journal of Contemporary China, Millennium, Modern China, The Journal of Asian Studies, Ethnic and Racial Studies, and Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies. She is a Co-Investigator on the UKRI Network+ project Shifting Global Polarities: China, Russia and Eurasia in Transition (2024–2028).
Dr Liam Farrell - The Manchester Metropolitan University
Liam Farrell is Lecturer in Political Theory at The Manchester Metropolitan University. His current research focuses on the politics of memory and time (temporality), as well as the political ecology of colonialism and its pertinence to contemporary critical theory in a planetary frame. Liam has written in the past on republican political thought, democratic theory, the politics of populism, and the problem of Globally and the (gendered and racialised) 'Modern Subject' in contemporary political theory.
Dr Jamie J Hagen – University of Manchester
Jamie is Lecturer in Global Politics at the University of Manchester. Her work sits at the intersection of gender, security studies, and queer theory. Hagen brings a feminist, anti-racist approach to her work, bridging gaps between academics, policy, and activist spaces. She was the lead researcher on a British Academy Innovation Fellowship (2022-2023) focusing on improving engagement with lesbian, bisexual, transgender and queer women in Women, Peace, and Security Programming. Her research in this field is published in the Journal of Gender Studies, International Affairs, Critical Studies in Security, the International Feminist Journal of Politics, and the European Journal of Gender and Politics as well as in the Washington Post, London School of Economics’ Women Peace and Security Blog, the International Peace Institute’s Global Observatory, and other outlets. Hagen is co-editor of the edited volume Queer Conflict Research: New Approaches to Study of Political Violence (BUP) and co-developed the Queering Women, Peace and Security: A Practice-Based toolkit (English/Spanish). Jamie joined the BISA Executive Committee as EDI lead in 2025.
Dr Michael Magcamit – University of Manchester
Michael Magcamit is a Senior Lecturer/Associate Professor in Global Politics at the University of Manchester and a NERPS Research Fellow at Hiroshima University. His primary research lies in Critical Security Studies, with particular expertise in violent conflict, international trade, and foreign policy in the Indo-Pacific. He is the author of Ethnoreligious Otherings and Passionate Conflicts (Oxford University Press) and Small Powers and Trading Security (Palgrave/Springer). His broader work on the non-traditional dimensions of international security has appeared in leading IR journals, including International Studies Quarterly, Review of International Studies, and International Affairs. He is the founding convenor of the Sustainable Everyday Peacemaking Research and Impact Consortium.
Dr Stuart Shields – University of Manchester
Stuart Shields is Reader in International Political Economy at The University of Manchester, where he has served as School of Social Sciences Postgraduate Research Director, and Faculty of Humanities Deputy Associate Dean for Postgraduate Research. His research interests are in critical political economy, European development finance, regional development banks and Eastern Central Europe. He was convenor of BISA’s International Political Economy working Group (IPEG). Along with Alex Nunn he runs the Foundations of IPE digital talking histories archive project, https://www.ipefoundations.org.uk/home that generates freely available publicly accessible podcasts and videos. Recent research has been published in Review of International Studies, Global Policy, and New Political Economy.
Dr Davide Schmid – The Manchester Metropolitan University
Davide Schmid is Senior Lecturer in International Political Economy at Manchester Metropolitan University. His research sits at the intersection of Critical Theory, Political Economy, and European Studies. He is interested in the study of contemporary global order and capitalist crisis in relation to European integration and the European border regime. He is the author of the book The Poverty of Critical Theory in International Relations (Palgrave 2023). His work has also been published in the European Journal of International Relations, New Political Economy, and the Journal of Common Market Studies.
Dr Kathryn Starnes - The Manchester Metropolitan University
Kathryn Starnes is a Senior Lecturer in International Relations at Manchester Metropolitan University and co-leads the Politics Research Group. Her research deploys folkloric methods to explore epistemic justice and knowledge production. She has worked at the intersection of canonical critique in the history of international relations, international relations pedagogy, and the relationship between community and knowledge production. She is the author of Fairy Tales and International Relations (Routledge 2016) and has subsequently published in Global Studies Quarterly, Art & The Public Sphere, Globalizations and contributed to The Oxford Handbook of International Studies Pedagogy.
Dr Marcelle Trote Martins – University of Manchester
Marcelle Trote Martins is a Lecturer in Critical Global Politics at the University of Manchester. She has a PhD in Politics from the University of Manchester. Her work focuses on the visual politics of memory and trauma and the mobilisation of wounded/suffering bodies in (post)conflict societies. Her publications include articles in Journal for Cultural Research, International Political Sociology, Millennium Journal of International Studies and the Journal of Race, Ethnicity and Politics. Her book ‘Affective Imageries: Visual Politics of Wounded Bodies in Timor-Leste’ is published by Bloomsbury.
Professor Andreja Zevnik - University of Manchester
Andreja is an interdisciplinary scholar whose research examines political resistance, protest, race, identity and marginalisation. Her work brings together psychoanalysis, continental philosophy, postcolonial theory and critical race theory to explore how political identities and forms of resistance are produced. Professor Zevnik’s recent research focuses particularly on racialisation, political mobilisation and the experiences of marginalised communities, with a strong emphasis on Roma communities in Europe and Black political resistance in the United States. Her research also examines anxiety, political participation and the ways in which political subjects are constituted through processes of resistance. She is the author of Lacan, Deleuze and World Politics and co-author, with Andrew Russell, of The Politics of Unbelonging: Understanding and Challenging Racialisation of Roma in Europe and Beyond.
If you'd like to contact the conference team please email conferences@bisa.ac.uk.