Who’s Who

Sarah Chaytor

Principal Investigator and Strategic Engagement Director

In addition, she is Director of Strategy & Policy for UCL Research, Innovation & Global Engagement and works closely with the Vice-Provost (Research, Innovation and Global Engagement). Sarah established and oversees UCL Public Policy, was a co-founder and is currently co-Chair of UPEN, the Universities Policy Engagement Network and leads the £10 million Capabilities in Academic-Policy Engagement project. She is also a Co-Director of the Research on Research Institute. 

Jo Chataway

Co-Investigator and Thematic Director for Socio-Economic Inequalities and Covid-19 Recovery

Professor Jo has been the Head of Department at STEaPP since 2018; prior to this, she held roles at the University of Sussex, The Open University and RAND Europe. With a background in policy research and evidence for policy, science and technology policy, international development, health research and innovation policy and capacity building, Jo co-founded the International Public Policy Observatory.

Geoff Mulgan

Co-Investigator and Thematic Director for Net Zero and Place & Spatial Inequalities

Sir Geoff Mulgan is the former Chief Executive of Nesta (2011-19), was CEO of the Young Foundation, and had roles in the UK Government including Director of the Government Strategy Unit and Head of Policy in the Prime Minister’s Office. He’s also the author of many books including ‘Another World is Possible’ (2022).  Geoff leads IPPO’s work on engagement with policy-makers. 

Ayden Wilson

Operations Manager

Ayden has been with IPPO since it was first established in 2020. Responsible for the day-to-day running of the observatory, co-ordinating activities across the partnership, he leads on financial budgets, staffing and recruitment, and building and maintaining relationships with IPPO’s partners, its advisory board and the funder.

Mukdarut Bangpan

Co-Investigator and EPPI Team Lead

Dr Mukdarut Bangpan is an Associate Professor in Evidence-Informed Policy and Development at the EPPI-Centre. She is the founder and co-director of the Southeast Asia Evidence Policy Partnership (SEAEPP)- a share learning platform aiming to build partnerships between academics and policy-makers in Southeast Asia for evidence-informed decisions in social sciences. Her interdisciplinary research focuses on inequalities, sexual and reproductive health, violence, displacement and social factors influencing health and well-being of young women and girls. She works with international partners to co-produce evidence synthesis with policy and academics. She is a member of the WHO Global Centre Traditional Medicine Evidence taskforce. At IPPO, she is a Co-I and works with partners to produce rapid evidence reviews to address cross-cutting and complex policy challenges.  

Dan Bristow

Dan Bristow, Co-Investigator and Wales Project Lead

Dan Bristow started his career working in the UK civil service and third sector organisations. Over the last decade, he has worked at the interface between academic evidence and public policy / public sector decision-making.

As Co-I and Director of Policy and Practice at the Wales Centre for Public Policy he has helped to establish an award-winning, demand-led approach to mobilising research evidence. This has involved designing and delivering a model that supports Welsh Government Ministers, and public sector leaders to access, understand and use the best available evidence.

Muiris MacCarthaigh

Muiris MacCarthaigh, Co-Investigator and Northern Ireland Project Lead

Muiris MacCarthaigh is Professor of Politics and Public Policy at Queen’s University Belfast where he has worked since 2013, and leads the IPPO team in Northern Ireland. His research engages with a variety of debates within and between political science, public sector governance and public policy.  He is particularly interested in the role played by administrative systems in translating political preferences into public policy outcomes. He is a member of the Steering Committee of the European Group for Public Administration.

JC Mauduit

Co-Investigator

Dr. Jean-Christophe (JC) Mauduit is a Lecturer in Science Diplomacy at University College London since September 2019. He was previously a Research Scholar at the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Washington, D.C. and Deputy Director at the Science Diplomacy Center at Tufts University. JC has a dual background in the natural sciences and international relations. As part of IPPO, he is most interested in understanding on how international expertise contributes to informing national policymaking.

Graeme Roy

Co-Investigator Scotland

Graeme Roy is the Dean of External Engagement in the College of Social Sciences and Deputy Head of College. He is working with local stakeholders – including from other universities – to ensure that the distinctive nature of devolution in Scotland, and the policy challenges and opportunities, are reflected in the work of IPPO. As a former Senior Civil Servant he understands the benefits (but also the challenges) of developing policy, particularly in uncertain times. Graeme is also Chair of the Scottish Fiscal Commission, Scotland’s official independent economic and fiscal forecaster. 

Matt Warren

Co-Investigator

Matt is the managing director of The Conversation UK’s services arm. Prior to that, he was The Conversation’s Deputy Editor and a Daily Mail features editor. Matt has oversight of the Editorial Project Manager, and helps to support IPPO’s communication work through The Conversation UK.

Sarah O’Meara

Communications and Engagement Manager

Sarah joined The Conversation as the Communications and Engagement Manager for the International Public Policy Observatory (IPPO) in March 2022. Before this time she worked as a freelance writer, editor, and project manager for publications such as Nature, Science and The Independent, among others. Previous to that she spent many years living in and working in China where she developed a keen interest in the country’s science and technology development.

Jeremy Williams

Senior Research Fellow and Policy Evidence Lead for Net Zero and Place and Spatial Inequalities

Jeremy Williams is a Senior Research Fellow and Policy Evidence Lead at IPPO and University College London. He has taught and lectured extensively on urban politics, culture, and everyday life, and leads IPPO workstreams including on Place and Spatial Inequality, and Net Zero. He is a former city official who wrote his doctorate on contemporary public space and led IPPO’s Bloomberg-funded Cities programme.

Urte Macikene

Senior Research Fellow and Policy Evidence Lead for COVID-19 Recovery and Socio-Economic Inequalities

Before joining IPPO in July 2023, Urte was Policy Manager at Healthwatch England, leading projects on issues including hospital discharge, maternal mental health, A&E performance targets, remote care and the national Your Care, Your Way coalition on accessible information. She has previously worked with health and education charities including The Hepatitis C Trust, Nurture UK and The Sutton Trust. She is passionate about evidence-based policymaking that maintains a focus on real people’s experiences.

Kezia Pugh

Research Assistant – Covid-19 Recovery & Socio-Economic Inequalities

Kezia joined IPPO in March 2024. Alongside her role, she is also an ESRC-funded PhD candidate investigating experiences of labour exploitation amongst racialised and migrant workers in adult social care. She has worked in multiple organisations across the third sector championing equality, and is passionate about intersectionality, social justice, and amplifying marginalised voices in policymaking and design. In her previous role, Kezia was a Partnerships & Campaigns Manager at the Living Wage Foundation, leading their sectoral campaign in Health & Social Care. As part of this, she worked with multiple stakeholders and policymakers in the public sector, advising on how best to embed best practice in their organisations, tackling low pay and insecure work.

Tatjana Buklijas

Co-Investigator and INGSA Project Lead

Tatjana Buklijas leads the collaboration between International Network for Government Science and Advice (INGSA) and IPPO, identifying international policy solutions to questions identified it in and across IPPO’s four themes. Tatjana’s background is in social studies of science, history and philosophy of biomedicine and medicine. Alongside her role with the INGSA, she’s Associate Director of Koi Tū: The Centre for Informed Futures, Director of Europe Institute and Senior Lecturer in Global Studies at The University of Auckland, New Zealand. 

Rokia Ballo

INCLUSIVE Project Co-Ordinator

Kelly Dickson

Amanda Hill Dixon

Wales Project Lead on Socio-Economic Inequalities

Amanda Hill-Dixon is a Senior Research Fellow at the Wales Centre for Public Policy. Her role involves developing and leading research to generate useful and impactful evidence for Welsh policy makers and public service leaders and leads the WCPP’s work to tackle inequalities in Wales.

Prior to joining WCPP, Amanda was Senior Researcher at The Young Foundation. In addition, she was Academic and Research Lead at Project Oracle (now Centre for Youth Impact) and a Consultant at Cordis Bright.

Dylan Kneale

EPPI Co-Lead

Steve Martin

Wales Project Lead

Steve is Professor of Public Policy & Management at Cardiff University and the Director of the Wales Centre for Public Policy and.  He plays a leading role in facilitating IPPO’s engagement with policy makers and policy priorities in Wales. 

Steve is an expert evidence based policy. He has led more than 50 major policy evaluations, published over 90 articles in leading peer reviewed journals, and served as an adviser to a wide range of government departments, public bodies, parliamentary enquiries and independent reviews – in the UK and internationally.

Nicola McEwen

Scotland Project Lead

Nicola McEwen is a Professor of Public Policy at the University of Glasgow and inaugural Director of the UofG Centre for Public Policy. Prior to joining Glasgow in April 2023, she was Professor of Territorial Politics at the University of Edinburgh, where she co-founded and co-directed the Centre on Constitutional Change. Her research is focused on devolution and multi-level government, with an interest in constitutional politics and how the constitutional competence/policy challenge interface is managed. Recent research projects include a Senior Research Fellowship with the UK in a Changing Europe, where she led UKICE research on the effects of Brexit on devolution and the union.

Rosa Mendizabel-Espinosa

EPPI Co-Lead

Rosa Mendizabal is Senior Research Fellow, working at UCL Social Research Institute since 2018. Her work at the Evidence for Policy and Practice Information Centre (EPPI Centre) focuses on co-producing research syntheses to address policy needs for the International Public Policy Observatory. 

Naomi Simon-Kumar

EPPI Co-Lead

Helen Tilley

Wales Project Lead on Net Zero and Place & Spatial Inequalities

Dr Helen Tilley leads IPPO’s Place and Spatial Inequalities and Net Zero themes for Wales. She is a Senior Research Fellow at the Wales Centre for Public Policy where she directs the Centre’s Economy, Decarbonisation and Skills programme. Helen’s research is focused on supporting the development and implementation of public policies on climate and net zero; skills and education; and productivity and economic growth. Previously she worked with governments and international agencies in Africa and Asia on building capacity to use evidence in policy formulation; public finance management and reform; and developing policies on climate, education, economic growth and poverty reduction.

Ka Ka Tsang

Research Fellow, Northern Ireland

Dr Ka Ka Katie Tsang is a Research Fellow based in the School of History, Anthropology, Philosophy and Politics at Queens University Belfast, Northern Ireland. Ka Ka’s work at the International Public Policy Observatory (IPPO) will involve engagement with local stakeholders, NI policymakers to meet national and international policy demands through articles, policy roundtables, public events and policy summaries. 

Prior to joining IPPO, Ka Ka specialised in the study of marginalised communities, the social impacts of public policy on minority ethnic people as well as LGBT+ communities. Ka Ka has extensive experience in community consultation projects including hate crime services delivery, policy and training, as well as LGBT+ rights and education equality research.

Carol Vigurs

EPPI Co-Lead

Sarah Weakley

Robert Richardson

Research Associate, Scotland

Rob is a postdoctoral Research Associate with the International Public Policy Observatory (IPPO) at the University of Glasgow, with particular interests in the governance of urban design and spatial planning. He has previously been a Research Associate at the Cambridge Centre for Housing and Planning Research (CCHPR), and completed a collaborative PhD at the University of Glasgow (with West Dunbartonshire Council) on the local implementation of national urban design policy. His teaching experience includes undergraduate level social and public policy, and postgraduate level city planning and urban design.

Kristiann Allen

Content Development at INGSA

Hope McGee

Research Assistant | Net Zero, Place and Spatial Inequality

With earlier experience working in fashion and social enterprise, Hope went on to complete her masters in Urban Economic Development at the Bartlett DPU in 2021, where she more recently worked as a teaching assistant on the London Practice Engagement. With interests at the intersection of the economy, built environment and sustainability, here she published a working paper which developed a framework of economic democracy for London’s high streets. A Public Practice Alumni, she previously worked on digital projects in planning, while developing, through the programme, a broader knowledge of public sector placemaking roles. She currently works in economic development at the Greater London Authority alongside her research at IPPO, primarily supporting Anchor Institution’s to develop partnerships tackling place-based issues, including use of assets for community benefit and local NHS employment.