School of Arts and Humanities Strengthened as New Term Starts at St Mary's

The School of Arts and Humanities at St Mary’s University, Twickenham, begins the new academic year with eight outstanding new members of staff. The new academics will strengthen both the School’s creative offering for undergraduate and postgraduate students and increase its capacity to deliver insightful research on a broad-spectrum of disciplines. The School is led by Prof Karen Sanders, who assumed her role this summer, working closely with Deputy Head of School, Mark Griffin. Karen is a former Professor in the Faculty of Arts, Humanities and Communication Sciences at CEU San Pablo University, where she also served as Assistant Dean, Head of the Department of Advertising and Communication and Assistant to the Pro Vice-Chancellor for Research. Appointments to the School include two new Academic Directors: Dr Cécile Hatier, Academic Director for Teaching, Learning, Quality & Enhancement and Prof Mark Addis, Academic Director for Research. They join Patsy Gilbert, Academic Director for Drama. Karen explained: “I’m delighted to welcome our new colleagues, who join an exceptional team in the School of Arts and Humanities. They will be inspiring a new generation of students to become creative entrepreneurs, equipped with critical and subject-specific skills that will enable them to become excellent professionals.” “With eight new members of the team, we have greater capacity to serve students and develop new programmes and research projects. Cécile and Mark in particular bring skills and experience that will allow us to strengthen considerably our teaching and research capabilities.” The School also welcomes Dan Ford, Lecturer in Drama; Jonathan Gibbs, Lecturer in Professional and Creative Writing; Dr Sasha Jespersen, Director of the Centre for the Study of Modern Slavery; Dr Carl Thompson, Senior Lecturer in English; and Christie Watson, Senior Lecturer in Professional and Creative Writing who have joined the team in the last month. Karen obtained her undergraduate degree from the University of Durham in English and Philosophy and obtained her MA and PhD in Communication from the University of Navarra in Spain and also holds the title of associate Professor at the IESE Business School. She was also a founding member of the Department of Journalism Studies at the University of Sheffield where she was director of the MA in Political Communication. Karen began her career working in local newspapers and managing media and parliamentary relations for one of the UK’s principal industry bodies in the City of London. Cécile previously held academic posts at the University of Bath and the University of Wolverhampton, where she has taught French, European Studies, Politics and Philosophy. She originally comes from France, where she studied humanities and social sciences in Nancy and at Sciences-Po Paris. She has an MA and a PhD in Political Theory from the University of Birmingham. Her research interests and publications are in the fields of political ideologies, especially liberalism during the Cold War, and morality in politics. She is a member of the Political Studies Association and the British Philosophical Association, and a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy. Mark was at Birmingham City University where he was Professor of Philosophy. He studied at the universities of Oxford, York and Leeds receiving his PhD from the latter. Mark is a Research Associate at the Centre for Philosophy of Natural and Social Science at the London School of Economics. He was a Visiting Professor at the Department of Culture and Society at Aarhus University. Mark was Treasurer of the British Philosophical Association and is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts. He researches in the fields of the history of analytic philosophy, epistemology and the philosophy of science.