People

Graduate School team

Director

Dr Morven Shearer

Morven is the head of the Graduate School and has overall responsibility for its academic and administrative operations.

Deputy Director

Dr Walter Pedriali

Walter is responsible for the academic operations of the Graduate School. Walter is the Graduate School's director of teaching and also fulfils the duties of assessments officer and academic misconduct officer.

School Manager

Mrs Lisa Neilson

As School Manager, Lisa is responsible for the planning and coordination of the administrative operations of the Graduate School. This includes the role of Careers Link and Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Officer.

Headshot of Lisa Neilson

Senior Administrator

Miss Claire Brodie

Claire provides administrative support to the Graduate School. Claire is the Graduate School's Disabilities Coordinator and is clerk to the Module Examination Board and the Degree Classification Board.

Headshot of Claire Brodie

Administrator

Mrs Donna Marr

Donna provides administrative support to the Graduate School. She covers reception duties, supports teaching administration, and processes applications for incoming students. She is also clerk to the Student Staff Consultative Committee.

Donna Marr Profile Pic

Social Media Assistant

Bina Avdich

Bina is in charge of creating content for the Graduate School for Interdisciplinary website and social media accounts (X/Twitter and Instagram). Bina is also a 2nd year PhD student at the School of Medicine

Headshot of Bina Avdich

MSc and MLitt directors

Energy Policy and Finance MSc Programme Director

Dr Emilka Skrzypek

Emilka is the director of the MSc in Energy Policy and Finance, and the deputy director of the University of St Andrews Centre for Energy Ethics. Emilka’s research is focused on issues associated with supplying so-called energy transition metals for the global energy transition, and the expansion of extractive industries in the Pacific under conditions of climate change.

Profile picture of Emilka Skrzypek

Gender Studies MLitt - Co-Director

Dr Jade Fletcher

Jade is Co-Director of the MLitt in Gender Studies, Deputy Director of the St Andrews Institute for Gender Studies, and a Lecturer in the Department of Philosophy. Jade's research focuses on a variety of issues in feminist philosophy and social metaphysics.

Gender Studies MLitt - Co-Director (Semester 1 only)

Dr Ana Gutierrez Garza

Ana is Co-Director of the MLitt in Gender Studies and director of the St Andrews Gender Institute. Ana's research interests include migration, gender, economic anthropology, inequality, care, labour, morality and ethics.

Ana Gutierrez Garza Profile

Global Social and Political Thought MLitt - Co-Director

Dr Milinda Banerjee

Milinda is co-director of the MLitt in Global Social and Political Thought. Milinda's research draws on global intellectual history, critical theory, and political theology.

Milinda Banerjee

Global Social and Political Thought MLitt - Co-Director

Dr Vassilios Paipais

Vassilios is co-director of the MLitt in Global Social and Political Thought. His research focuses on three areas: the theory and history of realism as an ethico-political response to the crisis of liberal modernity in the 20th century, the question of ontology in politics and international relations, and the study of political theology in world politics.

Health Data Science MSc - Co-Director

Dr David Harris-Birtill

David is co-director of the MSc in Digital Health. David's research interests include remote sensing, image and signal processing, and machine learning for patient benefit.

David Harris-Birtill

Health Data Science MSc - Co-Director

Professor Silvia Paracchini, FRSE FRSB

Silvia is co-director of the MSc in Digital Health. Silvia's research focuses on the genetic component of neurodevelopmental disorders such as dyslexia.

Silvia Paracchini

Museum and Heritage Studies MLitt - Co-Director

Dr Catherine Eagleton

Katie is co-director of the MLitt in Museum and Heritage Studies.Throughout her career, Katie’s work has combined library, archival and museum collections. Moving into the cultural heritage sector after completion of her PhD at the University of Cambridge, she became a curator in the British Museum developing new projects on global history and the history of Africa, and then Head of Asian and African Collections for the British Library, initiating a number of large digitisation projects, international collaborations, and service improvement projects. Katie joined the University as Director of Museums in July 2019 and was appointed Director of Libraries and Museums on 1 August 2020.

Museum and Heritage Studies MLitt - Co-Director

Dr Nicôle Meehan

Nicôle is co-director of the MLitt in Museum and Heritage Studies. Nicôle's research focuses on digital museum objects, networks of interaction, audience engagement and inclusion, museum education and critical data ethics.

Museum and Heritage Studies MLitt- Deputy Director

Matthew Sheard

Matt is Deputy Director of the MLitt in Museum and Heritage Studies. He is also Head of Experience and Engagement for the University Museums, where he is responsible for audiences, programming, learning, accessibility, audience research and evaluation, digital engagement, and marketing.

Matthew Sheard Profile Picture

Sustainable Development MSc - Director

Dr Jessica Hope

Jessica is the Director of the MSc in Sustainable Development. Jessica is a political ecologist who extends political ecology’s concern for environmental justice with geographical treatments of infrastructure and materiality. Her current project investigates how new roads in the Amazon change environmental knowledges and politics, using these roads as a new conceptual entry point for understanding the global sustainable development project. Completed projects investigated the early-take of the SDGs in Bolivia (a place where there are both intensifying commitments to resource extraction and radical alternatives) and the political ecology of post-neoliberalism in Bolivia (specifically, the TIPNIS). Jessica was previously a Vice-Chancellor’s Research Fellowship at the University of Bristol, Lecturer at the University of Cambridge & Teaching Fellow at UCL. Her PhD (2015) is from the Global Development Institute (GDI), University of Manchester, where she was supervised by Prof Dan Brockington & Dr Tanja Bastia

Honorary Lecturer

Dr Alasdair Gordon Gibson

Alasdair has worked for over twenty years with the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement planning and managing humanitarian programmes in emergency relief and economic security. He holds a PhD from the University of St Andrews with research focusing on examination of how the discourse around humanitarian principles and practice can be re-cast in the contemporary political environment to enable greater impact and relevance to communities affected by crisis. Alasdair contributes to teaching on the International Development Practice MSc.

Interdisciplinary Masters degrees

Interdisciplinary learning is at the heart of the Graduate School and its programmes. You will be encouraged to develop a more rounded, interdisciplinary of understanding of your subject and to use ideas from different disciplines to illuminate your studies.