Governance

Paul Crosthwaite is Professor of Modern and Contemporary Literature in the School of Literatures, Languages, and Cultures. His research interests are interdisciplinary, with a particular focus on how literary studies and the wider humanities intersect with economics and other social-scientific fields. His books include Speculative Time: American Literature in an Age of Crisis (OUP, 2024), The Market Logics of Contemporary Fiction (CUP, 2019), and (as coauthor) Invested: How Three Centuries of Stock Market Advice Reshaped Our Money, Markets, and Minds (Chicago, 2022). His research leadership roles include departmental research and impact director and unit of assessment coordinator for the Research Excellence Framework (2021 and 2029). He joined the Management Group in 2026.

Patricia Erskine is Head of Stakeholder Relations & Policy Officer for the College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences, and Head of Culture & Community at the Edinburgh Futures Institute.

Soledad Garcia Ferrari is Professor of Global Urbanism and Resilience and Dean International for the College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences, where she leads strategic development around research, innovation and education. Professionally qualified in Architecture and Urbanism in Uruguay, Soledad has extensive expertise in sustainable urban planning in Latin American cities, with a focus on community-empowerment, participatory and co-creation processes, towards increasing resilience and adaptation to climate change across global cities.

Rachel Hosker is the University Archivist and Research Collections Manager. 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.

Laura Jeffery is Professor of Anthropology of Migration in the School of Social and Political Science (SSPS), and Dean of Research in the College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences (CAHSS), serving on the IASH Management Group (2022–25). Her research interests include: healthcare at the intersection of gender and protracted displacement, participatory arts methods and creative engagement with migration and displacement, and intangible cultural heritage and human–environment relations in protracted displacement contexts.

Michela Massimi is Professor of Philosophy of Science in the School of Philosophy, Psychology and Language Sciences at the University of Edinburgh. She works in the area of history and philosophy of science with a focus on topics such as realism, pluralism, perspectivism, and scientific models, and is the author of Perspectival Realism (OUP 2022). She is President-Elect of the Philosophy of Science Association (PSA) and served as Vice President of the European Philosophy of Science Association (2015-2019). For more info please see https://www.michelamassimi.com/.

Dr Kaveri Qureshi is a Co-Director of GENDER.ED, the university’s gender and sexuality studies hub, and Senior Lecturer at the Global Health Policy Unit within Social Policy at the School of Social and Political Science. She works on intersectional inequalities in health, work and family life, and on the relationships between health and family. She also leads lines of inquiry around intersectional inequalities and coloniality within wider collaborative projects. She is the author/editor of more than ten books or journal special issues, including two monographs: Marital Breakdown among British Asians (2016), and Chronic Illness in a Pakistani Labour Diaspora (2019). She joined the Management Group in 2026.

David Smith is Deputy Head of the College of Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences (CAHSS), supporting the Head of College in the development, implementation, monitoring, and evaluation of CAHSS's strategic plans. He has particular responsibility for taking forward the College's education strategy, priorities, and plans, around Learning, Teaching and Student Experience. Prior to becoming Deputy Head of College, he was Head of Moray House School of Education and Sport. Before joining the University of Edinburgh, he spent ten years at the University of Aberdeen where he held various roles. Latterly, he was Head of School of Education (2017-2022) reporting to the Senior Vice-Principal and being a member of the University Management Group. Professor Smith’s academic interest is in early Christian origins and religion and education. He is a qualified Secondary Teacher who has also worked in local and national governments as well as the Third Sector.

Samuel J.M.M. Alberti PhD FSAScot FRSE is Director of Collections at National Museums Scotland, and an Honorary Professor in Heritage Studies at the University of Stirling. For twenty years he has worked at the intersection of museums and universities, first in Manchester, then as Director of Museums and Archives at the Royal College of Surgeons of England (including the Hunterian Museum), while holding visiting research appointments in London, Philadelphia, and Edinburgh. His recent practice has focussed on the role of museums in the climate emergency and Cold War museology; he is currently Principal Investigator on the AHRC project, Materialising the Cold War. He joined the IASH Advisory Board in 2022.

Olivier is director of the Network of French Institutes for Advanced Study, which brings together some of the most important researchers in the humanities and social sciences in France. He previously was a lecturer in economics at the University of Paris I Panthéon-Sorbonne, researcher at the French Center for Research in Social Sciences in Prague, and senior researcher for the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development in Paris. He also has held positions as director of the French cultural and scientific services in Rome and Boston. Bouin holds a PhD in economics from the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales, a master’s degree in political science from the Institut d’Études Politiques de Paris, and a master’s degree in international economics from the University of Paris-Dauphine.

Rosi holds a BA Hons. from Australian National University, 1978, and a PhD Cum Laude, Université de Paris, Panthéon-Sorbonne, 1981. She was a Fellow of the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, in 1994; she also holds honorary degrees from the University of Helsinki, 2007, and the University of Linkoping, 2013. She has been awarded Knight in the Order of the Netherlands Lion, 2005; Honorary Fellow of the Australian Academy of the Humanities (FAHA), 2009; Member of the Academia Europaea (MAE), 2014. Distinguished University Professor and founding Director of the Centre for the Humanities at Utrecht University.

Her books include Patterns of Dissonance, Polity Press, 1991; Nomadic Subjects, Columbia University Press, 1994 and 2011a (second ed.); Metamorphoses, Polity Press, 2002; Transpositions, Polity Press, 2006; La philosophie, lá où on ne l’attend pas, Larousse, 2009; Nomadic Theory. The Portable Rosi Braidotti, Columbia University Press, 2011b and The Posthuman, Polity Press, 2013. In 2016 she co-edited Conflicting Humanities with Paul Gilroy, London and New York: Bloomsbury Academic. Since 2009, she has been an elected board member of CHCI (Consortium of Humanities Centres and Institutes). Find out more on her personal website: www.rosibraidotti.com

Allan is a veteran broadcaster and long-time special correspondent for BBC News. He was Chair of the Edinburgh International Book Festival until 2024. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh.

Jane Ohlmeyer, MRIA, is Erasmus Smith's Professor of Modern History at Trinity College Dublin and the Director of the Trinity Long Room Hub, Trinity’s research institute for advanced study in the Arts and Humanities.  Since September 2015 she has served as Chair of the Irish Research Council, an agency that funds frontier research across 70 disciplines.  In 2014-15 she was the Parnell Fellow at Magdalene College Cambridge and a Visiting Professor at JNU in New Delhi and is currently the Yeats Visiting Professor at Sāo Paulo University in Brazil. She has also taught at the UCSB, Yale and the University of Aberdeen. A passionate teacher and an internationally established scholar of early modern Irish history, Professor Ohlmeyer is the author/editor of 11 books, including Making Ireland English. The aristocracy in seventeenth century Ireland (Yale University Press, 2012). She is currently working on a study of Colonial Ireland, Colonial India, editing volume 2 of The Cambridge History of Ireland, 1550-1730 and preparing an edition of Clarendon’s Shorte View of Ireland for Oxford University Press.

Professor Ohlmeyer was the first Vice-President for Global Relations (2011-14) at Trinity and developed high-level relationships with researchers working in some of the most prestigious universities across the world and with company leaders, policy makers and the heads of cultural organizations, especially in Asia and North America.  She was a driving force behind the development of the Trinity Long Room Hub, which promotes multi-disciplinary exchange within the Humanities and across all disciplines, and the 1641 Depositions Project, which has become a European flagship initiative.  This was an inter-institutional and multi-disciplinary collaboration involving over 50 researchers (historians, linguists, literary scholars, geographers, computer scientists, mathematicians and physicists), together with IBM and a Bulgarian and Irish SME. 

At the level of the European Commission Professor Ohlmeyer was one of the Irish representatives on the European Strategic Framework for Research Infrastructures (ESFRI). She took the lead in promoting research infrastructures in the humanities including DARIAH (Digital Research Infrastructure for Arts and Humanities, http://www.dariah.eu/) and sits as a member of the DARIAH.EU Scientific Board, along with the European Holocaust Research Infrastructure Advisory Board.   She has held various positions of trust and served on a wide variety of review, editorial and advisory boards.  She is currently a non-executive director of the Sunday Business Post, a member of the Irish Manuscripts Commission, of the National Archives Advisory Council, and of the Royal Irish Academy.

In August 2022, Professor Prescott succeeded Professor Dorothy Miell as Head of the College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences at the University of Edinburgh.

Professor Prescott was previously Principal of the College of Arts and Humanities and Professor of English Literature at University College Dublin (UCD). During her tenure, Professor Prescott oversaw major transformation of the undergraduate curriculum. She worked extensively with external partners and alumni to enhance the student experience and the employability of UCD graduates.

Amina Shah FRSE is the National Librarian and Chief Executive of the National Library of Scotland. She has more than 25 years' experience across the library and cultural sector, including both public and academic libraries. She was a previous CEO of the Scottish Library and Information Council and Director of Programme at the Scottish Book Trust and is currently President of CILIP in Scotland. Amina has a strong interest in the role libraries, education, literature and culture play in empowering individuals and communities and how organisations can work collaboratively and creatively to maximise their impact and reach..

Professor Sarah Skerratt is Chief Executive of the Royal Society of Edinburgh (RSE), having been the Director of Programmes for two years, heading up research, international, enterprise, policy, public engagement, Fellowship and Young Academy teams. She also delivers to the ‘Inclusive Public Service’ workstream of the RSE’s Post-Covid Futures Commission. Prior to this, Sarah was Director of Policy Engagement at Scotland’s Rural College (SRUC), where she worked for just over two decades. Sarah is Professor of Rural Society and Policy. For 30+ years, Sarah has researched rural community resilience, disempowerment and poverty, with a more recent focus on rural mental health with the National Rural Mental Health Forum members. Sarah aims to enhance rural and national policy and make a difference in rural communities. Sarah remains research active, working with the Scottish Government on numerous task forces, Scottish Parliament, universities, private, public and third sectors, communities and development agencies in Scotland as well as internationally. Following a two-year secondment with Audit Scotland, Sarah is retained as their rural adviser, having established their Islands Forum in 2017. Sarah is the Scientific Director of the Scottish Consortium for Rural Research (SCRR), is on the Advisory Board of the International Network on Social Disadvantage in Rural Peripheries, and the Scottish Advisory Group of the OECD Rural Innovation Programme.

Sarah joined the IASH Advisory Board in 2020.

Christine has been with the British Council since 2004, and is a member of the British Council’s Global Leadership Team. She is responsible for a global research portfolio spanning education, arts and culture, youth and skills, as well as exploring the impact of cultural relations, and trends in soft power and foreign policy. Her team also manages research partnerships and knowledge exchange, and oversees research ethics, standards and practice. 

She hosts the British Council’s award-winning podcast Our World, Connected, directs the Next Generation youth research programme, and is series editor of the Cultural Relations/New Voices Collection. She also chairs the British Council’s working group on Peacebuilding.

Beyond IASH, Christine is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, and a Trustee of MND Scotland and the Scottish Policy Research Exchange. Prior to joining the British Council, she had stints as a political journalist and in the music business.