Skip to main content

Our staff

Staff categories 

These are our Birkbeck staff categories within the Department of Geography.

Head of department

  • Jasmine Gideon, Reader in Gender, Health and International Development

Academic staff 

Teaching and scholarship staff

FELLOWS

Honorary Research Fellows

  • Jo Abbess: Jo Abbess is a published author on the topic of Renewable Gas, having started to ask the question about what can be done to decarbonise gas whilst a Climate Change Management MSc student at Birkbeck. Jo is now working on a second book on Renewable Gas around the demands of her full-time online tutoring in Mathematics, Physics, Chemistry and English. Read Jo's blog.
  • Harry Langford: Harry studied at the City of Liverpool College of Higher Education for a degree in physical geography and geology awarded by Lancaster University in 1981. In 1999 he was awarded a PhD by Anglia Polytechnic University for a thesis on Sedimentological, Palaeogeographical and Stratigraphical Aspects of the Middle Pleistocene Geology of the Peterborough Area. His research interests are fluvial and glacial sedimentology, British Pleistocene history and stratigraphy, and Pleistocene history of the Peterborough area. He currently leads a multidisciplinary project on producing a long terrestrial fluvial record of the past 200,000 years based on Quaternary deposits at Whittlesey, near Peterborough.
  • Ismael Al Ameri: Dr Ismael Al Ameri’s research focuses on climate change, paleoclimate, paleoenvironment, arid regions and biodiversity. His Honorary Research Fellowship started with an Iraqi Government award in 2017-2018, before which he was a lecturer in applied climatology at the University of Baghdad, Iraq (2012-2016). He has a BA (Hons) in Geography ranked 1 out of 208 graduated students (2001), MA in Physical Geography (2005), and PhD in Physical Geography (2012) all from the University of Baghdad and was a visiting student at Dalhousie University, Canada in 2010. Ismael has on Mesopotamian paleoclimate, paleoenvironment, paleo shorelines, and marshes and modern climatology.
  • Girma Shimelish Muluneh: Dr Girma Shimelis Muluneh has a PhD degree in Education Policy and Leadership from Bahir Dar University. He has nearly 12 years of experience in GOs and NGOs; currently, he is working at Partners in Education Ethiopia (Canadian NGO) as senior education specialist. So far, Dr Girma has published five articles and two book chapters alone and with his colleagues. His works include: 'Building a change adaptive university: A system of composite indicators to measure and facilitate pervasive changes' and 'Leading Changes through Adaptive Design: Change Management Practice in One of the Universities in a Developing Nation'.
  • Fatou Kiné Diouf: Fatou Kiné Diouf studied English and Political Science at the universities of Paris Sorbonne and Paris 8. She has experience in research, curating, project management, and visual arts. Her practice hinges on studies of inequalities and discrimination through culture, with a focus on gender and sexuality. She is based in Dakar and is active in different feminist and artistic collectives. She recently founded A.D.N, a creative agency. She is currently the project researcher for the British Academy funded project Development and Education in the Vernacular for Infants and children in West Africa (DEVI).

Emeritus professors

  • Professor John Shepherd: John graduated from LSE in 1966. His first job was as a Research Officer at the Royal Commission on Local Government in England. Following a period teaching at Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario he returned to LSE to work on his PhD joining the Department of Geography at Birkbeck in 1975. John’s teaching and research was in the field of applied human geography including in urban and regional planning and environmental policy. From 1985 to 2004 he directed the ESRC core funded South East Regional Research Laboratory which was established to demonstrate the role of Geographic Information Systems in applied research. From 2004 to 2009 he led Defra’s Rural Evidence Research Centre which developed the evidence base for important aspects of rural policy in England. Among the major achievements of the RERC was a new and much emulated definition of rurality, the spatial modelling of rural project funding and studies of the social and economic geography of small towns. John retired from Birkbeck in 2015 but continues his personal research on social enterprise in rural areas. He is a member of Defra’s Rural Academic Panel. Among his publications is a curious book entitled Postcodes the New Geography.

Professional Support staff 

  • General Enquiries - please  or tel: +44 020 3926 1000
  • Chrys Papaioannou - Administrator. Tel: +44 020 3926 1848
    • Development and Globalisation (BSc) 
    • Geography and International Development (BSc)
    • Geography, Environment and Development Studies (MPhil, PhD) 
    • Children, Youth and International Development (MSc)
    • Cities (MA/MSc)
    • International Development (MSc, PGDip, PGCert)
    • International Development and Social Anthropology (MSc, PGDip)
  • Laura Gittens - Administrator. Tel: +44 020 3926 1844
    • Community Leadership (CertHE)
    • Community Development and Public Policy (BSc)
    • Environment and Sustainability (BSc)
    • Environmental Management (BSc)
    • Geography (BSc)
    • Human Geography (BA)
  • Shirley Collins – Senior Administrator. Tel: +44 020 3926 1842
    • Climate Change (MSc, PGDip, PGCert)
    • Environment and Sustainability (MSc, PGDip)
    • Geographic Data Science (MSc, PGDip, PGCert) 
    • Geographic Information Science (MSc, PGDip, PGCert) 
    • Geography (MSc, PGDip, PGCert)
    • Social and Cultural Geography (MA)
  • - Interim Team Leader. Tel: +44 020 3926 1710
  • Harriet Smith - Assistant School Manager. Tel: +44 020 3926 1804