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Our staff

Staff categories

These are our Birkbeck staff categories within the Department of Psychosocial Studies. 

Head of department 

Academic staff

Academic Teaching and Scholarship staff

Counselling Teaching and Scholarship Staff

Research Fellows

Emeritus staff

  • Miriam Zukas, Professor Emerita of Adult Education
    • Miriam Zukas was the first Executive Dean of SSHP from 2009 to 2016, and Birkbeck's Public Engagement Champion between 2016 and 2018. She was awarded a National Teaching Fellowship in 2008 and a Fellowship of Birkbeck in November, 2016. Miriam's research interests include academics and academic work and learning, professional workplace pedagogies, doctors' learning in transition, professional learning in transitions, and adult higher education.
    • Visit Miriam Zukas' website
  • Dr Gail Lewis, Reader Emerita of Psychosocial Studies
    • Gail Lewis joined the Department in 2013 and was Assistant Dean between 2015 and 2017. She is a Visiting Senior Scholar at the Gender Department at LSE and holds an Honorary Doctorate from the University of Essex/Tavistock and Portman Clinic. Her research interests focus on three areas: the history and character of black feminism in Britain; how modes of colonial thought are entangled in contemporary practices of citizenship and social welfare in ways that mark the latter as postcolonial; and the ways in which processes of racialisation and gender formation shape or impact the dynamics of social interaction in everyday practice.
  • Lynne Segal
    • Lynne Segal was appointed Anniversary Professor of Psychology and Gender Studies at Birkbeck, University of London, in 1999. She worked there for the next 21 years, ending up in the Department of Psychosocial Studies. While there she taught mainly in the area of gender, sexuality and ageing, although her work encompasses the broad sweep of cultural, political and social issues embraced by her commitments to feminism and left politics, arguing for a more peaceful, compassionate and egalitarian world. She helped establish and remains attached to the Birkbeck Institute of Gender and Sexuality (BIGS), as well as being an Honorary Professor at City, University of London, and active member of The Gender and Sexualities Research Centre there. She has published widely, including Is the Future Female? Troubled Thoughts on Contemporary Feminism; Slow Motion: Changing Masculinities, Changing Men; Straight Sex: The Politics of Pleasure; Why Feminism? Gender; Psychology & Politics; Making Trouble: Life & Politics; Out of Time: The Pleasures & Perils of Ageing; Radical Happiness: Moments of Collective Joy. She recently co-wrote The Care Manifesto: The Politics of Interdependence (2020) and is currently writing Lean on Me: Disavowals of Dependency. She speaks regularly at conferences in the UK, Europe and beyond, as well as appearing in podcasts and media outlets globally, especially addressing issues of feminism, ageing, care, and an end to conflict in Israel/Palestine.
  • Professor Avtar Brah: Professor Avtar Brah's Birkbeck Fellows page

Fellow of Birkbeck

Visiting and affiliated academics 

  • Abeer Otman
  • Dr Gianmaria Colpani, Assistant Professor, Department of Media and Cultural Studies, Utrecht University
  • Dr Arndt Emmerich, Honorary Research Fellow

Professional and support staff: Administrative