Academic Staff
- Dr Eleanor Drywood (Director) – children’s rights under EU immigration and asylum law; developing children’s rights-based approaches to regulating the football industry and other sports.
- Dr Amel Alghrani (Reader) – The rights and welfare of children born as a result of new reproductive technologies. Education law, exclusions and the rights of children with special educational needs and disabilities.
- Dr Hannah Hurst (Post Doctoral Derby research fellow) - Family Law and access to justice; gender equality
- Dr Nicolás Brando (Post Doctoral Derby research fellow) - Philosophy of childhood and children's rights; social and political theory; civil and political rights; the capabilities approach.
- Professor Anna Carline (Impact Lead for the Liverpool Law School) - criminal law and criminal justice (in particular domestic violence and sexual offences), family law and feminist/gender theory.
- Professor Marie Fox (Professor of Law) -
- Professor Nicola Barker (Professor of Law) - feminist approach to the broad areas of constitutional and family law.
- Joseph Savirimuthu (Senior Lecturer) – online technologies, data protection and children’s rights.
- Professor Helen Stalford (Head of the Liverpool Law School) – The impact of Brexit on children’s rights; children’s access to and experiences of justice processes; asylum and migration, with a particular focus on unaccompanied children; participatory methods.
- Deborah Tyfield (Law Clinic Practitioner) – special education needs and social care for children. Manages a specialist law clinic for the families of child patients at Alder Hey Children’s Hospital.
- Dr Sarah Woodhouse (Law Clinic Practitioner) – children’s rights under immigration/asylum law.
- Dr Leona Vaughn (Post Doctoral Derby research fellow) – anti-colonial approaches to research, critical perspectives of ‘risk’ policies, slavery and unfree labour.
- Dr Ed Horowicz (Lecturer) - ethical and legal issues that arise in the provision or non-provision of medical interventions for intersex and gender diverse children and adolescents.
- Dr Leah Gilman (Post Doctoral research fellow, University of Manchester) - social, cultural and legal perspectives on reproduction, childhood, personal relationships and medicine.
- Dr Sacha Waxman (Lecturer) - medical ethics.
- Dr Craig Purshouse (Senior Lecturer) - medical law.
- Dr Nazia Yaqub (Senior Lecturer, Leeds Beckett University) - child rights, gender justice, Islamic law and international human rights law.
PhD research in ECRU
PhD researchers form an integral role in ECRU. They participate in the annual international PhD children’s rights symposium, which was launched by ECRU in 2012 and is now run in collaboration with the Children’s Rights European Academic Network (CREAN). They also help organise the monthly children’s rights reading group, manage the University’s Young Persons Advisory Group, and collaborate with established academics on consultancy and research. If you are interested in pursuing PhD research with ECRU, please contact one of the directors who will be happy to discuss your proposed project with you.
PhD students
- Deborah Lawson - Thesis examining the rights and experiences of children from indigenous communities in Canada and Australia, through the lens of Article 19 UNCRC (protection against violence).
- Matilda Clough – Tilly's working thesis title is 'An Investigation into the Charitable Status of Independent Schools.'
- Katrina Miles – Katrina's thesis title is 'The Legal Regulation of Teenage Sexting and Youth Produced Sexual Imagery.'
- Jenny Preston – Jenny is responsible for the management and delivery of a children, young person and family involvement strategy linked to EATC4Children activities.
- Amber Pugh – Mental capacity, disability rights, sexual and reproductive rights.
- Jessica Randall – Jessica's thesis title is 'Until Death: The Impact of the Gender Recognition Act on Trans Relationships.'
- Emily Warrilow – Emily's thesis title is 'Childhoods in the Legal Archive: Children, Sexual Crime and Colonial Law in India, 1830-1940'
- Alison Wolfreys (The Open University) – Alison's thesis is on children's participation in cross-border child abduction proceedings.
- Monique Mehmi - Monique's thesis is on the intersection between asylum law, anti-trafficking, and criminal justice, as they relate to young migrants.
Honorary Research Fellows
Our Honorary fellows bring a wealth of frontline experience and intellectual rigour to ECRU’s work, enabling us to maximise the relevance and impact of our research, and helping us to link up directly with children and young people on the ground.
- Professor Michael Freeman (Emeritus Professor UCL) – internationally leading commentator on children’s rights and founder of the International Journal of Children’s Rights.
- Liam Cairns (Co-Director of UK children’s rights organisation, Investing in Children) – Particular expertise in children’s participation in shaping services and in co-producing research.
- Tony Dobson (former social worker and researcher with The Children’s Society) – Particular expertise in participatory approaches to decision-making; child poverty and social exclusion.
- Mike Jones (former social worker, researcher and Manager with The Children’s Society) – Particular expertise in participatory approaches to decision-making; child poverty and social exclusion.
- Frances Meyler (Immigration judge [first tier tribunal]) – Particular expertise in children’s rights under immigration/asylum law.
- Paul Walmsley (Liverpool-based youth worker and founder of the Lewis Dunne Foundation) – Particular experience of working with children at risk of criminal exploitation/county lines.
- Professor Barry Goldson (Emeritus Professor) – youth justice law and policy at domestic, European and international level; human rights and youth justice reform; poverty and access to welfare rights for young people.
- Dr Aoife Daly (Lecturer - University of Cork) - human rights based approaches and children's rights in areas which include environmental rights, climate activism, and access to justice.
- Dr Hannah Hurst - medical law, gender theory, and children's rights.
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