Purna Sen joined the Child and Woman Abuse Studies Unit (CWASU) in November 2020 as a Visiting Professor, where her work focuses on internationalising and facilitating joined-up learning on work to end violence against women.
She has worked extensively in the UK and beyond on inequalities and the pursuit of human rights, including as Deputy Director of the Institute of Public Affairs at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) where she also taught gender and development, as Head of Human Rights for the Commonwealth Secretariat and as Director for the Asia-Pacific Programme at Amnesty International. She has consulted with organisations including Article 19 and the British Council and has been on the management and advisory groups of non-governmental organisations including the Refugee Women's Resource Project and Southall Black Sisters. Purna was previously a board member of the Kaleidoscope Trust (an LGBT rights charity), RISE (a domestic abuse charity) and the Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative.
Purna most recently (2015-2020) worked at UN Women, initially as Director of the Policy Division and latterly as the Executive Co-ordinator and Spokesperson on addressing sexual harassment and other forms of discrimination.
Rosa Wilson Garwood - Head of Impact and Partnerships at Surviving Economic Abuse (SEA)
Building on her experience in international development using research to design and evaluate programmes and campaigns, Rosa would be available to support CWASU researchers to design research impacts and plan for evidence uptake. Using SEA’s latest interactive training materials, she would also be able to train university staff to recognise and respond to economic abuse. Working across several research, evaluation, and learning projects at SEA, Rosa can share research findings with students at CWASU – for example from the recent Domestic Abuse Sector Learning Partnership.
Dr Kathryn Royal – Research Officer at Surviving Economic Abuse (SEA)
Kathryn is experienced in conducting research with victim-survivors of abuse, including throughout her PhD and her time with SEA, most recently undertaking 73 semi-structured interviews and a survey with over 500 responses as part of SEA’s cost of COVID-19 rapid research project. She would therefore be able to share findings and practice in conducting research with students.
Kathryn also has experience in lecturing and presenting research findings on violence against women and girls, so would be able to contribute to the teaching within CWASU, as well the supervision of student dissertations. Kathryn coordinates SEA’s international network on economic abuse, which currently has over 180 members including research, practitioners and policymakers from 16 countries, meaning that SEA is in a strong position to share research findings globally.
Keith Gibson – Evaluation Specialist at Surviving Economic Abuse (SEA)
Keith is experienced in conducting quantitative scientific research, identifying and understanding underlying patterns and mechanisms within data sets and systems, and in recent years has moved towards social issues. His previous appointment was a research-based role exploring and managing extensive longitudinal data sets to support system change activities through a holistic understanding of the experiences of homelessness, mental health, criminality and substance abuse. Keith is responsible for supporting the evaluation of SEA’s internal and collaborative projects.
Keith’s offer is threefold, he can offer support around quantitative analysis (particularly through a mathematical/science lens), share experience of how to structure, store and visualise data effectively and share evaluation findings.
