Meet our staff
Find out more about our programme teams and steering group.
Sam Spiegel
Programme Director
Sam Spiegel's research has examined a variety of debates relating to the conceptualization of global inequality, marginalization and governance, with particular focus on the politics of resource extraction, labour regulation and livelihoods in mining communities.
He has served as an advisor to the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO) and the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and worked with governments and civil society groups on diverse initiatives to address resource management, development policy and governance in Africa, Asia and South America.
His current research focuses on how global governance paradigms in the extractive sector relate to national development policies and rural livelihood planning in Sub-Saharan Africa.
Rama Salla Dieng
Senior Lecturer
Rama is a Lecturer in African Studies and International Development at the Centre of African Studies. She worked with several African development organisations before joining academia. This rich policy and research background allows Rama to ground her research and teaching in lived work experience in African contexts.
Rama's main research interests are land, labour, social reproduction, accumulation and agrarian transformations , at the intersections of critical feminist and critical agrarian studies with a focus on Senegalese / West African agri-food systems.
Kevin Donovan
Senior Lecturer
Kevin is a Lecturer in African Studies and International Development at the Centre of African Studies. Kevin is an anthropologist and historian of East Africa. He works in the fields of economic and political anthropology, African history, and science and technology studies.
Maria Brichs
Maria is the programme administrator.
Find out about the experience and expertise of the people who will be leading and contributing to the programme.
Peter Alexander
Peter Alexander is Director of the Certificate in Global Environment Challenges.
He is an interdisciplinary lecturer in Global Food Security jointly with the School of Geosciences and the Global Academy of Agriculture & Food Security. Peter’s research focuses on the interactions within land use and food systems, combining social, economic and environmental aspects.
Approaches typically apply data or computationally intensive techniques, such as agent-based modelling, and where necessary use high-performance computing, to improve understanding of the human-natural interactions within these complex systems.
His work includes the development a new global agricultural land use and food system model, and other work investigating the current role of diet and waste in global land use and land use change.
Mark Rounsevell
Mark Rounsevell is Professor of Rural Economy and Sustainability within the School of GeoSciences. His research focuses on the effects of environmental change on rural and urban landscapes with an emphasis on the development and application of agent-based, social simulation models.
Models are combined with the development of scenarios to explore the response of individuals and society to different environmental change drivers in the future.
Mark is also David Kinloch Michie Chair of Rural Economy and Environmental Sustainability; Head of Geography and the Lived Environment Research Institute.
Roslyn Henry
Roslyn is a postdoctoral research fellow within the School of Geosciences.
Roslyn’s research focuses on modelling future land use change and food system dynamics specifically questions related to food security and the consequences of land use change on the environment and biodiversity.
Roslyn completed her PhD in 2016 at Aberdeen University. Her PhD focused on developing individual based genetically and spatially explicit models to investigate the evolution of dispersal and the consequence of this for eco-evolutionary species range dynamics.
David Reay
David is Professor of Carbon Management and Education within the School of Geosciences. David is the course organiser of the Sustainability and Social Responsibility course.
This course explores the concepts of sustainability and social responsibility through a multidisciplinary approach, examining them from a scientific, social, economic, political and artistic viewpoint.
This course will investigate the relationship between planetary boundaries, resource consumption and social development, and explore the range of interdisciplinary approaches to address these global challenges.
It will also cover the topics of sustainability metrics, personal contributions and sustainable lifestyles, as well as providing an introduction to strategies for stakeholder engagement and communication/education.
Gary Watmough
Gary is the course organiser of the Ecosystem Values and Management course.
He is an interdisciplinary lecturer in Land use and Socioecological Systems jointly with the School of Geosciences and the Centre for Sustainable Forests and Landscapes.
Gary’s research focuses on developing ways to monitor socioeconomic conditions in rural areas of developing countries using earth observation data.
Gary also investigates the potential of remote sensing data for long term monitoring and evaluation of international development projects and ways in which geospatial data can improve overall understanding of the links between ecosystem services and poverty in developing countries.
Approaches typically integrate social, economic and environmental data using Geographic Information Systems and Statistical models.
Louisa King
Louisa is the Programme Administrator.
Email Louisa at postgrad.geos@ed.ac.uk
Find out about the experience and expertise of the people who will be leading and contributing to the programme.
Prof Liz Grant
Programme Director, is a Senior Lecturer in Global Health and Development, in the Centre for Population Health Sciences at the University of Edinburgh.
Her teaching responsibilities include international public health research, global health workforce issues and palliative care.
Within the Primary Palliative Care Research Group in the Centre for Population Health Sciences, Prof Grant leads the international palliative care and spiritual and palliative care strands.
Her research interests are in health systems and health workforce development and in palliative care. She heads a large DFID funded programme on developing and mainstreaming palliative care into health systems in 4 African countries.
Liz also works part time for the National Health Service (NHS) Lothian as an international health advisor and African Health and Social care specialist. She coordinates NHS Lothian’s partnership with Zambia.
She sits on the Scottish board of the international Disability Charity, CBM.
Jane Hartley
Jane Hartley is the Programme Coordinator for the PG Certificate in Global Health Challenges. Her background combines medical anthropology, public health and holistic health. Much of her research has focussed on young people and their identities, relationships and health-related behaviours. She has developed interventions to support young people by embedding holistic health practices such as yoga and mindfulness in community settings. She is currently exploring how we can harness the qualities of love and compassion to work towards solutions to current global health challenges.
Ladeisha Bhide
Ladeisha Bhide is the Course Organiser for the 'Global Health Challenges: an Introduction' and the 'Maternal and Child Health in a Global Context' courses.
She completed her MPH from the University of Edinburgh in 2013 where she wrote her dissertation on rehabilitation and reintegration experiences of women post fistula repair in sub-Saharan Africa.
She subsequently moved to Kenya and worked as a researcher for a fistula surgeon; they are currently working on a series of papers on various aspects of fistula care.
In 2017 she relocated to South Africa where she is currently living.
Evelyn Balsells
Evelyn is a PhD Candidate at the University of Edinburgh in Global Health.
She completed her master’s in public health in 2014 and worked as a Research Assistant in the Centre for Global Health Research in projects related to global burden of infectious diseases.
She has been a tutor for the Global Health Challenges course since 2016 and is passionate about global health issues, inclusion and diversity issues, and disease surveillance.
Evelyn is currently based in Guatemala, finishing her PhD and working as a consultant for PAHO supporting COVID-19 surveillance.
Rebecca Sewell
Rebecca Sewell is the programme administrator.
Email Rebecca at Globalchallenges.Health@ed.ac.uk