Our People
The challenges we’ve identified span across engineering, physical sciences, and social sciences. To tackle them effectively, we need a truly interdisciplinary approach. Our research team embodies this interdisciplinary commitment.
SALIENT brings together academic leadership and a dedicated delivery team to support interdisciplinary research, network coordination and stakeholder engagement.
Alongside academic leadership, SALIENT is supported by a dedicated Programme Management Office (PMO) team, which provides coordination, delivery and operational support across the Hub. The PMO team supports SALIENT’s core activities and delivery of key networks, including the Network for Security Excellence and Collaboration (NSEC).
Dr Richard Kirkham
SALIENT PI and Work Package Lead for Leadership and Governance, and Technologies for Resilient Security and Defence
The University of Manchester
Richard is a Reader in Civil Engineering at UoM, and a member of the senior leadership team in the Manchester Urban Institute. Richard’s research on government major project delivery has attracted funding from ESRC and he provides expert advice to government on aspects of risk management in the context of major projects. He is also leading the Cabinet Office Science and Engineering Network workstream on ‘knowledge transfer’ having successfully completed an ESRC funded secondment into the Cabinet Office in 2016.
Dr Constance Smith
CoI and Work Package Lead for Behavioural and Cultural Resilience
The University of Manchester
Constance, a Senior Lecturer in Social Anthropology at The UoM School of Social Sciences, and Deputy Director of Creative Manchester, focuses on the anthropology of architecture, time, and urban change. She explores shifting landscapes of buildings, planning, and infrastructure, examining how materialities inflect engagement with the past and future. Her policy work with the Building Remediation Directorate at DLUHC advising the Residents Voice team on improving tenants’ experiences of the remediation program will offer valuable expertise to the Network.
Professor James Evans
CoI and Work Package Lead for Strengthening Resilience in Natural and Built Environments
The University of Manchester
James, a Professor in Geography, and current Head of Department, Associate Dean for Research in the Faculty of Humanities at the University of Manchester and previous director of the Manchester Urban Institute. James researches how cities become smarter and more sustainable. He has published widely, with over 40 peer-reviewed papers and two authored books, and his work on Urban Living Labs has been foundational across the social sciences. His research explores the geographical aspects of smart cities and urban sustainability, primarily contributing to the disciplines of Geography and Urban Studies. James has a long-standing interest in the relationship between environmental science and urban thought.
Sharon Clarke is a full Professor in Organisational Psychology. She has published widely around culture, leadership, safety risk and resilience from a behavioural perspective, in some of the top international journals for organisational psychology and safety science. She is Editor-in-Chief at the APA Journal of Occupational Health Psychology, and was awarded a lifetime fellowship of the EAOHP in 2022. Her research interests span safety climate and culture, leadership, and resilience
Professor Mark Elliott
CoI and Work Package Lead for Technologies for Resilient Security and Defence
The University of Manchester
Professor Mark Elliott is central to confidentiality and privacy since 1996, and a key international researcher in Statistical Disclosure. He collaborates widely with non-academic partners, particularly with national statistical agencies where he has been a key influence on disclosure control methodology used in censuses and surveys and where the SUDA software that he developed in collaboration with colleagues in Computer Science at Manchester is used. Mark stands out for his interdisciplinary breadth with publications in stats, computer science law and social science journals.
Professor Duncan Shaw,
CoI and Work Package Lead for Behavioural and Cultural Resilience
The University of Manchester
Duncan Shaw, Professor of Operational Research and Critical Systems, also serves as Honorary Professor at HCRI. He has attracted research funding in excess of £15.2m, frequently a assesses for research councils (e.g. ESRC, EPSRC), provides expert reviews for government, and collaborates with organizations on safety and security issues. In 2020, he won the British Standards Institute annual award for Standards Maker. He was also part of the team that won the award for their fast-track of the standard on “Safe working conditions during COVID-19 pandemic”.
Professor Michael Lewis
CoI and Work Package Lead for Resilient and Secure Supply Chains
The University of Bristol
Mike’s research evolved from effective manufacturing practice to efficiency and effectiveness in diverse service sectors, such as fast fashion retail, care homes, management consultancy and nuclear storage. He contributed to supply chain research at the University of Bath, served on the Advisory Council to the Chartered Management Institute, and recently a member of a government expert group. He is currently a theme leader for the Cabinet Office/IPA Project Excellence Initiative and an academic scholar in the Cornell Institute for Healthy Futures.
Professor Michael Lewis’s LinkedIn profile
Dr Maya Vachkova
CoI and Work Package Lead for Leadership and Governance, and Global Order in a Time of Change
University of Exeter
Maya is a systems thinker and a facilitator with a passion for social issues and participatory organisational transformations. Maya holds an LLM, an MA in Peace, Conflict and Development and a PhD in Systems Thinking. Maya is Programme Director for the MSc Systems Thinking in the Public Sector – an applied Apprenticeship for civil servants.
Dr Ellen Lewis
CoI and Work Package Lead for Leadership and Governance – SALIENT, and Global Order in a Time of Change
University of Exeter
Ellen Lewis, MA, PhD, is a global consultant, specializing in inclusive systemic thinking, organizational development, education, and evaluation. She is most active in global development contexts, online learning, working with INGOs, academia, public and private sectors, and community organizations and communities. Her focus is using systems thinking to address complex problems through the lenses of gender equality/equity, biodiversity/contextual analysis, and the inclusion of marginalised voices (human and non-human).
Dr Ellen Lewis’s researchprofile
Professor Philipp Thies
CoI and Work Package Lead for Strengthening Resilience in Natural and Built Environments
University of Exeter
Philipp’s research interest lies in the reliability engineering of renewable energy technologies with a focus on offshore energy. A focus of his work has been on critical components such as dynamic submarine cables and mooring for floating offshore wind.
Dr Dionysios Demetis
Academic Lead for the Network for Security Excellence and Collaboration (NSEC)
University of Hull
Dr Dionysios Demetis is a Reader in management systems at the Hull University Business School.He is also Vice-Chair of the Humber Business Resilience Forum which promotes a secure Humber region by enhancing the cybersecurity of its businesses.
Dr Demetis holds a PhD on anti-money laundering and information systems from the London School of Economics and Political Science.
He is the author of two books and numerous other publications while his research on anti-money laundering has been featured in the United Nations bibliography and received funding from the European Commission. He is a Senior Editor at the Journal of Information Systems Security.
He has received a best paper award from the 4* listed Journal of the Association for Information Systems and a Best Publication Award from the Senior Scholars of AIS.
Professor Paul Nightingale
CoI and Work Package Lead for Global Order in a Time of Change
The University of Sussex
Paul has completed a substantial amount of policy work on innovation policy in the UK and led NESTA’s Innovation Gap research project.
Paul works on project delivery, trying to understand what drives success in major transformational projects and major R&D projects. This work explores the inherent uncertainty in complex projects and how it can best be managed. This work looks at how project tools can help co-ordinate the work of many diverse actors towards a desired end, and how the final aim of a project can change over time.
Vicky Turner,
SALIENT Hub and Programme Manager
Vicky works across a multidisciplinary team and leads on delivering a programme of inclusive networking events and engagement activities to connect the research community with industry and wider stakeholders to ensure research efforts are aligned, complementary and relevant to priority themes.
She will commission and manage the devolved funding portfolio, and will also lead the team to deliver the core research work packages, building on the cross-cutting expertise of the co-investigator team.
Natalie Poole
NSEC Project Manager
Natalie is the Project Manager for the Network for Security Excellence and Collaboration (NSEC), which operates within SALIENT. She coordinates NSEC’s strategic delivery, communications and stakeholder engagement, working with partners across government, academia and industry to support collaboration on national security and resilience challenges.
With a strong background in project and programme management, Natalie has experience working across complex, multi‑stakeholder environments. She is skilled in building effective relationships, managing delivery across distributed teams, and supporting interdisciplinary research initiatives that align with national policy and research priorities.
Angel Harper
SALIENT Project Officer
Angel supports the hub and programme manager, contributing to all stages of set up and management of the Hub including hub set up, stakeholder engagement, financial management, reporting to key stakeholders as well as the funder and management of the Hub team.
She acts as a point of contact for a programme of inclusive networking events and engagement activities to connect the research community with industry and wider stakeholders to ensure research efforts are aligned, complementary and relevant to priority themes.
Angel manages day to day processes on behalf of the hub manager to commission and manage the devolved funding portfolio.
Helen Kreissl
SALIENT Senior Administrator
Helen is Senior Administrator for the SALIENT hub and the Thomas Ashton Institute for Risk and Regulatory Research and the SALIENT Hub. With extensive experience in managing complex research initiatives, Helen plays a pivotal role in coordinating efforts to enhance national resilience through human-centred systems thinking.
Her work at the University of Manchester involves collaborating with experts across various disciplines to co-produce innovative solutions that address real-world occupational safety and health challenges. Helen’s dedication to fostering cross-disciplinary research and her strategic oversight contribute significantly to the institute’s mission of delivering world-class, impactful research.
The Thomas Ashton Institute for Risk and Regulatory Research
Supporting the SALIENT hub are the Thomas Ashton Institute for Risk and Regulatory Research. The team are uniquely placed to deliver an interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary research programme in the context of security and resilience, with the right mix of skills to address the whole problem. By linking their extensive range of networks, the team will accelerate routes to impact.
