Meet The Team

Kate Pahl

Kate is the principal investigator on the project.

Kate used to be an outreach worker in the 1980's in Hammersmith and Fulham, sparking her interest in working within community spaces. Kate has also been a poetry editor of the Critical Quarterly - a peer review academic journal in the humanities - and worked for both a literary organisation in the voluntary sector and, more recently, for the University of Sheffield. At the University of Sheffield Kate has achieved the following:

• Directed an MA in Working with Communities.
• Currently, Kate is also the principal investigator on the Imagine project. Read more on that project here.

John Diamond

John is the current Director of the Institute for Public Policy and Professional Practice (I4P) at Edge Hill University in West Lancashire. John is passionate about jointly creating shared spaces where people can work safely and cooperatively, creating opportunities for the unexpected in the process - especially moments (or series of moments) which shape or challenge established thinking and practice.

Andrew McMillan

Andrew is a poet who lectures at Liverpool John Moores University. Originally from South Yorkshire (Barnsley), Andrew now resides in Manchester. In 2015, Andrew published a poetry collected entitled Physical wherein he explored ideas of masculinity, sexuality, and Barnsley during the recent recession.

Zanib Rasool

Zanib brings a wealth of experience from a career spent in the voluntary and community sector. Zanib is currently working for Rotherham United Community Sports Trust; she is Director of GROW; the Chair of Rotherham Independent Hate Crime Scrutiny Panel; the Vice-Chair of Thornhill Primary School Grove; the Chair of Rotherham Central and Parkview Children's Centre. Moreover, Zanib sits on the Sheffield University School of Education Advisory Board.

Zanib was also the community researcher on the Imagine project - funded by ESRC. She is co-editor of Re-Imagining Contested Communities (2017). Zanib was researcher on 'Threads of Time', a co-produced participatory arts project funded by AHRC's Connected Communities Festival 2016.

Zanib is also a doctoral student at the University of Sheffield.

Karen Johnson

Karen joined the University of Sheffield in August 2013 as PA to the Director of Public Health Section in the School of Health and Related Research (ScHARR). Previously, Karen has worked as a PA for Sheffield Hallam University, the Department of Health, (Social Services Inspectorate) and for the e-learning company ‘learndirect’ (formerly known as the University for Industry). Karen has also worked as a Teaching Assistant at Dore Primary School, Sheffield.

"I'm really looking forward to working on this interesting project and with such a great team!"

Katy Goldstraw

Dr Katy Goldstraw works as a research assistant within the Institute of Public Policy and Professional Practice at Edge Hill University. Her PhD used participatory research methods to consider voluntary sector responses to austerity. From her participatory PhD research, she has co-produced a Sustainable Livelihoods Resource Book, which is a toolkit that VCS organisations can use to facilitate an assets based organisational evaluation. She has worked in Higher Education and the Voluntary Sector throughout her career, writing on VCS assets, participatory research and feminist responses to austerity.

Mike Fitter

Mike chairs the Critical Thinking Group related to this project.

Professionally, Mike is an organisational psychologist who, for the past fifteen years, has practised in a field known as Process Oriented Psychology - this informs much of his work. Mike is the Buddhist member of Sheffield Faiths Together executive group and co-chairs the Sheffield Cohesion Advisory Group.

Panni Loh

Panni is involved with the Critical Thinking Group of this project.

In 2010 Panni completed her arts practiced based PhD at Manchester Metropolitan University. Panni has since worked as a researcher on various short-term projects at Sheffield Hallam University, and trained as a social worker whose work was centred around children and adults with learning disabilities and mental health disorders.

Waheed Akhtar

Waheed is the Voluntary Sector Liaison Officer of the Policy and Partnerships Team at Rotherham Borough Council.

Mubarak Hassan

Mubarak is a member of the Critical Thinking Group, and he is attached to the Adventure Playground context in order to bring a different perspective to that aspect of the project.

Vicky Ward

Vicky is part of the Critical Thinking Group.

Vicky is a qualified social worker and community educator, and has worked in the voluntary sector and with local communities for 20 years. She lives and works in Sheffield and is currently involved in community development across Yorkshire and the North East.

Patrick Meleady

Patrick has worked in the voluntary and community sector in both Manchester and Sheffield, working primarily in disadvantaged and stigmatised estates. Patrick has also worked in children and family services, and took over leading Pitsmoor Adventure Playground back in the early 1990s. Since then, Patrick has taken a lead in statutory services, delivering multiagency approaches to addressing community safety - encompassing serious organised youth crime, guns and gangs, youth opportunities, and positive activities.

In more recent years, Patrick has been lured back to his community roots due to the threatened closure of the Pitsmoor Adventure Playground and other community services.

Steve Pool

Steve is a visual artist who has collaborated with Kate Pahl on various research projects over the last decade.

Steve trained as a sculptor and, despite much of his current work being focused around film and/or technology, often finds himself making things in accordance with his artistry. Steve is working closely with Pitsmoor Adventure Playground in an attempt to promote new opportunities for the playground: he is using the medium of film to achieve this.

Anthony Williams

Tony is the Academic Director of the Doctor of Educational and Child Psychology (DEdCPsy). Tony teaches on the BA Education, Culture and Childhood; on the MA in Psychology and Education; and on the EdD programme. He supervises a diverse range of PhD students.

More information on Tony's personal and academic achievements can be accessed here.

Helen Mort

Helen is joining Andrew, Kate, Zahir and Anthony on the School Context of this project.

Helen is a British poet. She has won the Foyle Young Poets aware five respective times, she bas received an Eric Gregory Award from The Society of Authors, and won the Young Writer Prize at the Manchester Poetry Prize. Helen was also the Derbyshire Poet Laureate for two consecutive years. Her collection, Division Street, won the Fenton Aldeburgh First Collection Prize in 2014.

Zahir Rafiq

Zahir is an artist from Rotherham, South Yorkshire. He specialises in contemporary Islamic art where he fuses traditional Islam motifs with western artistic styles. With this approach, he sought to express not only a new way of looking at Islamic art, but also his own identity as someone being brought up as a Muslim in Britain.

Mariam Shah

Mariam was born and brought up in Rotherham. Her roles included community activism, youth and inter-faith work. She is mum to 4 children and the first female Muslim Chaplain in Rotherham. Her previous roles include Chair of Apna Haq and Muslim Rep for RSACRE. She is also a Trustee with ‘Who Is Your Neighbour’ since 2009. She is currently working with a number of organisations to develop a toolkit to help raise awareness of CSE for parents, carers and vulnerable young people.