Gender and Race in Academia

Pat O’Connor (Limerick) and Natalie Wall (King’s) present their new books followed by an open panel about experiences of gender and race when working at the university.

Dr Natalie Wall
Natalie Wall is an interdisciplinary and anti-racist researcher focusing on black women’s performance, artivism, and antiracist praxis in the Caribbean diaspora. She has published work on Equality, Diversity & Inclusion, dub theatre, and Caribbean carnival. Natalie has extensive experience giving guest lectures, invited talks and conference papers across a range of topics in antiracist literary and cultural studies, visual culture and performance studies, and social studies. She is currently the Research Impact Lead for Social Sciences at King’s College London, UK, and embeds her experiences as a black woman working in research support in UK Higher Education into her autoethnographic scholarly work.

Professor Pat O’Connor
Pat O’Connor’s memoir: ‘A ‘proper’ woman? One woman’s story of success and failure in higher education (Peter Lang 2024) explores her experiences over 46 years in five academic organisations in Ireland and the UK- moving from contract research assistant to full professor and Executive Dean. Highlighting success and failure, strength and fragility, it challenges taken-for-granted ideas which deny the reality of women’s day-to-day experiences. Written in a clear assessable style, with flashes of humour, it describes the subtle and relentless processes of devaluation, marginalisation, and disempowerment that are often normalised in higher education.

Pat is an Emeritus Professor of Sociology and Social Policy in the University of Limerick (UL) and a Visiting full Professor at the Geary Institute, UCD (having previously been visiting prof in London, Aveiro; Linkoping; Deaken and Melbourne). She was the first female (full) professor of sociology in Ireland (1997) and the first female professor in any discipline (1997) and female Faculty Dean (2000) in UL. Her 120 previous academic publications include eight books, over 80 peer reviewed journal articles, as well as chapters and policy pieces.

Moderator: Dr Soohyun Lee
Dr Soohyun Christine Lee joined EIS as a Korea Foundation Lecturer in Korean and East Asian Political Economy. She has a BSc in Political Science (Ewha, South Korea), MSc in Social Policy and Planning (LSE), and DPhil in Social Policy (Oxford).Befo re coming to KCL, she was a Lecturer in Comparative Politics at the University of Leeds (2013-2018), and postdoctoral research fellow at the University of Oxford (2012-2013).

Chair: Dr Amanda Lenhardt
Amanda holds a BA in Human Rights and Political Science from Carleton University, an MSc in Poverty Reduction and Development Management from the University of Birmingham and a PhD in Interdisciplinary Studies from the University of British Columbia. She has ten years of policy and research experience in the development sector, previously holding positions at the Overseas Development Institute, Save the Children, SOAS, and independent consultancies with the World Bank, USAID and the International Rescue Committee. She has primary research experience in Burkina Faso, Ethiopia, Ghana, Indonesia, Kenya and Tanzania. Amanda chairs the SSPP ED&I Committee.

Please sign up for this event below. Organised by: SSPP EDI in Research Working Group. If you have any queries or any dietary or accessibility requirements please get in touch with us at sspp-research@kcl.ac.uk