Research Leadership Team
The Institute Director works closely with the Research Leadership Team in Media, Arts and Humanities, who oversee the strategic and operational direction of research in the School.
Professor Mat Dimmock
Associate Dean (Research)
As Associate Dean for Research Mat leads the research portfolio in the School of Media, Arts, and Humanities. He works closely with the Research Manager, the Professional Services Team, and the Directors of Research and Knowledge Exchange to plan and implement the School's research strategy.
His research is focused on early modern English conceptions of and interactions with the non-Christian world and he has published widely in this area, including the recent monograph Elizabethan Globalism (Yale/Paul Mellon, 2019) and the prize-winning article 'Tudor Turks' (English Literary Renaissance, 2020). Forthcoming work includes the expanded second edition of the anthology Amazons, Savages, and Machiavels, co-edited with Andrew Hadfield (June 2022), and Writing Tudor Exploration: Richard Eden and West Africa (Cambridge Elements, July 2022). He is currently working on a book-length study of the polar explorer and all-round fascinating individual Captain John Davis. He is also a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society.
Email: m.dimmock@sussex.ac.uk
Dr Rachel Stenner
Interim Director for Postgraduate Researchers
As the Interim Director for Postgraduate Researchers, Rachel oversees strategic and operational plans for postgraduate researchers in the Faculty. She works closely with the Associate Dean for Research, PGR Convenors, the Senior Research Manager and the Professional Services Team. She chairs the Faculty’s PGR Committee and represents the faculty at the university’s PGR Board.
Rachel’s research is about the literature and culture of the late medieval and early modern periods, with a particular emphasis on Tudor writers, print culture, book and printing history. Rachel has published widely in these areas.
Email: Rachel.Stenner@sussex.ac.uk
Medeni Fordham
Senior Research Manager
Medeni is the Senior Research Manager for the School of Media, Arts and Humanities. She works closely with the Associate Dean for Research, the Associate Dean for Doctoral Studies, the Directors of Research and Knowledge Exchange and the Research Professional Services team to develop, support and improve the research experience and environment for researchers and doctoral researchers in the new School.
Medeni works collaboratively on the delivery of the REF, KEF and with teams within the Research Portfolio to manage research grant capture, knowledge exchange and impact development, research events and doctoral research. She develops projects and structures, such as the Early Career Researcher network and Advisory Board, that enable researchers to flourish. She has specific expertise in impact development and working with policymakers.
As an experienced HEI research manager working across science, arts and social science research areas, as well as working in arts management, Medeni can help from idea development, building and fostering relationships with external partners (arts, media, creative, cultural sector and heritage, NGOs and parliament and policy) to the strategic development and delivery of systems, events and external engagement activities in HEI environments.
Please contact Medeni if you would like to explore connections with the School.
Email: M.Fordham@sussex.ac.uk
Professor Flora Dennis
Director of Research and Knowledge Exchange (Knowledge Exchange & Impact)
Flora is responsible for guiding and supporting research to enhance its impact and especially to develop collaborations with external partners. This includes connecting and co-curating with those working in the creative industries, local businesses and communities, education, government, heritage and conservation, and health and well-being. She works closely with Margaretta Jolly and with the Professional Services Research and Communications teams, as well as with colleagues in the Sussex Festival of Ideas, the Attenborough Centre for Creative Arts, Doctoral events, Research Centres and with subject group heads in History, English Literature and Language, Art History, and Philosophy.
Her research focuses on the visual and material culture of music and sound in Italy between the mid-fifteenth and the early seventeenth centuries, tracing the changing cultural importance of music in everyday life and considering how sound influenced the design, use and experience of domestic space. She co-curated the V&A exhibition At Home in Renaissance Italy (2006) and has held fellowships from the AHRC and at the Harvard University Centre for Renaissance Studies, Villa I Tatti (Florence), the Italian Academy, Columbia University (New York) and the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science (Berlin).
Email: F.Dennis@sussex.ac.uk
Professor Ben Highmore
Director of Research and Knowledge Exchange (Grant Development)
Ben is responsible for the development of external grant bids. He advises faculty on funding for research projects, developing research partnerships outside of HE and oversees the process of internal peer review of bids from the School. He facilitates research relationships between academics within the School and beyond and works closely with the faculty’s Research Development Officer (currently Harriet Barratt), the Professional Services Research Team in the School as well as the other Directors of Research and Knowledge Exchange.
Ben is a writer, researcher and teacher with expertise in many areas of 20th- and 21st-century culture. As a cultural historian he has published books on post-war taste (Lifestyle Revolution: How Taste Changed Class in Late Twentieth Century Britain), on British art (The Art of Brutalism: Rescuing Hope from Catastrophe in 1950s Britain), on domestic interiors (The Great Indoors: At Home in the Modern British House) and most recently on the history of playgrounds (Playgrounds, the Experimental Years). As a cultural theorist he has published extensively in the field of everyday life studies (Everyday Life and Cultural Theory, Michel de Certeau: Analysing Culture, Ordinary Lives: Studies in the Everyday, and Cultural Feelings: Mood, Mediation, and Cultural Politics). He is currently working on two books: one is a study of the innovative abstract painter Sir Frank Bowling, the other is a study of the experimental humanities in an age of catastrophe.
Email: B.Highmore@sussex.ac.uk
Professor Margaretta Jolly
Director of Research and Knowledge Exchange (Knowledge Exchange & Impact)
Margaretta is responsible for guiding and supporting research to enhance its impact and especially to develop collaborations with external partners. This includes connecting and co-curating with those working in the creative industries, local businesses and communities, education, government, heritage and conservation, and health and well-being. She works closely with Flora Dennis and with the Professional Services Research and Communications teams, as well as with colleagues in the Sussex Festival of Ideas, the Attenborough Centre for Creative Arts, Doctoral events, Research Centres and with subject group heads in Media + and Practice, Film, Music, Drama, and Language Studies.
Margaretta is Professor in Cultural Studies with a specialism in Life Writing, Oral History and Audio/Visual Life Story-telling and she directs the Centre for Life History and Life Writing Research. She is particularly interested in the application of these methods in women's history and gender studies, directing the Sisterhood and After: Women's Liberation Oral History Project with the British Library (2010-2014). Her books include The Encyclopedia of Life Writing (Routledge, 2001), In Love and Struggle: Letters in Contemporary Feminism (Columbia, 2008), We Shall Bear Witness: Life Narrative and Human Rights (U or Wisconsin, 2014) and Sisterhood and After: An Oral History of the UK Women’s Liberation Movement, 1968-Present (OUP, 2019). Her project The Business of Women’s Words: Purpose and Profit in Feminist Publishing (2017-2022) explores cultural and creative industries with a focus on the people who pioneered social, heritage and ethical models of enterprise. She convenes the MA in Cultural and Creative Industries.
Email: M.Jolly@sussex.ac.uk