Professor Melissa Leach FBA

Anthropology, geography; global development and social change; issues of inequality, gender, environmental sustainability, health and infectious disease in Africa and beyond; interfaces between social science, science and policy
Fellow type
UK Fellow
Year elected
2017

Summary

Melissa Leach is the Executive Director of Cambridge Conservation Initiative (CCI) and Professor of Social Anthropology, University of Cambridge. She co-founded and co-directed the ESRC STEPS (Social, Technological and Environmental Pathways to Sustainability) Centre from 2006 to 2014, with its pioneering pathways approach to innovation, sustainability and development issues.

She was lead author of UN Women’s World Survey on the Role of Women in Economic Development 2014, and of the World Social Science Report 2016 on 'Challenging Inequalities'. She co-founded the Ebola Response Anthropology Platform and was lead social scientist in the UK and WHO Ebola scientific advisory committees during 2014-15.

Professor Leach is a member of the International Panel of Experts on Sustainable Food Systems (IPES-food), the Strategic Coherence of ODA Research (SCOR) Board, the ESRC International Development Advisory Group (EIDEG) and the MRC Global Health Group.

Current post

Cambridge Conservation Initiative Executive Director

Director, Institute of Development Studies, University of Sussex

Past appointments

Science Committee of Future Earth Vice-chair

2012 - 2017

Other Fellows of the British Academy

Professor Michael Goodchild FBA

The representation and analysis of phenomena distributed in space and time, especially the space of the Earth's surface; the application of geographic information systems to research in the social sciences and humanities.

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Professor Paul Sillitoe FBA

Anthropology Development Anthropology Ethnosciences Human Ecology and Environment Social & Cultural Anthropology, Other Branches

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Professor Ruth Finnegan FBA

Social & Cultural Anthropology, Other Branches

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