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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

Elected 2017

Fellow type
UK Fellow
Year elected
2017
Sections
Anthropology and Geography
Website
https://www.ids.ac.uk/people/melissa-leach/

Professor Leach is currently Director of the Institute of Development Studies (IDS) at the University of Sussex. 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

Director, Institute of Development Studies, University of Sussex

Past appointments

Science Committee of Future Earth Vice-chair

2012 - 2017

20 Feb 2020 Professor Melissa Leach FBA What is development studies?

1 Oct 2019 Eight Fellows of the British Academy respond to climate activism tactics

21 Apr 2020 Nine Fellows of the British Academy respond to the COVID-19 pandemic

Other Fellows of the British Academy

Professor Dawn Chatty FBA

Middle Eastern ethnography particularly prolonged forced migration, and forced settlement of mobile indigenous peoples as well as biodiversity conservation, sustainable development, and the politics of pastoral livelihoods

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Professor Diana Liverman FBA

The human dimensions of global environmental change with a focus on vulnerability and adaptation, governance, geography, and climate justice

Diana Liverman FBA

Professor Hastings Donnan FBA

The comparative study of borders that have experienced conflict, violence and war; related issues of trauma, memory and displacement; border crossings, transitions and transgressions; Islam; Ireland; Pakistan

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