Professor Melissa Leach FBA
- Fellow type
- UK Fellow
- Year elected
- 2017
- Sections
- Anthropology and Geography
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 Trevor Barnes FBA
The philosophy, methods and twentieth-century history of economic geography; mathematical modelling; and the resource economy and creative industries of contemporary Canada
Professor John Gledhill FBA
Social anthropology: thematic interests in comparative analysis of political life, power relations, social movements, the state, political economy, migration, conflict and security; regional specialisation in Latin American societies and history
Professor Jonathan D Rigg FBA
Agrarian transitions in Asia with a focus on livelihoods and living; migration, mobility and rural-urban relations; resilience and adaptation to natural hazards and environmental change; Southeast Asia area studies
