Meet the Glenlead Team

The Glenlead Centre has leading team of inhouse and external academic policy experts from a wide range of academic disciplines.

Dr Ann Kristin Glenster

Executive Director

Dr Ann Kristin Glenster (Cantab) is a legal expert on data protection, privacy, cybersecurity, and digital and AI regulation and governance.

Ann Kristin was a 2024-25 Technology and Human Rights Fellow at the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School for Government where she worked with Professors Mathias Risse and Shoshana Zuboff on how to dismantle surveillance capitalism.

Having founded the Glenlead Centre in 2021, Ann Kristin quickly secured a three year contract as a Senior Policy Advisor on Technology Governance and Law at the Minderoo Centre for Technology and Democracy at the University of Cambridge. During her tenure, she authored numerous groundbreaking policy reports based on her original academic research that attracted the praise of legislators, policymakers, civil society organisations, and the media.

Notable reports was the Policy Brief: Generative AI and AI, Copyright, and Productivity, both co-published by the Bennett Institute for Public Policy, also at the University of Cambridge. In May 2025, she took on the role as the Minderoo Centre's Deputy Director.

Ann Kristin has also acted as Senior Legal Strategist to the International Panel on the Information Environment (IPIE). In 2023, she lead a workshop on deceptive design at the Nobel Prize Summit in Washington DC.

In addition to her much sought-after policy work, Ann Kristin is a published academic and she has taught at the University of Oxford, University of Cambridge, Imperial College London, London School of Economics (LSE), Brown University, and Harvard University.

She holds a PhD in Law from the University of Cambridge and she conducted doctoral research at the Harvard Law School. She is a graduate of Columbia University.

Ann Kristin is an affiliate of the Centre for Intellectual Property and Information Law (CIPIL) at the University of Cambridge.

Dr Vaughan Connolly

Director

Dr Vaughan Connolly (Cantab) holds a PhD and MPhil (Distinction) from the University of Cambridge. His research investigates school leadership, workload, teacher retention and student performance. In this work he has utilised econometric and machine learning methods. Vaughan is originally qualified in mathematics and physics, and is a trained teacher of computer science. With over twenty years of leadership experience, Vaughan has worked as head of eLearning and Director of IT and Digital Development. Most recently, he has advised on a UNICEF investigation of COVID-related learning loss in Kazakhstan, part of which examined the use of technology during periods of remote learning. He takes a keen interest in regulatory issues affecting the use of emerging technologies in education. Vaughan has published in the London Review of Education, and his research has been referenced by several mainstream outlets, including The Telegraph and The Guardian.

Dr Steven Watson

Head of Education Research

Dr Steven Watson (Cantab) is an Associate Professor in the Faculty of Education at the University of Cambridge. The focus of his research is concerned with the impact of Large Language Model Deep Learning AI on education. His research draws on social systems theory, phenomenology, design-based research and historical sociology in the context of the media, policy and politics, knowledge and education; the sociology of STEM and mathematics education; and teachers’ professional learning.

Dr Jude Brady

Senior Research Associate

Dr Jude Brady (Cantab) is an award-winning Education researcher. She gained her PhD from the University of Cambridge, following a mixed-methods study of teacher workload, stress, and school accountability systems. Her study was funded by the Pigott Scholars Programme.

Dr Funke Oyebanjo

Senior Research Associate

Dr Funke Oyebanjo is an experienced educator and screenwriter. She has written for Channel Four and Netflix, and been selected for the Berlin Film Festival Talent Campus. As a lecturer, script reader, and screenwriter, she has worked at the University of the Arts London, Queen Mary University of London, Arts University Bournmouth, University of Greenwich, BBC Writer’s Room, BBC World Service, the UK Film Council, and Creative England.

Roxanne Persaud

Research Associate

Roxanne Persaud has worked with Cass Business School, National Council of Voluntary Organisations (NCVO), New Philanthropy Capital (NPC), the RSA, British Library, Whitehall departments, INGOs, and social ventures. Her academic work at Goldsmiths, University of London, builds on postgraduate studies at the London School of Economics and doctoral research at the University of Southampton on entrepreneurial failure. Roxanne focuses on ecosystem capacity building and new knowledge mobilisation through online community design and radical workplace approaches. Her work is underpinned by a human lens through which she explores societal ambition in modern organisations.

Dr Piers Bursill-Hall

Senior Research Associate

Having been educated in France, Canada, and England, Dr Piers Bursill-Hall (Cantab) holds a PhD in Mathematics and the Foundations of Quantum Mechanics from the University of Cambridge. Piers has continued to work for the University where he has taught and researched the history of mathematics and the history of science and technology for more than four decades. He has also been a visiting lecturer at universities in Italy, the United States, Asia, and East Asia.

Dr Tony Briscoe

Research Associate

Dr Tony Briscoe holds a PhD in Structural Vibrations (Physics) from the Institute of Sound and Vibration Research (ISVR) at the University of Southampton. He is the CEO of the platform One Way in a Billion Applications, inspiring music creatives to learn and collaborate in innovative ways. Their app has been selected for Apple’s highly competitive Entrepreneur Camp.

Bethany Shiner

Research Associate

Bethany Shiner is a Senior Lecturer in the School of Law at Middlesex University London where she has worked since 2015. She is completing her PhD at the Faculty of Law, University of Oxford, where she is writing her thesis on the right to freedom of thought under Article 9 of the European Convention on Human Rights.

Jonathan Romic

Research Associate

Jonathan Romic (Cantab) is pursuing a PhD in AI Education and Regulation at the Faculty of Education at the University of Cambridge. As a researcher, Jonathan holds a Master's in Technology Policy from the Judge Business School, University of Cambridge.

Megan Ennion

Executive Coordinator & Research Associate

Megan Ennion (Cantab) is Research Associate and Executive Coordinator at Glenlead, where she contributes to research and strategy at the intersection of education, technology, and policy. She is also a PhD researcher at the University of Cambridge, investigating the psychological and behavioural impacts of Generative AI. She is the founder and lead of the AI & Education Community, a collective initiative of staff and students at the University of Cambridge who are interested in or working on AI in education. In addition to her doctoral research, Megan leads several studies conducted through the University of Cambridge, exploring how students and teaching staff in England use AI and perceive its role in education. She also works as a research assistant at the Digital Education Futures Initiative (DEFI), Hughes Hall, contributing to a project examining global university policies on AI. She holds a Bachelor of Laws (LLB) from the University of Exeter, as well as a PGCE and a Master’s in Education from the University of Sussex, bringing an interdisciplinary and practice-informed perspective to her work.

Stephanie Lugg

Strategist & Editor

Stephanie Lugg (BA, JD) began her career as a US litigation lawyer before relocating to London and transitioning to management consulting. At Accenture and then EY, she specialised in strategy, risk, regulation, and compliance within the financial services industry, developing particular expertise in equity trading, clearing, settlement, and collateral management. Project work spanned London, New York, and Zurich. She also held in-house roles at Barclays in London and Aegon Asset Management (formerly Kames Capital) in Edinburgh. Stephanie now focuses her energies on editorial work at the intersection of technology and regulation as well as advising more broadly on strategic issues.

Sofie Holberg

Executive Assistant & Events Coordinator

Sofie Holberg has extensive events management experience from media and publishing. She executes administrative tasks for the Executive Director and the Glenlead Centre.