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. She has been a doctoral scholar at the Harvard Law School and holds a PhD in Law from the University of Cambridge.
Having founded the Glenlead Centre in 2021, Ann Kristin quickly secured its first substantial client in the Minderoo Centre for Technology and Democracy at the University of Cambridge. She is now in her second year as the Centre’s Senior Policy Advisor on Technology Governance and Law. Ann Kristin is also an affiliate of and Senior Legal Strategist to the International Panel on the Information Environment (IPIE) out of the University of Oxford.
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.
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.
