Research Team

A brief overview of our team.

Principal Investigator

Judy N. Muthuri
Co-Investigator

Mihaela Kelemen
Co-Investigator

Mwakio Mwagandi
Co-Investigator

Arthur Ndegwa
Co-Investigator

Aditya Jain
Research Assistant

Rachael Hongo
Co-Investigator

Sue Moffat
Co-Investigator

Justin Maghanga
Co-Investigator

Lara Bianchi
Co-Investigator

Bahman Ghiassi
Co-Investigator

Paul Crawford

Principal Investigator

Judy N. Muthuri

Judy Muthuri is an Associate Professor in Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) at Nottingham University Business School, and the Chair of the Social and Environmental Responsibility Group driving the UN Principles for Responsible Management Education (UN PRME). She has extensive expertise in the area of business and social development with a particular interest in the mining sector. Her doctoral studies focused on collaborative governance and sustainable communities in a mining context in Kenya. As a social justice advocate, Judy continues to work closely with business, public and civil society institutions to co-produce research that has positive and sustained societal impacts. She has over ten years’ experience working in the civil society sector in East Africa and was instrumental in the setting up of Voluntary Services Overseas (VSO) South-South Volunteering recruitment base in Kenya. She has published widely on CSR and sustainability, multi-stakeholder partnerships, social innovations for sustainable communities, and education for sustainable development.

Co-Investigator

Mihaela Kelemen

Mihaela Kelemen is Chair in Business and Society at Nottingham University Business School, UK. Her research is underpinned by American Pragmatism and uses participatory creative methodologies of community engagement and knowledge co-production, in particular Cultural Animation. She has received over £1mil funding from the AHRC, GCRF, ESRC, EPSRC, MRC and HEFCE to explore a wide range of business and society topics such as market-place exclusion, food poverty, rural health, volunteering and post disaster reconstruction/tourism in an international context. Her research puts centre stage the experiences and aspirations of various marginalized communities based in the UK, Japan, Kenya and the Philippines. Outputs have been disseminated not only via academic publications but also through documentary dramas, virtual games and community based exhibitions and installations curated jointly with the award winning New Vic Borderlines.  She is an expert for the Rights Lab and a member of the UKRI Future Leaders Fellowships Peer Review College and of the AHRC Peer Review College.

Co-Investigator

Mwakio Mwagandi

Mwakio Mwagandi is a Lecturer of Entrepreneurship and Small Business Development in the Department of Economics, Entrepreneurship, and Social Sciences at Taita Taveta University, Kenya, and the Patron of the students’ Club for Sustainable Development Goals. He is also Chair of the Gender Mainstreaming Committee. Mwakio has worked extensively and intensively with artisanal and small scale miners in various spheres, including research and capacity enhancement (in the areas of group formation & management, entrepreneurship, negotiation skills, gender, and social inclusion). He was also quite instrumental in a study on Mining and its Impact on Human Rights in Taita Taveta County, conducted by the Kenya National Commission on Human Rights. He has over ten years of industry experience in marketing and management. Mwakio is very passionate about sculpting the lives of people and organizations. His interest in social responsibility is seen in among other things, the Ndonde Community Based Organisation, that he founded. This CBO supports the academically endowed but less fortunate students of Sagalla ward.

Co-Investigator

Arthur Ndegwa

Arthur Ndegwa is the Dean of the School of Mines and Engineering at the Taita Taveta University located at Voi in Kenya. A Mining Engineer by Profession, Arthur started in the Public Sector as an Inspector of Mines and rose through the ranks to head the Mines Division in the then Ministry of Environment and Natural Resources. His areas of expertise include mineral legislation, mining taxation, negotiation of mineral agreements, valuation of minerals, appraisal of mining projects, petroleum administration, blasting explosives, environmental impacts of mining, rehabilitation of disused mines, and artisanal & small-scale mining (ASM). Arthur joined the academia twelve years ago as a lecturer in mining engineering. He was Chairman of the Department of Mining and Mineral Processing Engineering for seven years before assuming his current responsibility as Dean, a role he has played for three years. He has a very strong network in the mining sector, both Public and Private.

Co-Investigator

Aditya Jain

Aditya Kailash Jain, MSc MA PhD Head of Division, OB/HRM Associate Professor in Human Resource Management Nottingham University Business School Jubilee Campus, Wollaton Road Nottingham NG8 1BB UK

Research Assistant

Rachael Hongo

Rachael Hongo is a Data Enthusiast with over 9 years experience in multidisciplinary mixed method research. She has supported various organizations as resource person in research, monitoring and evaluation of projects and has developed unparalleled understanding, and ability to make appropriate use of research and evaluation concepts, best practice in research design, methods, and approaches along the way. She has also gained excellent analytical, team management experience and networking skills. Over the past two years she has been actively pursuing skills in Data Science and has received a number of scholarship awards. She hopes to find ways of integrating Data Science into Social the sciences and Humanities with a keen interest in health data and computational Demography. Rachael holds a Master of Arts Degree in Population Studies from the University of Nairobi and is currently a member of the Nairobi Women in Machine Learning and Data Science.

Co-Investigator

Sue Moffat

I am the founder Director of New Vic Borderlines, the New Vic’s award winning outreach department responding directly to the needs of the community locally, and to the issues nationally and globally which have an impact on the lives of ordinary people. I’m also an Honorary Research Fellow at Keele University. The work I have developed has gained two National Global Ethics Awards, a British Crime Concern award for reducing offending behaviour, two Skills for Care awards for Inclusion and Innovation and a prestigious Clarion Award for Social Inclusion. My documentary drama ‘All Our Daughters? about honour based violence and forced marriage was launched nationally from Westminster and described as saving lives by the Chief Crown Prosecutor for the UK. In partnership with Professor Mihaela Kelemen, I have developed Cultural Animation (CA), a powerful methodology of community engagement and knowledge co-creation. Cultural Animation has now been used on over 30 research projects nationally and internationally.

Co-Investigator

Justin Maghanga

Justin Maghanga is the Dean, School of Science and Informatics and Senior Lecturer of Environmental Analytical Chemistry at Taita Taveta University, Kenya. His PhD research was on development of wastewater treatment technology to save livelihoods living in the Lake Victoria basin of Kenya. He is the Patron of the Chemical Society students’ Club. Justin started working in the tea industry private sector as a Chemist then joined academia some ten years ago. During a study on Mining and its Impact on Human Rights in Taita Taveta County, conducted by the Kenya National Commission on Human Rights, Justin was the field coordinator and environmental expert. His area of expert includes environmental impact assessment, water treatment technologies, soil and atmospheric chemistry. Justin is a member of the Royal Society of Chemistry, Pan African Chemistry Network, Environmental Institute of Kenya and the Kenya Chemical Society. He is also a practicing Lead Expert in Environmental Impact Assessment and Environmental Auditing. Justin also sits in the Kenya Bureau of Standards Technical committee that deals with Sanitation and water treatment standards development. His passion is to create safe environment in communities.

Co-Investigator

Lara Bianchi

Lara Bianchi is an Assistant Professor in Business and Society at the International Centre for Corporate Social Responsibility. Before joining Nottingham Business School, she was the Programme Lead for the Business and Human Rights Catalyst at Alliance Manchester Business School. Lara has well-established industrial experience with public and private actors about non-financial accounting, stakeholder engagement, and social and labour standards. She has a wide knowledge of the United Nations system, where she collaborated to the 66th General Assembly II Committee, then became a research associate at the UN Global Compact Italian Network. Lara has conducted extensive research on responsible business conduct and workers’ rights in global value chains, being an investigator in international projects on the evolution of corporate social responsibility and sustainable enterprise.

Co-Investigator

Bahman Ghiassi

Bahman Ghiassi is an Assistant Professor of Structural Engineering at the Faculty of Engineering of The University of Nottingham. Prior to his position he had held two individual fellowship postdoctoral grants with the latest being the Marie Curie Postdoctoral Individual Fellowship at Technical University of Delft. He is expert in multi-scale experimental testing and computational modelling of durability and mechanics of old and new construction materials and structures, development of novel cementitious and non-cementitious composites, and advanced repair and retrofitting strategies for existing structures. He has led and co-led a number of funded research projects in excess of £2M (funded by UKRI GCRF, EU, and international scientific councils). He is associate editor of the Structural Materials in the journal of Frontiers in Built Environment and in the editorial board of three international journals in the field of structural engineering including ASCE Journal of Composites for Construction

Co-Investigator

Paul Crawford

Paul Crawford is Professor of Health Humanities at the School of Health Sciences and Director of the Centre for Social Futures at the Institute of Mental Health, University of Nottingham, UK. He is also Adjunct Professor at Norwegian University of Science and Technology. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts (FRSA), Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences (FAcSS), Fellow of the Royal Society for Public Health (FRSPH) and Fellow of the Mental Health Collective (FMHC). As founder of the new, global and rapidly developing field of health humanities, Professor Crawford leads a large program of research in applying the arts and humanities to inform and transform healthcare, health and wellbeing. He is currently Principal Investigator for two major projects funded by the Arts Humanities Research Council: Florence Nightingale Comes Home for 2020 (£677,065), What’s Up With Alex? Animated Storytelling and Mental Health Literacy (£996,475) and CI for MARCH an ESRC/UKRI Mental Health Network + (£1.25m) to advance arts assets for people with mental health challenges. He has held several visiting professor or advisory board appointments in the UK and overseas.