Scholar appointed co-director of human rights centre

Ella McPherson appointed Co-Director of the Centre of Governance and Human Rights at the University of Cambridge.

Ella has already brought to CGHR her passion for conducting innovative critical scholarship that aims at impactful real world application, and her ability to sustain deep engagement with practitioners and policymakers. She has also championed the role of students in CGHR's work. Now, through her leadership role, the Centre is poised to chart exciting new directions.

Sharath Srinivasan

Gates Cambridge Scholar Ella McPherson has been appointed Co-Director of the Centre of Governance and Human Rights at the University of Cambridge.

Ella is Lecturer in the Sociology of New Media and Digital Technology in the Department of Sociology at Cambridge, and a Fellow at Queen's College, Cambridge. She has been a long-time Research Associate of the CGHR and is the Centre's Theme Leader on Human Rights in the Digital Age which is launching a Digital Verification Corps in collaboration with Amnesty International. This global network of digital volunteers, many of them students from universities around the world, will help to speed up fact-checking of footage of human rights violations. 

Speaking about Ella's new appointment, Dr Sharath Srinivasan, fellow Co-Director of the Centre, said: "Ella has already brought to CGHR her passion for conducting innovative critical scholarship that aims at impactful real world application, and her ability to sustain deep engagement with practitioners and policymakers. She has also championed the role of students in CGHR's work. Now, through her leadership role, the Centre is poised to chart exciting new directions. CGHR has always prioritised interdisciplinary and collaborative research and its co-leadership from Sociology and the Department of Politics and International Studies [POLIS] marks an important new juncture. I have taken much inspiration and joy from working with Ella to date, and look forward to much more of that in the coming years."  

The CGHR is an outward-focused multi-disciplinary research endeavour strongly committed to advancing thought and practice within areas of critical importance to global justice and human well-being in the twenty-first century.

Ella [2004] did her PhD in Social and Political Science at the University of Cambridge.