Find an expert
Welcome to the Durham University Media Guide to Expertise, a resource for journalists seeking informed comment on a wide variety of topical issues.
To find an expert in a specialist area, please use the 'search' facility to search by keyword or expert surname.
Politics & Society
- Government
- International politics
- Middle eastern and Islamic studies
- Political thought & theory
- Social Policy: Employment & development issues
- Social Policy: Family, youth, race & gender issues
- Terrorism
Dr Ilan Zvi Baron
Lecturer, School of Government and International Affairs
Telephone: +44 (0)191 33 47221
Centre for the History of Political Thought
Specialist expertise:
- Death and the ethics of war
- Diaspora Politics
- Dual loyalty or the problem of holding multiple allegiances to conflicting states or political communities.
- International Relations Theory
- Philosophy and Global Politics, focusing on multiculturalism, human diversity, ethics and the politics of identity.
- Political Obligation
- Political Philosophy of International Relations
- The connections between identity, obligation and security.
- Zionism
Dr Thom Brooks
Reader, Durham Law School
Telephone: +44 (0)191 33 44365
Associate , Department of Philosophy
Centre for the History of Political Thought
Durham CELLS (Centre for Ethics, Law and the Life Sciences)
Specialist expertise:
- British Idealism
- British politics
- Capabilities
- Capital Punishment
- Citizenship
- Criminal Justice
- Criminal Law
- German Idealism
- Global Justice
- Hegel
- Immigration
- Jurisprudence
- Jury Trial
- Justice
- Kant
- Life in the UK test
- Plato
- Political Communication
- Political Philosophy
- Political Strategy
- Punishment
- Rawls
- Restorative Justice
- Sentencing
Dr Gidon Cohen
Senior Lecturer, and Deputy Head of School, School of Government and International Affairs
Telephone: +44 (0)191 33 47184
Centre for the History of Political Thought
Specialist expertise:
- British Politics
Dr Christopher Davidson
Reader in Middle East Politics, School of Government and International Affairs
Mobile telephone: +44 (0) 7545765379
Home telephone: +44 (0) 1913345676
Specialist expertise:
- Abu Dhabi
- Dubai
- Gulf Politics
- Lebanese Politics
- The United Arab Emirates
Prof John Dumbrell
Professor of Government, School of Government and International Affairs
Mobile telephone: 07749839592
Home telephone: +4401913344712
Specialist expertise:
- American Politics
- Anglo-American relations
Professor Helen Fenwick
Professor, Durham Law School
Telephone: +44 (0)191 33 42831
Director, Human Rights Centre
Durham European Law Institute
Centre for Criminal Law & Justice
Specialist expertise:
- civil liberties issues - especially police powers and discrimination
- Counter-terrorist law and policy
- Media freedom of expression (in particular contempt law, obscenity law and privacy law)
- Public protest
- Terrorism
Dr Stephen M. Lyon
Senior Lecturer, Department of Anthropology
Telephone: +44 (0)191 33 41597
Senior Lecturer, Health and Human Sciences
Telephone: +44 (0)191 33 40246
Specialist expertise:
- Cultural systems
- E-Social Science
- Pakistani politics
Dr Jonathan Miles-watson
Lecturer in the Study of Religion, Department of Theology and Religion
Specialist expertise:
- Mythology
- North India
- Religious Capital
- Sacred Space
Professor Daniel Newman
Professor / Head of Department, School of Modern Languages and Cultures
Telephone: +44 (0)191 33 43412
Special Advisor to the Islamic Criminal Justice Project, Centre for Criminal Law & Justice
Specialist expertise:
- Alterist Discourse: the West and the Arab World
- Arab media
- Arabic Language and Literature
Dr Christian Schweiger
Lecturer, School of Government and International Affairs
Telephone: +44 (0)191 33 47220
Specialist expertise:
- Central and Eastern Europe
- European Union
- Germany
- Globalisation
- Transatlantic Relations
- United Kingdom
Dr Samuel Thomas
Lecturer, Department of English Studies
Telephone: +44 (0)191 33 46577
Mobile telephone: + 44 (0) 776 9722132
Home telephone: +44 (0)191 3869879
Specialist expertise:
- Critical Theory (especially the Frankfurt School and Slavoj Žižek)
- Literature and Terrorism
- Models of resistance politics in modern and contemporary fiction
- Thomas Pynchon
Dr Colin Turner
Reader in Islamic Thought, School of Government and International Affairs
Institute of Medieval and Renaissance Studies
Centre for the History of Political Thought
Specialist expertise:
- Muslim cultures, religion and political thought.
Dr Nicole Westmarland
Senior Lecturer in Criminology, School of Applied Social Sciences
Telephone: +44 (0)191 33 46833
Fellow, Wolfson Research Institute for Health and Wellbeing
Telephone: 46833
Mobile telephone: 07932 604722
Specialist expertise:
- Violence against women, in particular rape, domestic violence, prostitution.
Prof John Williams
Professor, School of Government and International Affairs
Centre for the History of Political Thought
Specialist expertise:
- Research interests in ethics and international relations, especially in relation to the use of violence and war; the ethics of territory; international relations theory.