Edward Ademolu joined King’s College London in January 2022 in the newly established position of Lecturer in Cultural Competency Education, having previously held a postdoctoral Teaching Fellowship in Qualitative Research Methodology at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE). He received his PhD in Development Policy and Management (International Development) from the Global Development Institute (GDI) at the University of Manchester in 2018, under the supervision of Professors Dan Brockington and Uma Kothari. He is a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy and an award-winning teacher.

Edward’s research is interdisciplinary in orientation and conceptually driven, covering higher education, neurodiversity, cultural competency, and media and cultural representation. While his earlier work examined the politics of representation in international development and the African diaspora, his more recent scholarship has developed a distinctive agenda at the intersection of neurodiversity, inclusive pedagogy, and the politics of recognition in academic life.

Across his work, Edward is concerned with how institutions organise legitimacy, recognition, and participation, particularly in relation to cultural and cognitive difference. His research interrogates the normative assumptions that shape teaching, learning, academic practice, and knowledge production, and advances alternative conceptual frameworks for rethinking inclusion beyond accommodation toward structural and epistemic transformation.

Research interests and PhD supervision

• Higher education, neurodiversity, and neurodivergent epistemologies
• Neurodivergence, dyslexic cognition, masking, legibility, and inclusive pedagogy
• Cultural competency, epistemic justice, and the politics of recognition in education
• Media and cultural representation, identity, and African diaspora studies
• Qualitative, reflexive, visual, and autoethnographic methodologies

Edward is a qualitative social scientist whose research advances a critically engaged and interdisciplinary programme of work across neurodiversity, cultural competency, and media and cultural representation. His scholarship is unified by a sustained concern with the conditions under which knowledge, legitimacy, and participation are produced and regulated within institutional life. A central strand of his work focuses on higher education, neurodiversity, and neurodivergent epistemologies. This research interrogates how cognitive difference is recognised, interpreted, and governed within academic institutions, and how normative expectations of coherence, communication, memory, and professionalism shape what counts as credible knowledge and legitimate academic practice. It examines the institutional organisation of support, the politics of disclosure and legibility, and the pressures placed on neurodivergent academics and students to conform to neurotypical standards of intelligibility.

A second, interconnected strand of his research examines media, representation, and identity, with a longstanding focus on international development communications and African diaspora audiences. This work analyses how racialised representations of poverty and inequality are produced, circulated, and legitimised, and how audiences interpret, resist, and rework these representations in everyday life. It engages critically with questions of voice, power, ethics, and visibility, and explores the cultural and political effects of representation across global and diasporic contexts.

He welcomes PhD applications from candidates pursuing qualitative and interdisciplinary projects aligned with these areas, especially those engaging questions of epistemology, institutional practice, inclusion, and identity.

Expertise and public engagement

Edward’s work engages both academic and non-academic audiences through contributions to public debate, professional practice, and institutional development. His research speaks directly to contemporary concerns around higher education, inclusion, cultural representation, and the social implications of emerging technologies, and is frequently mobilised across academic, policy, and practitioner contexts.

He has written for public-facing platforms including The Conversation and Times Higher Education, where he has contributed accessible and critically informed commentary on issues of culture, identity, representation, and higher education. He has also provided expert commentary and insight for media outlets such as the BBC and Forbes, extending the reach of his research beyond the university and into wider public discussion.

Alongside this, his research has informed professional practice within the international development and third sector, where he has contributed to sector-wide conversations on ethical communication, representation, and audience engagement. He has been invited to speak at major industry events, including the BOND Annual Conference, and has worked in a consultative capacity with organisations such as Oxfam (GB), supporting the development of internal training resources and practice guidelines on imagery, representation, and communication.

More recently, his expertise has extended into higher education practice and policy, particularly in relation to cultural competency, inclusive pedagogy, neurodiversity, and the implications of generative AI for teaching, writing, and knowledge production. Across these areas, he contributes to ongoing conversations about how institutions design support, recognise difference, and respond to questions of inclusion, legitimacy, and epistemic justice.

Through this combined body of work, Edward operates at the intersection of research, pedagogy, and public engagement, contributing to scholarly, institutional, and public conversations on how knowledge is produced, communicated, and made meaningful across different social contexts.

Selected publications

• Ademolu, E. (2026). “Compassion as governance: neuro-ableism, benevolent pathology, and the moral economy of care in higher education”. Higher Education Research & Development, 1–11. https://doi.org/10.1080/07294360.2026.2643244
• Ademolu, E. (2026). “Unreliable minds, unreliable machines: dyslexic memory, ChatGPT, and the epistemic disobedience of generative AI”. AI & Society https://doi.org/10.1007/s00146-026-02956-4
• Ademolu, E (2025). “Appreciating dyslexic thinking in qualitative research: reflections and recommendations for culturally competent, neuro-inclusive academia”. Higher Education 90, 131–156 https://doi.org/10.1007/s10734-024-01314-x
• Ademolu, E. (2024). “Birds of a feather (don’t always) flock together: Critical reflexivity of ‘Outsiderness’ as an ‘Insider’ doing qualitative research with one’s ‘Own People’. Qualitative Research, 24(2), 344-366. https://doi.org/10.1177/14687941221149596
• Ademolu, E. (2023). Visualising Africa at diaspora expense? How and why humanitarian organisations ignore diaspora audiences in their ‘ethical’ communications. Journal of Philanthropy and Marketing, 28(2), e1783. https://doi.org/10.1002/nvsm.1783