Helen is a Research Fellow at the Policy Institute. Her research asks what makes institutions public, why public institutions matter, and how they shape participation and public life. She is currently leading research on higher education in contexts of conflict and crisis, with a particular focus on universities as civic institutions. She also co-convenes the Higher Education Research Group (HERG@KCL), bringing together colleagues from across King’s to explore contemporary issues in higher education in the UK and internationally.

Previously, Helen was Lecturer in Education Policy at King’s School of Education, Communication and Society. She taught across postgraduate programmes, including on critical theoretical perspectives on education, the social context of education, international education and development, and global childhoods. She also served as Deputy Director of the MA Education and received a King’s Education Award (Student Voice) in 2026. Prior to King’s, she was a Research Fellow with the Political Economy of Education Research Network (PEER Network) at the University of Sussex, where her research focused on supporting and learning from universities in times of conflict.

Helen has over 20 years’ experience in policy, advocacy and research across academia, civil society and international development. Through positions with organisations including the Open Society Foundations, Save the Children, Christian Aid and the Young Lives Study of Childhood Poverty at the University of Oxford, she has worked with universities, research organisations, policymakers and practitioners across Europe, Africa, Asia and the Middle East. Having studied and worked at Birzeit University in the late 1990s and mid-2000s, Helen has continued to collaborate with Palestinian universities, most recently through building institutional partnerships to support the recovery of the higher education sector in Gaza. These experiences have been formative in shaping her wider research on the significance of universities in times of conflict and recovery.

Helen completed an ESRC-funded PhD at the University of Sussex, exploring the history of the public university in Lebanon and its relationship with the public sphere. She also holds an MA in Post-war Recovery Studies from the University of York.

Research interests

• Higher education policy
• Education in contexts of conflict and crisis
• Institutions, participation, and public life