My Life In…is a public seminar series that highlights the professional journeys of individuals working with minorities and vulnerable communities across diverse sectors. Designed to reach beyond academic circles, the series offers an open and accessible platform for audiences to engage with real-world experiences and reflections from practitioners whose work directly impacts lives on the ground.
Each session features an interview-style conversation with an invited professional, followed by an open Q&A, held on Wednesdays from 3–4pm (UK time). It’s free and open to all, and every session becomes a podcast and YouTube episode.
Upcoming sessions
Join us live for our seminars, or catch our podcast specials, released as episodes only.
11 NOV
2026
LIVE SEMINAR
Guest: Camille Kumar
Managing Director of Abortion Support Network
Host: Kristiyana Kalcheva
Policy Officer at DG TRADE, European Commission
About the guest & host
About the Guest
Camille Kumar is Managing Director of Abortion Support Network (ASN), a UK charity that supports people who need to travel to access abortion care, offering financial assistance, accommodation and information. She has more than twenty years of experience working and organising with people affected by race, gender, violence and migration. Her previous work includes coordinating a national network of grassroots, global majority-led organisations working to end violence, co-producing a service for child survivors of sexual abuse, working on LGBT+ and race equality policy for a trade union, and leading a city-wide anti-racist education strategy.
About the Host
Yana Kalcheva is a Policy Officer at DG TRADE, the European Commission’s Directorate-General for Trade.
Past sessions & episodes
Missed a session? Most conversations are now available as podcast and video episodes.
21 OCT
2026
PODCAST SPECIAL
Guest: Florence Gilbert
Director of WIMOOV
Host: Dr Nathalie Ortar
Senior Researcher in Anthropology at the ENTPE-University of Lyon.
In French with English subtitles · Episode only, no live session
About the guest & host
About the Guest
Florence Gilbert is Director General of Wimoov, an association within Groupe SOS dedicated to inclusive and sustainable mobility. She has been involved since Wimoov was created in 1998, when it grew out of a student carpooling initiative at the University of Nanterre, and has helped turn it into a national organisation that supported more than 28,000 people individually in 2024. She has worked with successive governments to bring the needs of people facing mobility barriers into transport policy, including France’s 2019 Mobility Orientation Law, and helped coin the term “inclusive mobility”. She has also chaired the Laboratoire de la mobilité inclusive and, in 2024, was made Officier de l’Ordre national du Mérite.
About the Host
Nathalie Ortar is a senior researcher in anthropology at the Transport, Urban Planning and Economics Laboratory (LAET), ENTPE, University of Lyon. Her research explores everyday life, mobility and dwelling, including residential and professional mobility, changing ways of living under sustainable development policies, and the role of energy in daily life. She has also worked on material culture and discard studies, and co-founded the Energy Anthropology Network within the European Association of Social Anthropologists (EASA). Her publications address how mobilities change and are changed by social life, and the inequalities that mobility can produce.
7 OCT
2026
LIVE SEMINAR
Guest: Sylvana Lakkis
Executive Director of the Lebanese Physical Handicapped Union (LPHU)
Host: Professor Anne Revillard
Professor of Sociology at Sciences Po (CRIS)
About the guest & host
About the Guest
Sylvana Lakkis is Executive Director of the Lebanese Physical Handicapped Union (LPHU), a nationwide grassroots disability organisation. She joined the LPHU in the 1980s and has since become a leading voice in the Lebanese disability movement. She is recognised in Lebanon and the region as an expert in disability rights, inclusive development, and gender and disability. Her work has informed policy on accessibility, employment, political participation and socio-economic inclusion. She sits on national committees and international advisory boards, and was honoured by the US Embassy in Beirut in 2009 for her work advancing women’s rights.
About the Host
Anne Revillard is Professor of sociology at Sciences Po, where she is a member of the Centre for Research on Social Inequalities (CRIS) and has directed the Laboratory for Interdisciplinary Evaluation of Public Policies (LIEPP). Her research focuses on public policy, social inequalities and disability rights. She is the author of Fragile Rights (Bristol University Press).
3 JUN
2026
EPISODE AVAILABLE
Guest: Alejandra Ancheita
Human rights lawyer
Host: Dr Ana Gutierrez Garza
Senior Lecturer in Social Anthropology at the University of St Andrews
About the guest & host
About the Guest
Alejandra Ancheita is a human rights lawyer and activist from Mexico. She founded the NGO ProDESC (Project on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights), which defends the rights of workers, migrants, indigenous communities and other marginalized groups. Over many years, she has led strategic litigation and campaigning against abuses by transnational companies—especially around labour, land, and environmental justice. In recognition of her courageous work, she received the prestigious Martin Ennals Award for Human Rights Defenders in 2014.
About the Host
Ana Gutierrez Garza is a Senior Lecturer in Social Anthropology at the University of St Andrews. Her research focuses on Latin American migration, gender, care, and social inequality, drawing on long-term ethnographic work in the UK, Spain, and the US. She has published widely on migrant women’s labour, precarity, housing activism, and the everyday strategies through which migrants navigate and resist structural inequalities. Dr Gutierrez Garza also co-directs the Centre for Amerindian, Latin American and Caribbean Studies.
13 MAY
2026
EPISODE AVAILABLE
Guests: Will Dalziel and Dr Patrícia Nabuco Martuscelli
Director of Programmes at Never Such Innocence and Lecturer in International Relations at the University of Sheffield
Host: Prof. Alice König
Professor at the School of Classics, University of St Andrews
About the guest & host
About the Guests
Will Dalziel is Director of Programmes at the charity Never Such Innocence, which works to give children and young people a voice on conflict and peace through art, poetry, music and creative expression.
Patrícia Nabuco Martuscelli is a Lecturer in International Relations at the University of Sheffield and Co-Director of the Migration Research Group. Her work focuses on forced migration, particularly the experiences of refugee and migrant children, family reunification, humanitarian visas, and the implementation of asylum and migration policies in Latin America, with a strong emphasis on Brazil. She also researches the role of border agents and state institutions in shaping migrant journeys, as well as the broader intersections between childhood, human rights, and mobility.
About the Host
Alice König is a Professor at the School of Classics, University of St Andrews, and Director of Impact. Her work spans Roman imperial literature, ancient and modern narratives of war and peace, and the social application of classical studies. She leads the Visualising War and Visualising Peace projects and co-founded the Visualising War podcast, combining scholarship, public engagement, and activism to explore how stories shape our understanding of conflict and peace.
8 APR
2026
EPISODE AVAILABLE
Guest: David Horobin
Senior Crisis Management Advisor, Crisis Management Cluster at the Geneva Centre for Security Policy (GCSP)
Host: Dr Alasdair Gordon-Gibson
Honorary Lecturer at the University of St Andrews, Graduate School for Interdisciplinary Studies
About the guest & host
About the Guest
David Horobin is Senior Crisis Management Advisor, Crisis Management Cluster at the Geneva Centre for Security Policy (GCSP) with more than 25 years operational experience in emergency and crisis management in natural and conflict related contexts in both field and HQ functions. Previous positions have included as Head of Crisis Management and Security at the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), and as Director of the Operations Team (CHASE-OT) at the UK’s Governments Department for International Development (DFID).
About the Host
Alasdair Gordon-Gibson has over twenty-five years of experience in humanitarian response, primarily with the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement. His work has included senior leadership roles with the ICRC, IFRC, and British Red Cross across contexts such as Iraq, Syria, Sri Lanka, Myanmar, Kosovo, India, Moscow and Damascus. He is currently an Honorary Lecturer at the University of St Andrews, Graduate School for Interdisciplinary Studies, and holds an MPhil and PhD from the University of St Andrews.
11 MAR
2026
EPISODE NOT AVAILABLE
Guest: Dr Elliot Fara Nandrasana Rakotomanana
Researcher at the Institut Pasteur de Madagascar
Host: Prof Christos Lynteris
Professor of Medical Anthropology at the University of St Andrews
About the guest & host
About the Guest
Elliot Fara Nandrasana Rakotomanana is a researcher at the Institut Pasteur de Madagascar whose work focuses on zoonotic and vector-borne diseases, epidemiological surveillance, and public health interventions in Madagascar. His research contributes to improving disease prevention and control in ecologically and socially diverse contexts.
About the Host
Christos Lynteris is Professor of Medical Anthropology at the University of St Andrews. His research examines epidemics—especially zoonotic diseases—through historical, visual, and ethnographic approaches, with regional expertise in China and Inner Asia. He is a leading scholar of the third plague pandemic and currently directs major projects on the global history of zoonosis and rat control.
25 FEB
2026
EPISODE AVAILABLE
Guest: Renato Gozzer Wuest
Program Director at Innovations for Ocean Action Foundation
Host: Prof Nina Laurie
Professor of Human Geography at the University of St Andrews
About the guest & host
About the Guest
Renato Gozzer Wuest is a Program Director with extensive experience in sustainable fisheries and marine conservation across Latin America. He leads regional initiatives at the Innovations for Ocean Action Foundation, focusing on improving fisheries governance, socio-economic sustainability, and public-private partnerships to support coastal communities and marine resource management. His work also includes research on artisanal fisheries value chains and sustainable development in the region.
About the Host
Nina Laurie is Professor of Human Geography at the University of St Andrews, where her work addresses social inclusion, international development, and environmental sustainability through long-term field research with marginalised and Indigenous communities. She has conducted research across Latin America and South Asia, focusing on topics including development, climate resilience, and participatory approaches to geographical knowledge. Professor Laurie’s contributions have been recognised with awards such as the Royal Geographical Society’s Busk Medal, and she continues to lead interdisciplinary projects that centre community-grounded perspectives in global development debates.
28 JAN
2026
EPISODE AVAILABLE
Guest: Rita Izsák-Ndiaye
Deputy Head of Mission at the Embassy of Hungary in Azerbaijan
Host: Dr Stavroula Pipyrou
Senior Lecturer in Social Anthropology and the Founding Director of the Centre for Minorities Research at University of St Andrews
About the guest & host
About the Guest
Rita Izsák-Ndiaye is a human rights expert and diplomat with extensive experience in minority rights, equality policy, and international advocacy. She currently serves as Deputy Head of Mission at the Embassy of Hungary in Azerbaijan. Her previous international roles include serving as the UN Special Rapporteur on Minority Issues, member and Rapporteur of the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD), and Personal Representative of the OSCE Chairperson-in-Office on Children and Security.
About the Host
Dr Stavroula Pipyrou is a Senior Lecturer in Social Anthropology and the Founding Director of the Centre for Minorities Research. She has conducted long-term ethnographic research with minorities and displaced populations in Italy and Greece, and her work explores governance, political representation, and Cold War legacies in Europe. She is the author of The Grecanici of Southern Italy(2016) and Lurking Cold War (2025) and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh’s Young Academy of Scotland. Stavroula is editor of the Routledge Advances in Minority Studies series.