Core Team – SHaME

Allison McKibban

Allison McKibban is a Senior Associate Fellow and the former Public Engagement Coordinator (maternity cover) for the project. She was formerly a student at the LSE (MSc Gender, Policy and Inequalities) and at the University of Oxford (MSt History), as well as the Public Engagement Coordinator for Prof Julia Laite’s ‘What is Public History Now?’…

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Dr George Severs

George Severs is a Senior Associate Fellow of the SHaME Project, where he was a Postdoctoral Research Fellow from 2021-2023. At Birkbeck, George’s research examined the history of male survivors of sexual violence and the impact of psychiatric research into male survivors, as well as the impact of the HIV/AIDS epidemic on post-sexual assault forensic…

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Professor Joanna Bourke

Joanna Bourke (Chair of Advisory Group) is Professor Emerita of History at Birkbeck, University of London, Professor Emerita of Rhetoric at Gresham College, and a Fellow of the British Academy. She is the prize-winning author of sixteen books, as well as over 120 articles in academic journals. She writes about the history of violence, the…

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Dr Rhea Sookdeosingh

Rhea Sookdeosingh is the Public Engagement Lead for the project. She is an experienced public engagement practitioner and has previously worked in capacity-building roles at Birkbeck and the University of Oxford. Rhea works to develop and steward partnerships that drive humanities-led research and innovation, and she has an overarching interest in showcasing the social and…

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Dr Ruth Beecher

Dr Ruth Beecher is an historian of medicine, welfare and childhood in Britain, Ireland and the US and is the principal investigator of the Recovery Histories project. Her previous role was as director of the SHaME project at Birkbeck. Her first book, Community Health Practitioners and Child Sexual Abuse in the Family, 1970s-2010s, was published…

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Dr Adeline Moussion Esteve

Dr Adeline Moussion Esteve is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow on the project. She is a social anthropologist. Her research focuses on gender-based violence, situated within the framework of critical trauma studies. Her work explores the social and political dimensions that shape the experience of violence, with particular attention to the material and everyday consequences of…

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Emma Yapp

Emma Yapp joins SHaME as a doctoral student. They were formerly employed at King’s College London as a research worker on projects about domestic and sexual abuse and mental health, and come from a background in Philosophy and Psychology. Their PhD explores how psychiatric evidence about survivors of sexual violence is used in court proceedings…

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Dr Rhian Keyse

Dr Rhian Keyse is a postdoctoral researcher on the SHaME project. She is a social and cultural historian of gender in modern Africa. Her doctoral research examined international, imperial, and local responses to forced and early marriage in British colonial Africa. Her current project examines the histories of medico-legal responses to sexual violence in (post)colonial…

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