School of Social & Political Sciences

We're delighted to welcome new staff to the School who are joining us in Politics & International Relations, Economic & Social History subject areas and our Professional Services team. 

Michael Toomey has joined as a Lecturer in Politics & International Relations (Learning, Teaching, and Scholarship). His research focuses on the intersection between constructivist international relations theory, global norm dynamics, and democratisation. His current research project focuses on the populist challenge in Central Europe to the liberal democratic norms of the European Union. He is currently working on a book manuscript which he expects to publish with Edinburgh University Press in 2023. Michael received his PhD in Global Affairs at Rutgers University in 2015, and has previously held teaching positions at Rutgers University, Wenzhou-Kean University, University of Limerick, and University of Reading. He joins Glasgow from Aberystwyth University, where he taught from 2020 until 2022.

Lauren Banko joins as Lecturer in Modern Middle East History within Economic & Social History. Lauren is a historian of the modern Arab Middle East, particularly Palestine, and her current research focuses on aspects of borders and bordering, frontier spaces, and the types of licit and illicit movement of migrants, displaced persons, refugees, and labourers across these spaces in the early and mid-twentieth century. Her first book, The Invention of Palestinian Citizenship, 1918-1947, was published in 2016 by Edinburgh University Press. She has held research and teaching positions at SOAS, the University of Manchester, and Yale. Most recently, she was Research Associate on the AHRC-funded project Reckoning with Refugeedom: Refugee Voices in Modern History at the University of Manchester. She received her PhD in Near and Middle East History from SOAS, University of London.

Rosie Thompson joined the School in December as Operations Coordinator. She will lead the Operations team with a focus on human resources, staff recruitment and estates management. Prior to joining the School, Rosie was a Regional Manager for a Glasgow based hospitality company specialising in high profile event hospitality and people management and was responsible for HR and payroll.  Rosie has previously worked at the University in a Facilities position within the new James McCune Smith Learning Hub where she assisted in the opening of the building. She also holds a degree in International Marketing.  

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First published: 5 January 2022