People

Prof. Sotiria Grek

Principal Researcher

Sotiria is an interdisciplinary researcher whose work explores the relationship between knowledge, science and public policy. She brings extensive experience in leading and collaborating on funded research projects, alongside a strong track record in teaching, doctoral supervision, mentoring early and mid-career researchers, and academic leadership.

Using both qualitative and quantitative methods, Sotiria’s research examines the interdependencies between science, knowledge and policy-making.

Her work has been central to understanding quantification as a form of governance, particularly in education, development and cultural policy contexts. Since 2007, Sotiria has been at the forefront of empirical and theoretical research on policy networks, governing instruments and data flows.

Within POLART, Sotiria’s research provides a critical lens on the way artistic practices, cultural institutions and knowledge infrastructures intersect with policy-making. Her work on quantification, governance and policy networks offers a vital framework for understanding how art both shapes and is shaped by contemporary policy processes, and how artistic knowledge can shape, contest and reimagine modes of governance.

Dr. Judith Tsouvalis

Research Associate

Judith is a qualitative researcher with a background in geography and Science and Technology Studies (STS). Her research explores the relationships between art, science, technology, people and the natural world, with particular attention to how knowledge is produced, communicated and mobilised within policy contexts.

Prior to joining POLART, Judith worked on a wide range of interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary research projects addressing themes including digital futures, digital equity and intersectionality; the challenges of art-based and qualitative approaches within government-led policy co-production; science-policy-public relations in plant biosecurity; and changing cultural and political relationships to forests and trees in England.

Judith has extensive experience engaging directly with policymakers. She has also participated in the AHRC-funded Design and Policy Research Network and is a member of the Ecosystems Knowledge Network.

Within POLART, Judith contributes critical expertise in participatory, interdisciplinary and art-based research approaches that foreground social and environmental justice on a global level.

Dr. Erica O’Neill

Research Associate

Erica is a researcher of modern and contemporary visual and performing arts, specialising in avant-garde practices. She completed her PhD in History of Art at the University of Glasgow in 2021 and joined the University as a lecturer in 2022, teaching across a variety of undergraduate and postgraduate programmes in the School of Culture and Creative Arts.

Her research outputs to date are concerned with the efficacy of avant-garde strategies to disrupt established modes of communication and authority, and the relationship between the historical avant-garde and contemporary activist art. In her practiced-based work, Erica leads workshops on Dadaist performance techniques and actively contributes to the practice of avant-garde theatre to explore how experimental artistic methods can intervene in present day cultural and political conditions.

Erica has managed Erasmus+ projects to support education initiatives for disadvantaged and socially excluded communities; and contributed to Erasmus+ mobilities to explore (post)modernist cultural responses to social justice and ecological challenges.

Within POLART, Erica’s work foregrounds the ways in which contemporary   experiential art forms can operate as tools for policy problematization, opening up alternative ways of thinking about governance, participation and social change.

Emma Caldwell

Project Manager

Emma brings extensive experience across higher education in project management, strategic communications and stakeholder engagement. She has worked closely with academic, professional services and external partners to support the delivery of complex, interdisciplinary projects.

Prior to joining POLART, Emma was manager of the Centre for Technomoral Futures at the University of Edinburgh where she supported its mission to unite technical and moral knowledge through innovative approaches to research, education and engagement. In this role, she led strategic and operational activity alongside communications and engagement, helping to build collaborative partnerships and foster interdisciplinary research cultures.

Within POLART, Emma oversees operations, governance and communications, supporting the research team to deliver the project’s intellectual, organisational and public-facing ambitions, and to foster meaningful engagement across academic, policy and cultural communities.

Siôn Parkinson

Artist-in-Residence

Siôn is an artist and researcher working across performance, video, sound and smell. He is Research Associate and Artist in Residence on POLART, contributing practice-based research that explores how art can inform and shape public policy. His work focuses on how artistic methods can open up different ways of sensing, interpreting and discussing policy questions, particularly in relation to environment, sustainability and public value.

From 2024–26, Siôn was an AHRC Early Career Research Fellow at the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh, part of the first pilot cohort of a UK-wide scheme embedding researchers within major cultural and heritage institutions. There, he led Fragrance in the Fungarium, a public-facing project working with archives, preserved specimens and living collections to explore how sensory methods can open botanical collections to wider audiences.

He co-leads the MLitt Curatorial Practice (Contemporary Art), jointly run by the University of Glasgow and The Glasgow School of Art, and maintains an international exhibition practice. He is the author of Stinkhorn (Sternberg Press / MIT Press).

Michaela Levesque

PhD Researcher

Micaela is one of the two PhD studentships on the POLART project studying art and policy at Glasgow’s art festivals. Micaela started their career as a freelance artist working in theatre and media where they became invested in the working conditions and structures that shape the creative industries. They have since completed an MSc in Creative Industries and Cultural Policy at University of Glasgow, worked in education and local government evaluating policies and cultural investments, and taken an active role in creative and LGBTQ+ community organisations in Glasgow.

Joseph Dolan

PhD Researcher

Joe is one of two PhD studentships on the POLART project, studying the role of performance and theatre festivals in protesting, legitimising and informing at COP. His background spans theatre, with a BA in Theatre: Writing, Directing and Performance from the University of York and professional script development experience, and politics, with experience researching, writing and campaigning for political parties and organisations, and an MA in International Public and Political Communication from the University of Sheffield.