The School for Government Podcast

Sanchayan Banerjee is a Senior Lecturer (Associate Professor) in Economics and Public Policy at the Policy Institute in King’s College London. He is a visiting fellow of the London School of Economics and an affiliate of Amsterdam Sustainability Institute and the Institute for Environmental Studies in Amsterdam. His research focusses on developing citizen-oriented, participatory behavioural public...

Emma de Closset is the Chief Executive of UK Community Foundations (UKCF), a place-based network which invests in communities through local giving and philanthropy. Prior to joining UKCF in January 2025, Emma was a Director in the Cabinet Office. She led operational and policy delivery for international summits, serving as the Chief Operating Officer for the UK’s G7 Presidency in 2021 and the Prim...

Between 2005 and 2024, Theresa served in the House of Commons as MP for Chipping Barnet. In December 2005, after just seven months in parliament, David Cameron appointed Theresa to his Shadow Cabinet as Shadow Chief Secretary to the Treasury. As well as working with George Osborne on Conservative economic policy, Theresa led the Opposition scrutiny of the Finance Bills in 2006 and 2007 – this proc...

Julia is a Research Fellow with the Experimental Government Team (XGT) at the Policy Institute. Before joining the Institute in March 2023, she contributed to research on public preferences on hate speech regulation at the Hertie School in Berlin, as well as on connections between labour conditions and voting, family health, and child behaviour at the Berlin Social Science Centre (WZB).  Julia hol...

Jon Roozenbeek is a Lecturer in Psychology. As a computational social psychologist, Jon’s research seeks to understand the interplay between modern communication technologies and polarisation, misinformation, and authoritarianism. He covers topics such as human-AI interaction, group identity and ideology building, misinformation and propaganda (especially in Ukraine and Russia), institutional trus...

Gloria is a Lecturer in Public Policy at the International School for Government. Working at the intersections of international political economy, feminist political ecology, and critical development studies, she studies how the existing global governance architecture forecloses avenues of international cooperation. She is finalizing her book on the first universal development framework of the 203...

Dr Joseph Sherlock is a Lecturer at the School for Government whose work focuses on leveraging behavioural science to advance democracy and sustainability, as well as the science of behavioural science. Joseph also serves as a Behavioural Science Fellow in the United Nations Secretary-General’s Office. Previously, he was a Principal Behavioral Scientist at Duke University, where he led a team dedi...

Dr Georgios Samaras is a Lecturer (Assistant Professor) in Public Policy at the School for Government. His research encompasses far-right extremism, political communication, and policy responses to illiberal political practices, while also exploring the dynamics of European and US politics and the global rise of authoritarianism. 

Roxana is a Senior Lecturer in Public Policy in the School for Government. Her research interests and publications focus on anti-corruption public policies and practices, digitalisation and its impact on (anti)corruption, narratives of corruption and integrity development, ethics and integrity in public policy and artificial intelligence public policies and regulations.

Dr Olga Siemers is an Associate Professor in Public Policy in the School for Government. She is also a Programme Director for the Postgraduate Diploma in Professional Policymaking and Executive Master of Public Administration programmes offered to mid-career Civil Servants through the UK Civil Service's Policy Profession. Her research looks at the intersection of government policy, decision-making...

Tamara Finkelstein was Permanent Secretary at the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs from 2019 to June 2025. Tamara previously led the Building Safety Programme in the wake of the Grenfell Tower fire at the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government.