Alysia-Lara Ayonrinde works as the National Education Lead for Racial Justice and Schools Project Lead for Reconciliation at the Church of England. Her distinguished career in education spans over 15 years, encompassing senior leadership roles across the U.K., West Africa, and South America. She brings unique, evidence-based perspectives that supportively challenge conventional norms to foster greater interfaith and intercultural understanding in schools, communities and churches. Alysia-Lara is deeply committed to championing diversity, equity, inclusion and justice, evident through her transformative contributions to learning environments globally. She pioneers innovative strategies that empower leaders, teachers and students from all backgrounds to flourish.

Amanda Gray Meral is a researcher focusing on the rights of those forcibly displaced. She researches mainly on EU asylum law and policy as well as the intersections between refugees and international law. She has worked for UNHCR, International Rescue Committee and Chatham House and currently works as a Research Fellow for ODI, Europe. Prior to working on international law and refugees, Amanda worked as a solicitor in private practice in a UK national law firm. Amanda is also currently a PhD researcher at Queens University Belfast, where her thesis explores the intersection between international refugee law and labour law regarding access to work for those seeking asylum. She has guest lectured on international law and refugees at the University of London and University College Dublin and has published her research in leading peer review journals.

Barnabas Aspray is an academic theologian whose research focuses on the Christian ethics of refugees and immigration. He holds a PhD from Cambridge University and currently works as Assistant Professor of Systematic Theology at St. Mary’s Seminary and University, Baltimore, USA. He has worked with REUK since its foundation and has published both scholarly and popular articles on immigration from a Christian perspective. The first ten episodes of his podcast, Faith at the Frontiers, interviewed world-leading academics and practitioners on the Christian response to refugees.

Christina is Senior Corporate Counsel at o9 Solutions, an enterprise AI software platform provider transforming planning and decision-making capabilities across the digital supply chain. Prior to joining o9, she has held a number of in-house positions as a commercial technology lawyer. Christina is currently a Trustee of International Justice Mission UK, which is the UK branch of International Justice Mission, a global non-profit organisation dedicated to protecting people in poverty from violence and exploitation.

Dan has spent nearly 20 years working to make a tangible difference in the lives of people experiencing poverty and hardship across the UK. Much of that time has been in senior and executive leadership roles within large, faith-based anti-poverty charities. His journey has given him extensive experience in organisational leadership, fundraising, communications, and policy work.

Beyond his professional work, Dan has served as a trustee for multiple organisations, including those supporting asylum seekers and children in the education system.

Outside of work, Dan is married to Kim and is a proud father of three wonderful (and high-energy) young children. When he’s not at a soft play centre or a kids' party, he can usually be found indulging his other passions—creating music or watching F1 cars go around in circles.

David is a Senior Strategy Advisor in the Families Group at the Department for Education. 

Prior to the DfE, David worked as Head of Policy at education charity Teach First leading on policy areas such as the attainment gap, professional development, and the recruitment of Gen Z teachers, launching the nationally covered Tomorrow’s Teachers report and campaign. Previously David worked for organisations such as UNICEF UK and Save the Children UK developing programmes and working on policy relating to early education and family services – including conducting research with REUK looking at refugee families' experience of accessing early education in England. 

David’s wider policy experience also includes working on early intervention health systems, policy areas relating to closing the educational attainment gap, and working in parliament for a Shadow Minister.

Douglas Blausten has over 40 years of experience in the commercial real estate sector as an independent adviser to major corporate clients and as an Executive and Non-Executive Director of publicly quoted real estate companies and public bodies. 

For twelve years he was a General Commissioner of Taxes and for two and a half years was Vice Chairman of the £ 3.5 billion NHS Property Services Company and Chairman of its Assets and Investment Committee. He has been a Trustee and Director of the Mental Health Foundation until 2017 and also founded the policy discussion and thought leadership forum, The Cambridge Whitehall Group and subsequently chaired this for 3 years until September 2017. He is a member of the Cambridge Land Economy Advisory Board and in 2017 was appointed an Hon. Vice-President of the Cambridge University Land Society

Elaine Chase is Professor of Education and Wellbeing at the Centre for Education and International Development, IOE, UCL’s Faculty of Education and Society. Her research and writing focus on the wellbeing of communities facing disadvantage and marginalisation. She has conducted a number of  research projects with unaccompanied young people seeking asylum in the UK and has a particular interest in how best to support viable futures and pathways for young people as they make the transition to adulthood in the UK. 

Gulwali is a dedicated advocate, humanitarian and spokesperson for refugees and asylum seekers across the U.K. and Europe. 

Since arriving in the UK in 2007 after being forced to leave Afghanistan as a 12 year old boy, Gulwali has become a well-respected and sought after public speaker, influencer and political campaigner for refugee’s rights, social justice and education. 

Gulwali graduated with a Politics degree from The University of Manchester in 2016. Gulwali is the author of his best selling autobiography, "The Lightless Sky: A Twelve-Year-Old Refugee's Harrowing Escape from Afghanistan and His Extraordinary Journey Across Half The World", Also known as ‘My Journey to Safety as Child Refugee’. 

Hannah Gregory is an experienced and creative leader who has worked for two decades at the intersection of politics and public policy, developing systems and programs that respond to the needs of refugees and migrants around the world.

As Global Director for Knowledge and Sponsorship at Pathways International, Hannah works with states and communities to develop, strengthen, and scale pathways to protection for displaced people, and leads Pathways International’s engagement in the UK.

Prior to joining Pathways International, Hannah was a UK Government Senior Civil Servant and spent 18 years in a range of policy, strategy, and operational roles, including leading the UK Home Office Refugee Resettlement and Integration Policy Unit.

James is a Deputy Principal at Newham College, a large Further Education College in London with a significant proportion of students who have been affected by forced migration. His expertise centres around 14 - 19 education, positive destinations, Special Educational Needs and Disabilities, and safeguarding.
 

James has been passionate about the education of new arrivals to the UK throughout his career. He completed a Master's dissertation on the barriers that asylum seekers and refugees face when accessing post-16 education. In 2020, as Vice Principal for Monoux Sixth Form, he established an alternative provision for students who arrive in the UK during Years 10 and 11 in partnership with Waltham Forest Council. 

Jan is an experienced Business Manager in Education and Health with 17 years of experience working for the UK’s Department of Education (DfES). She has a Masters in International Development focusing on Policy Development in Education, Monitoring & Evaluation and Development Practice Management.

Jan works as Research Portfolio Manager at the EdTech Hub and Jigsaw Education, focussed on international development projects and programmes. Prior to joining Jigsaw Education, she worked for the University of Cambridge and UNESCO headquarters in Paris.

Jan recently joined Alumah CIO, a charity based in Suffolk, as a Board Trustee. Alumah works with children and adults to support and educate victims who have experienced domestic and relationship abuse.

Joanna McIntyre is Professor of Education at the University of Nottingham. She joined the School of Education in 2010 after a number of years teaching English in secondary schools. 

She is particularly interested in how, through the field of Education, we can understand and improve the lives of those who are marginalized or disadvantaged by society. Her recent research projects include an exploration of the role of arts in fostering a sense of belonging for newly arrived young people in cities in Europe, a project with Swedish educators looking at implementation of an inclusive model of education for refugee pupils, and a series of research collaborations with Refugee Education UK. 

Jo established and leads the international Hub for Education for Refugees in Europe (HERE). She is also an Honorary Research Fellow at the Department of Education, University of Oxford, and a patron for Initiatives of Change (IofC)’s Refugees as Re-Builders.

Laura Tarantini-Amor is a native New Yorker of immigrant parents who has worked in UK secondary education for over 23 years. She has spent 20 years teaching in challenging schools, primarily as a Spanish specialist, but has also taught subjects as varied as Functional Skills and GCSE Film. 

She holds an MA in Bilingual Learners in Urban Educational Settings (MA BLUES) from the Institute of Education, UCL, and is a qualified SENDCO and specialist assessor.  

Along her journey, she has run eight secondary departments, become a force for school improvement, and is now an SEND and EAL Consultant working for Harris Federation across its 30+ London-based secondary schools. At Harris, her work helping refugee students access secondary, further and higher education has grown exponentially and remains an important part of the cross-over SEND and EAL work she does.

Sam Stephens is a partner at the executive search firm Macaulay. He is focused on leadership appointments for the charity sector. He is a husband and dad, lives by the Thames in West London and chairs the board of a small youth charity, Forest Kids. He is the author of the Joy of Games: Games of Speed, Suspense and Skullduggery.

Dr Sharon Tao is the Founder and Director of Level The Field, a social enterprise in which all consultancy services have a focus on marginalised girls and net profits go to grassroots organisations working with them. Sharon's strategic, technical and research expertise has been informed by her leadership of the £855m FCDO-funded Girls' Education Challenge, the world's largest global fund for girls' education; as well as her key adviser roles for Gender and Inclusion, Teacher Development, and Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning on a number of large-scale, FCDO bilateral education programmes in Tanzania, Rwanda, Uganda, Sierra Leone, Ghana, Nigeria, India and the Eastern Caribbean.

Sonakshi is a Senior Researcher at the Institute for Voluntary Action Research (IVAR). She leads the Connecting Health Communities programme, focussed on reducing health inequalities across England and Open and Trusting in Grant-making for Public Agencies supporting grant-making teams to embrace a collaborative, resource-efficient and an Open and Trusting approach.

She also leads on various research and facilitation projects, including supporting Maudsley Charity’s Building Brighter Future fund as a collaboration and co-production support partner and empowering community researchers on the NHS Workforce, Training, and Education South East’s Community Partnership Action Research (CPAR) programme to influence policy and lead change for their communities.
 

Stephanie Alcaino is a seasoned creative leader with over a decade of experience in storytelling, brand building, and campaign development for cause-led organisations. Originally from Sydney, Australia, Stephanie's career has seen her collaborate with diverse organisations to amplify meaningful stories and inspire action.

Stephanie’s intercultural perspective has shaped her expertise in crafting compelling narratives and impactful campaigns that connect people to causes in profound ways. During her time as co-founder of Oddigy, a London-based creative agency, she worked closely with REUK to guide their rebrand, igniting her deep passion for their mission.

Now Head of Creative at OX, a Chicago-based creative agency, she leads a multidisciplinary team supporting mission-driven organisations, with a particular emphasis on developing fundraising campaigns and messaging that move people to action.

Steven Desmyter is the President of Man Group and the Chair of the Man Charitable Trust. The Man Charitable Trust currently supports 15 charities, all of which focus on early years education and Steven is the lead trustee for the REUK.

Based in London, Steven also oversees the Sales and Marketing, Solutions and the Responsible Investment businesses within Man.
 

Steven has a Masters degree in Economics and Finance from the University of Ghent and the University of Kiel, as well as an MBA from SDA Bocconi.

Susan Nicolai has worked extensively to strengthen education globally, particularly in conflict and crisis. She is currently Save the Children’s Global Director for Education, working across more than 100 countries. Susan serves on the board of the Global Partnership for Education, was a key architect of the global fund for education in emergencies Education Cannot Wait, and was the founding Coordinator of the Global Education Cluster. Previously, she spent a decade as a senior researcher at the ODI think tank, where she led the Development Progress focused on influencing the shape of the SDGs and was a Director of EdTech Hub. Earlier in her career, she worked directly in humanitarian response, supporting education in crises worldwide. She holds an MA in Education and International Development from University College London and has written extensively on education and broader development issues.

Tejendra Pherali is Professor of Education, Conflict and Peace at UCL Institute of Education, University College London. His research focuses on politics of education, policies and practices around access to and quality of education in conflict and protracted-crisis settings. Tejendra is the founding Programme Leader of the MA in Education, Conflict, Emergencies and Peace at UCL. He currently serves as a Co-Research Director for Education Research in Conflict and Protracted Crisis (ERICC), a research programme consortium that aims to support policies and programmes in conflict-affected regions of Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, South Sudan, Nigeria, Bangladesh and Myanmar. He is the author of Conflict, Education and Peace in Nepal: Rebuilding Education for Peace and Development, (Bloomsbury, 2022) and the editor of Education and Conflict Review.