Dr Arianna Giovannini is Associate Professor/Reader in Local Politics & Public Policy at the Department of Politics, People and Place at De Montfort University, where she is the Deputy Director of the Local Governance Research Centre and a member of the Centre for Urban Research and Austerity. Dr Giovannini is also Interim Director of IPPR North, the leading think-tank for the North of England.
Rokhsana Fiaz is the mayor of Newham. Elected in 2018, mayor Fiaz was the first directly-elected female mayor in any London Borough. In 2009, Fiaz was awarded an OBE for her work on race, faith and identity. During her time as mayor, Newham Council launched the country’s first permanent citizens’ assembly “to empower people to have a say about the issues that concern them the most, in their community and to develop proposals and work with us to make positive changes in their borough.”
Michela Palese is the Research and Policy Officer for the ERS, she develops and carries out the Society’s research and policy output, focusing primarily on the House of Lords, online political campaigning, deliberative democracy, and devolution. She holds an MSc in Public Policy and a BA in European Social and Political Studies from UCL. Prior to joining the ERS, Michela was Research Assistant and McDougall Fellow at the UCL Constitution Unit, where she co-authored Doing Democracy Better, a report examining how the quality of information and debate during election and referendum campaigns might be improved in the UK.