Who we are
Sharon Gewirtz
Sharon is the Principal Investigator (PI) of the Young Lives, Young Futures project, and is Professor of Education in the School of Education, Communication and Society at King’s College London where she also co-directs the Centre for Public Policy Research.
Her research is in the field of policy sociology with a particular focus on education policy and issues of equality and social justice.
Sait Bayrakdar
Sait is a Postdoctoral Research Associate in the School of Education, Communication and Society at King’s College London and an expert in quantitative social research (including large scale surveys), social stratification and intersectionality.
He has previously conducted research on young people’s housing transitions and on the life course transitions of LGBTQI+ individuals.
Rana Khazbak
Rana has recently joined theYoung Lives, Young Futures team as a Postdoctoral Research Associate, She's responsible for the qualtitative research strand, with a particular focus on engaging young people.
Rana was previously an ESRC postdoctoral fellow at the Centre for Public Policy Research, King’s College London. Her fellowship built on her PhD thesis, which explored the impact of social housing regeneration on the wellbeing of young people from lower-income backgrounds.
Alice Weavers
Alice was the project's Senior Research and Engagement Officer at King's College London. She completed her PhD in youth policy as part of the project, with research exploring youth participation in national policymaking.
She is a qualified youth worker with a background in youth, community work and policy. Prior to joining King's, she was a Policy Advisor in the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport where she led on youth voice policy.
Chris Winch
Chris is Professor of Educational Philosophy and Policy at King’s College London and is a renowned expert in vocational education.
His research currently focuses on professional know-how and judgement, philosophy of education, comparative European vocational and professional education, youth transitions from school to work and VET in England.
Meg Maguire
Meg is Professor of Sociology of Education at King’s College London where she researches urban education and education policy.
She has a strong interest in the lives of teachers and her previous research has explored issues of class, race, gender and age in teachers’ social and professional worlds. Meg has also previously conducted ESRC-funded research on young people’s post-compulsory transitions in education.
Andrea Laczik
Andrea is Head of Research at The Edge Foundation and an Honorary Research Fellow at the University of Oxford, Department of Education.
Andrea’s research interests lie in vocational education and training (VET) policy and practice, employer engagement, the comparative study of VET, provisions for young people and adults from disadvantaged backgrounds and transitions from school to work, further training or higher education.
Olly Newton
Olly is the Executive Director of The Edge Foundation where his job is to understand the latest education research and practice in the UK and worldwide. He gathers together the facts, figures, research and evidence to share with policy makers, practitioners and the media, and is the lead author of Edge’s research and policy reports.
Before joining Edge, he spent ten years with the Department for Education, most recently as Head of Apprenticeship Strategy.
Alison Wolf
Alison is the Sir Roy Griffiths Professor of Public Sector Management at King’s College London, and she sits as a cross-bench peer in the House of Lords.
Alison specialises in the relationship between education and the labour market. She has a particular interest in training and skills policy, universities, and the medical workforce.
Charlotte McPherson
Charlotte worked on Young Lives, Young Futures as a Postdoctoral Research Associate. She is now based at the University of Melbourne, but continues to work as a consultant on our project.
Charlotte’s research is in the field of youth studies and the sociology of youth, with a strong focus on social inequalities, social justice, and youth transitions, which she explores with young people using qualitative methodologies. She serves on the editorial team of the Journal of Applied Youth Studies.
Anna Yong
Anna is a Quantitative Researcher on the Young Lives, Young Futures project, conducting analysis of post-16 transitions and their implications for policy and practice.
Her research interests include educational inequality and the role of agency in shaping young people’s trajectories. She is completing a PhD in Quantitative Social Science at University College London.
Amna Sarwer
Amna Sarwer is a Research Associate at King’s College London. Her research interests lie at the intersections of migration, time, care work, and precarious labour in neoliberal economies.
Her work examines how racialised and gendered forms of labour are organised through temporal regimes, embodied precarity, and unequal distributions of care, with a particular focus on migrant workers. She draws on feminist, critical race, and interdisciplinary social theory to explore how everyday experiences of work and care are shaped by broader political and economic structures.