Meet the Work Foundation Team

Ben Harrison

Role: Director of the Work Foundation

Email: b.harrison1@lancaster.ac.uk

Ben became Director of the Work Foundation in February 2020.

He has 15 years’ experience of working across the public, private and third sectors. Previously Ben was a member of the Senior Management team at The National Lottery Community Fund, the Director of Communications and Development at national think tank Centre for Cities, and worked as an economic development specialist at PwC. In 2010 he established and led Future of London and began his career at the Institute for Public Policy Research. He has appeared regularly in the media, and chairs and speaks at a wide range of events across the UK.

Melanie Wilkes

Role: Head of Research

Email: m.wilkes@lancaster.ac.uk

Melanie is Head of Research at the Work Foundation and is leading on the development of our new research and influencing programme. She joined the Work Foundation Policy Team in 2018, and since then has been involved in projects spanning skills, insecurity, management practices and workplace wellbeing. She has extensive experience in research and policy development within the charity sector, most recently working with Scope, where she led a team developing solutions to tackle the disability employment gap. Prior to this she held policy and service user engagement roles at Hestia Housing and Support.

Jon Fitzmaurice

Role: Head of Engagement

Email: j.fitzmaurice@lancaster.ac.uk

Jon joined the Work Foundation as Head of Engagement in December 2021 and leads on our external engagement strategy for stakeholders, policymakers, practitioners, and the general public. Previously, he worked for the British Science Association for 10 years in several roles including, most recently, as Head of Policy, Partnerships and Impact. In this role, he led the BSA’s thought-leadership work and was the Secretariat of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Diversity and Inclusion in STEM. Jon started his career at the Institute for Citizenship and was a founding trustee of the educational charity, Children for Rwanda.

Rebecca Florisson

Role: Principal Analyst

Email: r.florisson@lancaster.ac.uk

Rebecca joined the Work Foundation in 2018 and leads our research programme on insecure work. She has expertise in labour market precarity, social mobility and working conditions. She applies cross-sectional and longitudinal data analysis to important research and policy questions.

Alongside her role at the Work Foundation, she is a part-time PhD candidate at Queen Mary, University of London, conducting an ESRC-funded study on the impact of precarious work during the early career on life course employment trajectories.

Previously, she worked in the Employment Unit at Eurofound, the European agency for the improvement of working and living conditions in Europe. She holds an MSc in Politics and Public Policy from Trinity College Dublin.

Trinley Walker

Role: Policy Advisor

Email: t.walker9@lancaster.ac.uk

Trinley joined the Work Foundation in November 2019, as Policy Advisor. Prior to the Work Foundation, Trinley worked at the New Local Government Network, as Senior Researcher, where he authored reports on public service reform. He has held other roles at further think tanks, NGOs and at a central government department. Trinley holds an MSC from the University of Amsterdam and a BA from the University of Essex, both in Political Science.

Asli Atay

Role: Policy Advisor

Email: a.atay@lancaster.ac.uk

Asli joined the Work Foundation in April 2022 as a Policy Advisor. Previously, she was a Researcher at Learning and Work Institute (L&W) where she managed projects on various topics such as the relationship between health and employment, the future of work, and migrants’ access to English language training. Prior to that she worked at Demos and another think tank based in Istanbul, Turkey. She also has experience working with refugees and asylum seekers at a humanitarian aid organisation. She holds an MPhil in Political and Economic Sociology from the University of Cambridge

Dr Olivia Gable

Role: Policy Analyst

Email: o.gable@lancaster.ac.uk

Dr Olivia Gable joined the Work Foundation as a Policy Analyst in 2019. She has been leading the development of a new work programme on insecurity, and she previously supported delivery of the Skills, Talent and Diversity workstrand for the Policy and Evidence Centre for the Creative Industries. Some of her research interests include the quality of work, pay, equality and the creative sector. Olivia has held various impact and research roles in public, charity and cultural sector organisations, including music charity PRS Foundation and the social enterprise Insight for Good. She completed her PhD in 2019 at the Open University on the value of public funding for popular musicians’ careers, looking at the Momentum music fund.

Aman Navani

Role: Analyst

Email: a.navani@lancaster.ac.uk

Aman joined the Work Foundation as an Analyst and will be primarily contributing to the programme on insecure work. Previously, he worked as an intern at the Centre for Cities and Innovations for Poverty Action. He completed an MA in Quantitative Methods in the Social Sciences at Columbia University where he researched the political implications of labour market inequality.

Sonia Stevenson

Role: Work Foundation Coordinator

Email: s.stevenson1@lancaster.ac.uk

Having worked for Lancaster University Management School for five years Sonia joined the Work Foundation as Office Coordinator in 2020. Experienced in office administration, event planning and demonstrating a high level of organisational skills, Sonia works to support the team with their research program.

Lara Cowperthwaite

Role: Media and Communications Officer

Email: l.cowperthwaite@lancaster.ac.uk

Lara joined Lancaster University in 2017 and is the media and communications lead for the Work Foundation and Lancaster University Management School.

She works closely with the team to help promote their latest research and helps to position experts in regional, national and international media to respond to breaking news.

Before joining Lancaster University, Lara was External Communications Manager for BAE Systems’ Submarines programme where she was responsible for the management of high profile media events, including senior Government and Secretary of State visits. She started her career in a PR agency before moving to Cumbria to work for a busy police press office. Here she gained extensive crisis communications experience, working as part of a team who managed the communications response to the West Cumbria Shootings and extensive flooding in 2009.