Routes Co-Founders

Dr. Cyrus Golding

Cyrus is Head of Geography at Dulwich College, London. His is also a Visiting Tutor for the Geography PGCE Course at King’s College London.

Cyrus has an MA in Geography from the University of Oxford. He then went on to complete his MSc and DPhil (PhD) at Oxford funded by the Economic and Social Research Council.

His doctoral and work explored the ways that communities in South Iceland live with the effects of their geologically active environment as a way of highlighting the partialities of hazard management policies. His research is informed by new materialism, science studies, more-than-human geography and theories of affect. He conducted extensive periods of study in Iceland using ethnographic methods. His current research interests relate to equality, diversity and inclusion in schools.

Cyrus gained his PGCE from the University of Cambridge. He has subsequently taught GCSE and A Level geography at schools in Cambridgeshire, Oxford and London. He has also taught undergraduate geographers whilst at Oxford.

Professor Lizzie Rushton (University of Stirling)

Lizzie is Professor of Education and Head of the Education Division at the University of Stirling. Previously she was Associate Professor of Education and Head of Department of Curriculum, Pedagogy and Assessment at the Institute of Education, University College London. Lizzie is a qualified secondary school geography teacher and was Subject Director of the inaugural secondary geography PGCE programme at King’s College London. 

Her research expertise is interdisciplinary, drawing on the disciplines of education and geography. This includes the education and professional development of teachers; student participation in research and decision making; and human and environment interactions over time. These areas of expertise intersect with a range of fields including geography and science education, climate change and environmental education, and decolonisation and anti-racism in education. A key quality of her research is to enable and develop meaningful and reciprocal partnerships between scholarship and practice in education. This includes developing pathways, such as co-authorship, so that the knowledge and understanding of teachers and young people can inform education scholarship and policy making. Recent work has been funded by the Economic and Social Research Council, the British Educational Research Association, Leverhulme and the Royal Society of Arts. Consultancy projects include working with the British Council to develop school-based climate change education across the British Council’s Schools Connect programme. She is a member of the Editorial Boards of The Curriculum Journal and the Journal of Geography in Higher Education.

You can read more about Lizzie’s research here: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6981-8797

@RushtonDr 

Dr. Mark Allan (Whitburn Church of England Academy)

Mark is a teacher of geography and physics at an 11-18 school in the North East. Prior to teaching, he completed a degree in Geography, a master’s degree in Polar and Alpine Change and a PhD in Geography, specialising in landslides that occur in high mountains above glaciers. As one of the editors for Routes, he is looking forward to helping bridge the gap between secondary and higher education and seeing exceptional examples of scholarship from early-career geographers (and other related geoscience disciplines) in a variety of formats that demonstrate originality and a fresh perspective on key geographical issues. He is particularly interested in geomorphological processes and landscape evolution with a focus on extreme environments. Mark would also like to see work that involves the use innovative technology and GIS to observe and document natural processes.

Dr. Lander Bosch (United Nations Human Settlements Agency)

Lander is Programme Officer at the United Nations Human Settlements Agency (UN-Habitat) in Nairobi, Kenya. Having completed his PhD in Geography at University of Cambridge (Gonville & Caius College/ESRC), Lander’s primary research interests centre around the complex interplay between place, mobility and the emergence and spread of health risks, focusing on the wellbeing of vulnerable population groups. Lander’s work includes studies on infectious and non-communicable diseases and healthcare systems in the Global North and Global South for UN-Habitat, as well as Fiocruz in Brazil. For his doctoral research, he unravelled the plethora of built environmental drivers underlying the childhood obesity and inactivity epidemics in London. At Cambridge, Lander also acted as a supervisor for undergraduate courses on Sustainable Development, Geopolitics and Urban Geographies. The exceptional work written by students motivated his involvement with Routes, driven by a desire to provide undergraduate and sixth form students across the UK with the opportunity to gain a wider audience for their work.

Chris Dodd (Grammar School at Leeds)

Chris is a teacher of geography and Head of Academic Extension & Oxbridge at the Grammar School at Leeds. He completed his undergraduate degree in Geography at Keble College, University of Oxford. Chris went on to achieve a Master’s degree in Drylands Science & Management at the Environmental Change Institute in Oxford. His graduate thesis was later refined and published in the Journal of Arid Environments, ‘Can phytoliths provide an insight into past vegetation of the Middle Kalahari palaeolakes during the late Quaternary?’ (Burrough, Bremen & Dodd, 2012). After completing his Geography PGCE at the University of Sheffield, Chris taught geography and geology at St. Aidan’s C of E High School in Harrogate. He has also lived and worked in Malawi, the so-called ‘warm heart of Africa,’ teaching geography at St. Andrew’s International High School in Blantyre. Chris is the founder and Staff Editor of The GSAL Journal, a student-led online publication promoting scholarly passion, curiosity and creativity. As an editor for Routes, Chris looks to combine his enduring love of geography and growing editorial experience to support outstanding sixth form and early career geographers. His specific areas of interest include Quaternary science, environmental geomorphology, extreme environments and sustainable development.

Dr. Melanie Froude (Marlborough CofE school)

Melanie is a Teacher of Geography at Marlborough C of E School, Oxfordshire. She is passionate about bringing cutting-edge geography into the classroom and providing opportunities for students to develop the skills they need to investigate geographical issues that matter to them. Melanie brings nearly a decade of experience in academic research focused on using geospatial technologies to investigate geohazards. She has collaborated on research projects on lahar dynamics in active volcanic catchments (NERC PhD, University of East Anglia), landslide occurrence in earthquake-prone settings (PDRA, University of Sheffield), and analysed global patterns of fatal landslides (Froude and Petley, 2019; NHESS). Melanie is keen to support Routes in providing a platform to celebrate the outstanding work she has seen by early career geographers. 

Dr. Sara McDowell (Ulster University)

Dr. Sara McDowell is a Senior Lecturer in Human Geography at Ulster University. She has been the Geography Course Director since 2016 and teaches across the undergraduate programme. She is the School of Geography and Environmental Sciences’ Athena Swan Champion and is an advocate of gender equality and intersectionality.  Sara is a political geographer and her research considers the spatial politics of place. Much of her work focuses on deeply divided societies and thinks about the ways in which place is used, contested and renegotiated in the aftermath of conflict. Sara has worked on several UKRI funded projects that have examined heritage practices and peacebuilding in Northern Ireland, Israel-Palestine, Sri Lanka, South Africa and the former Yugoslavia. More recently she has explored refugee geographies and considered the geopolitical framing of refugees and the complexities of geographies of care at European borders. Sara is a member of AHRC Peer Review College, a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy and a member of the Aurora Network. Sara is delighted to join the editorial team at Routes. She is committed to providing a more supportive environment for young scholars to have their ideas heard. 

Dr. David Preece (Teach First)

David is currently Head of Geography for Teach First, leading on curriculum and teacher development as part of the Subject Lead team. A former teacher and Head of Department, he taught in London for over a decade. He did his undergraduate Geography degree at Jesus College, University of Oxford, before studying for a PhD in decadal climate variability at University College London. David has worked with the Chartered College of Teaching and Royal Meteorological Society on education and online resource design. Together with serving on the Editorial Board of Routes Journal, he has worked with and published through the RGS and Geographical Association. In 2020, he was awarded Fellowship of the Chartered College of Teaching, and Chartered Geographer (Teacher) status by the Royal Geographical Society. He is regularly on Twitter @DoctorPreece, and is keen to get more voices to contribute to the wonderful disciplinary conversations that make up Geography!

Smriti Safaya (PhD student with the University of York & Geography teacher in Hong Kong)

Smriti is currently doing interdisciplinary research at the University of York, looking at youth appetite for environmental activism in Hong Kong using citizen science as a catalyst. Prior to embarking on this PhD research, she applied an experiential education approach in teaching Geography and World Issues for thirteen years at international schools in Hong Kong.  She has taken more than 2200 students on over 50 field trips around Hong Kong and globally, finding that the most transformative experiences are seen, heard and felt (hence my T-shirt’s message in my photo!).  The appeal of experiential and place-based learning began with Smriti’s research experiences about earthquakes and geology in Tibet, Hong Kong and California, while completing her masters and undergraduate degrees at The University of Hong Kong and The University of California, Davis, respectively.  As an activist educator and researcher, she pushes for participatory engagement for sustainability in her roles as a board member of the Royal Geographical Society in Hong Kong; as the Education Director and Hong Kong Ambassador for the regional citizen science organization, CitizenScience.Asia; and as a member of the Hong Kong Marine Policy Alliance, advocating for a holistic marine policy in Hong Kong.  She is excited to join the Routes Editorial team because, as a firm believer of the power of student voice, Smriti is keen to see the world through a young geographers’ eyes and to help widen the Routes authorship and audience internationally.  

Kate Stockings (Hampstead School)

Kate Stockings is currently Head of Geography at Hampstead School, North London. She completed her undergraduate degree at the University of Exeter before studying for her PGCE and Masters of Education at the University of Cambridge. Since starting teaching five years ago, Kate has always been passionate about providing opportunities for students beyond the classroom; through trips, lectures and guests visiting the department. It is this passion which motivated her involvement with the Routes Journal- wanting to help provide an opportunity for students from all schools and backgrounds to engage in geography scholarship.  Kate is particularly interested in economic geography- linked to the study of globalisation and superpowers. 

Jonathon Turnbull (University of Cambridge)

Jonathon is a third-year PhD candidate at the University of Cambridge (King’s College). He is a cultural and environmental geographer interested in the human-animal relations emerging in the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone; especially those with dogs and wolves. His research seeks to understand the ways in which Nature at Chernobyl is variously constructed as damaged or flourishing by working closely with a range of scientists in the Zone. Additionally, he is interested in the different ways in which nonhuman animals (and nature more generally) are mediated digitally and the consequences of the proliferation of digital animals for human-animal relations. He previously conducted research into urban cattle in India. Jonathon has taught on a range of courses at Cambridge including animal geographies, cultural geographies, gendered geographies, and sustainable development. He is keen to widen access to higher education institutions and hopes to inspire and develop the next generation of geographers through working on the editorial board at Routes.

Faye Wilson-Cressey (St Andrew’s Catholic School)

Faye is a Chartered Geographer and has an MSc in Petroleum Geoscience from Royal Holloway, University of London. Having worked as a geologist in the oil and gas industry before moving into a career teaching geography, Faye now works and a state secondary school in Surrey as a Geography teacher, SCITT subject tutor and school gifted and talented lead.
With her geological background, Faye’s interests are in hazards and their management along with sustainable resource management, both of which she thoroughly enjoys teaching as part of the A-level curriculum. As a supervisor for the A-level independent investigation, Faye believes that fieldwork and independent investigations are a driving force in our discipline and Faye hopes that Routes will help to celebrate the work of our student geographers and enable students to use the writings of their peers to make many of their aspirations so much more tangible. 

Dr. Daniel Whittall (Trinity Sixth form Academy)

Dan Whittall has taught geography for about a decade, first in Bracknell and now in Halifax, West Yorkshire. Some of his fondest geographical memories are of fieldwork, on the Isle of Arran as a 6^th form student, in Galway as an undergraduate, in New York as a PhD researcher, and now annually in Morecambe as a teacher. His PhD explored how Caribbean migrants reshaped the urban geography of London in the 1930s and 1940s through their engagements with the politics of race and empire. He continues to actively research and write about geography education, as well as about the broad fields of historical, cultural and political geography.

Dr. Lynda Yorke (Bangor University)

Lynda is a Senior Lecturer in Physical Geography at Bangor University. She is the Degree Programme Director for the BA/BSc/MGeog Geography programmes. Lynda is a Senior Fellow of Advance HE (formerly the Higher Education Academy), and is a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society (RGS). Lynda is the deputy Chair of the RGS Geography and Education Research Group (GERG), a member of the RGS Degree Accreditation panel, and is the External Examiner for Bath Spa University.

Lynda began her geographical journey by studying Geography at Northumbria University, going on to study for a Masters’ degree in Geomorphology and Environmental Change at Durham University, and then completing her Ph.D research at the University of Hull in Quaternary Geomorphology. Lynda began teaching undergraduates back in 2001, and taught throughout her doctoral research as a Graduate Teaching Associate. She went on to a post-doctoral post at the University of Liverpool, before securing her first lecturing job at Aberystwyth University. She moved to Bangor University in 2012. In between her studies, Lynda worked in Project Management, before returning to academia as a junior research associate, which inspired her to develop her own doctoral research project. Lynda is particularly interested in the long-term behaviour of rivers in response to changing environmental conditions, flood risk and hazard management, and reconstructing (UK) glacial histories from landform-sediment associations. Finally, Lynda has a keen interest in the scholarship of teaching and learning, exploring how students learn and how academics engage with pedagogy. 

Dr. Tanesha Allen (University of Oxford)

Dr Tanesha Allen is a Zoologist who specialises in behavioural ecology and reproductive behaviour. Originally from the USA, she earned her BSc. in Animal Sciences at Washington State University in Pullman, Washington. She then pursued a MPhil in Zoology at the University of Cambridge where she studied inbreeding avoidance in burying beetles, and a DPhil in Zoology at the University of Oxford where she studied olfactory communication in European badgers. Dr Allen’s passion for science communication/outreach inspired her to create a wildlife monitoring program with local primary and secondary schools, and this work recently earned her an appointment on the Royal Society Partnership Grants Allocating Panel. Her other passion of addressing EDI issues within STEM led her to working as a Strategic Outreach Officer for Oxford’s Department of Zoology and as an Athena SWAN Coordinator and Data Analyst in Oxford’s MPLS Division.