People

Creative Manchester Director

Professor Michelle Phillips is Director of Creative Manchester and Professor of Music at The University of Manchester. Her research interests include audience response to live and recorded music, neurological response to music listening and performance, music and time, perception of contemporary music, entrepreneurship, and music and Parkinson’s. 

Creative Manchester Deputy-Director

Dr Constance Smith is a Senior Lecturer in Social Anthropology at the School of Social Sciences in the Faculty of Humanities. Her research focus is the anthropology of architecture, time and urban change. She is interested in shifting landscapes of buildings, planning and infrastructure and how their materialities inflect ways of engaging with the past and anticipating the future.

Strategy & Engagement Manager

Anne-Marie has managed Creative Manchester, a research platform at The University of Manchester, since its launch in 2018. With undergraduate and master’s degrees in International Business, she has over 25 years' marketing and business experience working in roles across both the private and public sectors.

Creative Industries and Innovation/CreaTech Research Lead

Dr Riza Batista-Navarro is a Senior Lecturer in Text Mining at the University of Manchester. Her research focuses on natural language processing for tasks like information extraction, explainable text classification, machine reading, and language modelling. She has led interdisciplinary projects applying these methods in fields such as biomedicine, biodiversity, sustainability, and online safety."

Engagement Coordinator

Nathalie supports the research theme of Creative Industries and Innovation/CreaTech, leading on research events and engagement activities surrounding the cultural industries, creative policies and economy and supports Creative Manchester’s work in CreaTech and AI. Outside of work she enjoys playing handball and cricket.

Creative and Civic Futures Research Lead

Dr Anke Bernau is a Senior Lecturer in Medieval Literature and Culture at The University of Manchester. Her research spans topics like virginity, poetics, material culture, and environmental humanities. She’s currently co-editing works on Plant Temporalities and the global cultural history of nature in the Middle Ages."

Engagement Coordinator

Abi supports the research theme of Creative and Civic Futures, leading on research events and campaigns drawing on civic themes, and flagship partnership events such as International Mother Language Day and the Festival of Libraries. Outside of work they enjoy singing, reading and poetry.

Creativity, Health and Social Care Research Lead

Dr Stephen Hicks is the research lead for Creativity, Health and Social Care. He is a Senior Lecturer in Social Work with a research interest in LGBTQ+ Older Adult Care, Community, atmosphere & belonging, LGBT parenting, and sexuality & social welfare.

Engagement Coordinator

Kate supports the research theme of Creativity, Health and Social Care. She leads on research engagement events and campaigns bringing together researchers, artists and creatives alongside practitioners in health and social care. She likes cold water swimming in her spare time.

Activating Collections Research Lead

Prof Ana Carden-Coyne is Director of the Centre for the Cultural History of War and Academic Theme Lead for Research Partnerships at Creative Manchester. Her research is inspired by people’s creative responses to war and conflict. Working closely with other disciplines, cultural practitioners and cultural institutions, her research explores how collaboration, co-curation and shared decision-making transforms human connections.

Skills, Teaching & Learning and Student Experience Research Lead

Dr Lindsay Pressdee is Skills Lead for Creative Manchester. She is a Senior Lecturer in Fashion Business Marketing at The University of Manchester. Her research explores sustainability, innovation, and circular economy practices in textiles, with a focus on extending product lifecycles, developing circular competencies, and supporting community engagement in sustainability transitions.

Creative Manchester Graduate Intern

Sam supports the Creative Manchester team in managing events and communications for all events, as well as administration and financial tasks. Outside of work, he enjoys hiking and going to the cinema.

Research Associate – maternity cover

Dr Luciana Lang is an anthropologist currently investigating the co-design of Kindred House, the first extra care housing scheme for older LGBTQ people in the UK. Her research interests include creative methods, natural and cultural heritage, social infrastructure, and emotion maps. Her research is characterised by close collaboration with communities, third-sector organisations and the public sector, often focusing on minoritised groups and knowledge exchange.

Research Associate - currently on maternity leave

Hannah is Creative Manchester's Post-doctoral Research Associate. Her research interests include feminist and grassroots creative organisations, creative workforce inequalities, and the relationships between feminism, activism, entrepreneurialism, and precarity in contemporary feminist cultural work.

Research Associate - Knowledge Mobilisation

Dr Hannah Waterson has a background in Public Health and supported the development of an Arts in Public Health module at The University of Manchester, before leading on research and policy at the National Centre for Creative Health.

Creative Producer

Max is an award-winning Arts Manager and the Creative Producer at Creative Manchester and Manchester Camerata, while also working as a freelance Executive Career Coach. As Creative Producer, Max facilitates knowledge exchange and fosters partnerships with external organisations.

He produces concerts and community-based projects, and also leads the Manchester Camerata 360° Ruth Sutton Fellowship, supporting emerging professional musicians in the North of England. 

Sir Peter Bazalgette joined The University of Manchester in autumn 2019 as an ambassador for Creative Manchester and Honorary Professor of Creative Industries, bringing his vast experience in broadcasting to students and the wider community. He is the mastermind of a number of successful television productions such as Ready, Steady Cook, Ground Force and Changing Rooms.

Sir Mark Elder CBE was appointed Honorary Professor at The University of Manchester’s Department of Music in 2016. An Olivier Award-winner, he is Music Director for the Hallé and was Music Director of the English National Opera from 1979-1993.

Artistic director of London’s Royal Court Theatre, University of Manchester alumna Vicky Featherstone’s career in the theatre has been defined by her involvement in new writing.

Honorary Professor of Performance and Society John McGrath is the artistic director of Creative Manchester partner organisation Manchester International Festival and was the founding artistic director of National Theatre Wales.

David Olusoga OBE is best known for presenting the BBC’s landmark series Civilisations. Nigerian-born, he moved to the UK with his mother as a young child, settling in a council estate in Gateshead. His appointment as Professor of Public History at The University of Manchester in 2019 will further engage the public with historical studies.

Maxine Peake was appointed Honorary Professor of Literature and Performance at The University of Manchester in 2018. RADA-trained, Maxine is well-known for her appearances on stage and screen in productions including Black Mirror, Shameless and The Theory of Everything.

Jon Savage, Professor of Popular Culture at The University of Manchester, is a celebrated cultural commentator and journalist. He is well-known for his books on The Sex Pistols, Joy Division, and Brian Epstein, as well as producing the feature film Teenage (2013).

Professor Michael Schmidt OBE FSRL is a poet, literary historian, translator and editor.

Kamila Shamsie is a Senior Lecturer in Creative Writing at the Centre for New Writing at The University of Manchester. Her most recent novel, Home Fire, was long-listed for a Man Booker Prize.

Ellah Wakatama OBE is editor-at-large for Canongate Books and was founding publisher director of The Indigo Press, while she has served on the judging panel for the Man Booker Prize and other literary awards. Her role as Creative Manchester Senior Fellow at Manchester facilitates knowledge exchange between the Centre for New Writing and HOME.

Acclaimed author Jeanette Winterson CBE is a Professor of New Writing at Manchester. Her writing career began when she published her first novel Oranges Are Not The Only Fruit aged 23.

Historian, broadcaster, and Professor of Public History at the University, Michael Wood is the author of several highly praised books on English history. He has also made well over one hundred documentary films, among them Art of the Western World, In Search of the Trojan War, and In the Footsteps of Alexander the Great - all of which were accompanied by bestselling books.