Speakers
Opening address: Stacey Mottershaw
Keynote: Professor Julie Posselt
Stacey Mottershaw is Associate Professor for Teaching and Learning at the University of Leeds. Stacey joined Leeds University Business School (LUBS) in September 2018, where her teaching focuses on business ethics and employability. Her role also includes being an academic personal tutor, module leader for a faculty-wide year in industry programme and a dissertation supervisor. Prior to joining Leeds, Stacey worked at the University of Sheffield for over 10 years, across a range of departments including study abroad, outreach, law and engineering. Alongside her role in LUBS, Stacey is pursuing a Doctorate in Education (EdD) at the University of Sheffield. Her thesis explores the career decisions, journeys and trajectories of academics from working-class backgrounds. Stacey has been a trustee of the National Education Opportunities Network (NEON) since 2023 and is a committee member for the Alliance of Working-Class Academics (AWCA) and the Working Class Studies Association for which she is also Chair Elect (incoming 2026-27) of the Working-Class Academics Section.
Dr. Julie Posselt is a Professor of higher education in the Rossier School of Education, Executive Director of the University of Southern California (USC) Center for Enrollment Research Policy and Practice, Associate Dean in the USC Graduate School, and President of the Sociology of Education Association. Rooted in sociological and organizational theory, her research program uses mixed methods to examine institutionalized inequalities in higher education and organizational efforts aimed at reducing inequities and encouraging diversity. She focuses on selective sectors of higher education— graduate education, STEM fields, and elite undergraduate institutions—where longstanding practices and cultural norms are being negotiated to better identify talent and educate students in a changing society. She was the recipient of the 2018 American Educational Research Association’s Early Career Award, the 2017 Association for the Study of Higher Education’s Early Career/ Promising Scholar Award, and was a 2015-2017 National Academy of Education/ Spencer Foundation postdoctoral research fellow.
Keynote: Professor Chris Millward
Professor Chris Millward is the Office for Students interim Director for Fair Access and Participation. Chris Millward was the OfS’s first Director for Fair Access and Participation from 2018 to 2021, and returns ahead of a recruitment campaign by the Department for Education to make a longer-term appointment. Chris’s role is to ensure that universities and colleges are doing all they can to support underrepresented groups to access and succeed in higher education. Chris is also an executive member of the OfS board. In his previous role at HEFCE as Director (Policy), he led HEFCE’s work on access and student success, learning and teaching, and higher level skills. This included delivery of the Teaching Excellence Framework, the National Student Survey and the National Collaborative Outreach Partnerships, as well as programmes to remove barriers to student success, to improve postgraduate progression and to develop degree apprenticeships. Chris has also worked at the universities of Warwick, Edinburgh and Durham before joining the Arts and Humanities Research Council as Head of Research Programmes in 2002 and HEFCE in 2006.