Meet our teaching staff

Dr Judith Krauss

Programme Leader for the BA in Global Development

I am a lecturer on the BA in Global Development, including on the first-year module Foundations of Global Development, which uses problem-based learning.

It is always a privilege seeing our wonderful students learn and grow in confidence as they approach different wicked problems through problem-based learning. On my module, they have to grapple with issues ranging from colonialism and racism to global consumption and climate change. Problem-based learning grants students a lot of autonomy in how they approach their learning, and gives them an opportunity to work together and pool all their knowledges, no matter what they did at A-Level or what Politics, Environment, History, Economics or Social Policy modules they might be taking. It allows students to develop vital skills such as teamwork, accountability and independent research in their diverse areas of interest, and become a community of learners.

My research interests revolve around sustainability and solidarity. My PhD was on cocoa sustainability and how differently this is understood by farmers, cooperatives, companies or consumers. Since, I have worked with wonderful colleagues on Covid effects on rural livelihoods in Mozambique, including for women, on biodiversity conservation - how humans can live better with lions in Tanzania or jaguars in Brazil - as well as on justice, including how to decolonise the Sustainable Development Goals.

Please do get in touch (judith.krauss@york.ac.uk) if you have questions, and hope to welcome you to York soon!

Dr Gideon Baffoe

I have an interdisciplinary background in development and sustainability studies. Development is broad and we need that interdisciplinary lens to be able to understand the diverse challenges and propose tailored soultions in addressing them. The BA Global Development is a unique programme in the sense that you get the opportunity to understand and analyse development issues, drawing on diverse perspectives. Teaching on this programme has significantly deepened my understanding of development and interdisciplinarity scholarship. As a student on this programme, you will be equipped with all the necessary skills needed to succeed in any development-oriented setting.

Dr Saba Joshi

Hello everyone! I am Saba and I am a Lecturer in Gender and Development. Born and raised in New Delhi, I grew up in a period marked by enormous socio-economic and political change in India. My interest in questions of social justice and political power arose from wanting to understand and essentially, influence the rapidly changing, yet fundamentally unequal milieu that shaped my youth.

I studied History at St Stephen’s College, University of Delhi, and International Relations at Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi. Following this, I applied for a Master’s programme at the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies (IHEID) in Geneva, Switzerland. I chose to study in Geneva because I was particularly intrigued by the role of international organizations in global development. After two years of working with the UN and national civil society organizations, I decided to pursue a PhD in Political Science/International Relations at IHEID in Geneva. My doctoral thesis focused on the gender politics of 'land grabbing' and resistance against land and natural resource dispossession in Cambodia, where I spent over 18 months generating empirical material for my research.

Since defending my PhD in 2020, I pursued a postdoctoral research project examining land dispossession and agrarian change in India. At York, I also hold the position of Deputy Director of the Interdisciplinary Global Development Centre.

Dr Ellie Jew

I first went to Africa when my undergrad dissertation supervisor offered me the chance to go with him to Botswana. I was really lucky to get that opportunity, and it has shaped the rest of my career. I did my masters in Zimbabwe and worked in Tanzania before conducting research there for my PhD. Through our new BA in Global Development I am able to give our students similar opportunities. My research focus was initially on wildlife conservation, but my experience has taught me how imperative it is to address poverty and inequality too in order to reach a thriving and sustainable world. This degree will help students to gain the interdisciplinary knowledge and skills needed to achieve this.⠀

Dr Phil Roberts

My PhD was awarded by the Department of Political Economy at the University of Sydney. Since then, I have undertaken field research in India and Ghana, looking at challenging exploitation in global supply chains. All this experience has taught me the importance of labour struggles in shaping development, and how often only direct action will get the goods. I'm really enjoying teaching on this degree programme, particularly discussing how global change is driven as much by developing economies as the developed, and how grassroots actors are just as important as elites.