Team

Before helping to establish Childlight, Paul spent over 30 years working as a senior law enforcement officer in the UK and overseas. As Regional Director for the UK’s National Crime Agency in Africa, and later as the Director for Interpol’s Global Organised Crime programme, Paul was responsible for developing a cohesive approach with heads of state, governments, agencies and key partners across the world to mitigate serious global criminality.  Paul sits on a number of strategic governance boards and has been responsible for establishing bespoke capability to tackle child sexual exploitation and abuse globally. 

As Professor of International Child Protection Research, Debi has over 20 years' experience developing data for change. She is passionate about using complex and disparate data sources to understand the magnitude, patterns and determinants of CSEA globally. Debi leads the data strategy at Childlight driving a vision of creating and curating rigorous and robust data to safeguard children now and preventing violence from ever occurring in the future.  

Zoe comes from a background working with governments and agencies globally to improve public safety, specifically designing and building new multi-sector organisations. She is responsible for making sure that ChildLight meets our strategic vision and mission, becoming more impactful over time. 

Kelvin has significant experience in UK and international law enforcement. While with the UK National Crime Agency (NCA) in Kenya, Kelvin set up Africa’s first dedicated child exploitation and human trafficking units. Prior to this he was a Senior Investigating Officer within The Child Exploitation Online Protection Centre specialising in extra territorial prosecutions relating to child exploitation across the Globe. 

Gemma has worked in the humanitarian sector in communications, advocacy and community engagement roles and in numerous humanitarian and emergency contexts, many of which had a strong protection element. Prior to her work with NGO’s, she worked in political research for a Government minister. 

Doug has significant experience in UK Law Enforcement. He has been in charge as Senior Investigating Officer of a number of high-profile child abuse operations and held the public protection portfolio. Doug sat on the National Executive Board for Family Liaison. He was formerly the Deputy National Co-ordinator at Operation Hydrant the UK response to non-recent child abuse.

Richard comes from a youth and community development background, supporting children and young people in a variety of settings including those impacted by child exploitation and abuse, before moving into service development, quality improvement, operational management and governance roles within third and public sector organisations. 

Arturo is currently the Director of the IMAGINA research center and Associate Professor at the School of Government at the Universidad de los Andes, Colombia.  Arturo is interested in understanding the impact of adverse childhood experiences; designing and evaluating interventions that mitigate this impact, and identifying best-practices that improve health, education and child protection systems. 

Inga’s background is in applied social research for public and third sector organisations and she is passionate about producing research that impacts policy, practice, and children’s lives. Her work covers quantitative and mixed methods research on child sexual exploitation and abuse as well as adverse childhood experiences more broadly. 

Mengyao is a Research Fellow at Childlight and a member of the UK Young Academy's 2023 cohort. Mengyao’s research looks at sexual violence against children, particularly primary child sexual abuse prevention programmes in school settings. 

David is the Director of the Crimes against Children Research Center and Professor of Sociology at the University of New Hampshire. David’s research interests include the epidemiology of child maltreatment, Internet offenses and adverse childhood experiences. 

Dr. Fang is Professor of Health Economics at the College of Economic and Management, China Agricultural University. He also holds joint appointment in the School of Public Health at Georgia State University. Prior to his current position, Dr. Fang served as a Senior Health Economist with the Division of Violence Prevention at the U.S. CDC. 

Liz is an Assistant Principal, Professor of Global Health and Development, and Director of the University of Edinburgh’s Global Health Academy, a Fellow of the RSE and the Deputy Director International of the RCPE.  Liz  leads research on planetary health and the science and practice of compassion 

Ethel is Professor of Forensic Clinical Psychology in the School of Health in Social Science at the University of Edinburgh. As a clinical psychologist Ethel has worked with both sex offenders and victims and for over 20 years has researched technology-mediated crimes against children, collaborating internationally with government and non-government agencies in the context of research, policy and practice. 

Gemma has worked within the operations team of the Scottish Child Abuse Inquiry and with international schools and agencies arranging English language education to groups of children aged 9-16.  Gemma brings enthusiasm, strong administration experience and excellent organisational skills that keep the office running smoothly. 

Mark has considerable experience of technical and procedural design, development and management of data systems, working with big, complex and often challenging data sources. He has worked with clinical, management, administrative and economical data in the past and offers insight, consultancy and guidance on best practice policies for all things data. 

Andrea is an assistant professor at the Department of Behavioral Science in the University of the Philippines Manila and a PhD Psychology candidate at King’s College London. Her research interests dealt with issues on mental health and help-seeking behaviour, violence against women and children, young person’s self-harm behaviour and drug use 

Sandra is a Research Assistant Professor at the University of the Philippines Manila National Institutes of Health, undertaking research on child abuse and neglect. She is also a Child Protection Specialist at the Philippine General Hospital Child Protection Unit. 

Sabrina is a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Edinburgh, working with Childlight through a funded studentship, having completed her MSc in Public Health at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. Sabrina has experience in several areas of gender-based violence research including intimate partner violence, child maltreatment, and violence against women and will focus on analysing the intersections in these areas using Disrupting Harm global data. 

Dr Konstantinos Kosmas Gaitis completed his PhD in Law at Edinburgh University and has worked as a Researcher for the Edinburgh Study of Youth Transitions and Crime and the Law Society of Scotland. He is a Scottish Justice Fellow, currently registered as Attorney at Law with the Athens Bar Association, he tutors at Edinburgh University and works as a Global Data Fellow in Childlight Institute.  

Sarah has a psychology and health background is a current PhD student at Edinburgh Napier University investigating how adverse and benevolent childhood experiences relate to the development of PTSD and CPTSD in adulthood. Her research interests include the effects of traumatic events across the lifespan, quantitative methodology, open science practices and moral decision making. 

Carleigh received her Masters in Teaching and was a primary school teacher prior to beginning her PhD in Education at the University of Edinburgh. She is passionate about teacher education and how teachers can act as key participants in the disruption and impediment of child abuse. Her current research focuses on the university’s role in educating future teachers on child protection policy, legislation and the rights of the child. 

James comes from a child protection background, having worked in frontline child and family services for several years in Canada. James started work in addressing online CSEA at the Canadian Centre for Child Protection in 2022, and will continue this at Childight. James is a part of the research team at Childlight, working as a research assistant. 

Michael is Professor of Criminology in the School of Social Sciences at the University of New South Wales, Australia. He conducts interdisciplinary research into child sexual abuse and exploitation, complex trauma and gender-based violence, and works closely with government and non-government agencies to improve prevention, policy and practice.  

Sir Bernard is Emeritus Professor of Statistics at Oxford University. He has had a long and varied career as an academic and public servant, including seven years as Chief Scientific Adviser to the Home Office.  During that time his innovative statistical work on hidden crimes was pivotal to the passage of the Modern Slavery Act 2015. His academic work has won several prestigious awards and he was knighted in 2018 for Public Service and Services to Science.  

Jason has extensive experience of communications, including as an award-winning political and news journalist with national newspapers and with an MSc in Public Relations. For ten years he was an editor with The Sunday Times, one of the world’s biggest news brands, before moving full-time into strategic communications with a particular focus on supporting charities.

Maria is a research assistant intern while undertaking a PhD in psychology at Abertay University. Previously Maria worked to support vulnerable children and families. She is passionate about children’s development and every child’s right to a childhood free from harm. The focus of her PhD project is to improve children’s online knowledge and practice.

Anna’s background is in health and applied psychology. She gained her PhD in Psychology at the University of Strathclyde. Her previous research was focused on healthy ageing, community-based interventions, and the psychosocial impact of living with chronic illness and acquired disability. Her expertise covers quantitative, qualitative and mixed-methods research. Anna’s current work is focused on the prevalence estimates and nature of online child sexual abuse and exploitation.

Bernadette is the Executive Director of the Child Protection Network Foundation, Inc., an NGO that supports the training of child protection professionals and the development of women and children protection units in the Philippines. She also heads the Child Protection Unit (CPU) of the University of the Philippines Manila - Philippine General Hospital, where she is concurrently Associate Clinical Professor of Pediatrics. She is the founder and chair of the Child Abuse Neglect and Exploitation Study Group of the National Institutes of Health of the Philippines. Dr Madrid is a member of several government committees on health, social welfare, law enforcement and the judiciary She has been the recipient of several awards for her work in child protection. In 2022 she was awarded the Ramon Magsaysay Award, the most prestigious award in Asia.

Dr Nurul Hasyimah is a postdoctoral research trainee as well as a Global Data Fellow in Childlight. She is a senior lecturer of guidance and counselling at the Sultan Idris Education University and a registered counsellor of Malaysian Board of Counsellor, Malaysia. She is interested in understanding the counselling intervention to family and children with sexual exploitation and abuse, identifying best-practice counselling intervention to help children and family who experienced child sexual exploitation and abuse in Malaysia and United Kingdom.

Mueni heads the Anti-Human Trafficking and Child Protection Unit (AHTCPU) within Kenya’s Directorate of Criminal Investigation. Established in 2016, the AHTCPU was set up to address crimes against children, specifically child sexual abuse in Kenya. Mueni leads a team of highly-skilled, committed and passionate investigators who track cases, place the victims in safe spaces if necessary, offer psycho-social support and organise training sessions for officers charged with this work. She has been a key contributor in the significant positive shift that anti-trafficking and child sexual abuse initiatives recently experienced in Kenya.

Detective Evalyne Mboya is a chief inspector of police, working within Kenya’s Anti Human Trafficking and Child Protection in DCI. She heads the online section of unit and has secured convictions in local and international courts, managing to rescue more than 500 children since the inception of the unit.

Ashleigh, a lecturer in child protection administrative data, was formerly a senior researcher at the Scottish Child Abuse Inquiry and Postdoctoral Research Fellow at Queen’s University Belfast on the ESRC project, Apologies, Abuses and Dealing with the Past. Ashleigh’s research focuses on using administrative data to understand the nature and prevalence of child sex abuse. Her research interests include institutional abuse and looked after children, female perpetrators of harm and the victim-perpetrator paradigm.

Lewis McLean is a security and data professional based in the Greater Edinburgh Area. Currently, he serves as a data scientist in the Cisco Talos Intelligence Group. Previously, Lewis held positions at Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Dell SecureWorks focusing on abuse mitigation and building machine learning systems with cybersecurity data.

Kevin is a researcher at the Universidad de Los Andes in Colombia. His expertise lies in utilising public policy analysis, artificial intelligence, and both qualitative and quantitative research methods to approach issues in public management, policy, and development. With roles as a researcher, instructor and consultant, Kevin has engaged in projects with the private, academic and public sectors. He is fervent about creating a positive impact on the lives of vulnerable populations through evidence-based public policies.

Jorge Leonardo Rodríguez, an economist, is currently a student in the Master's in Economics at the University of Los Andes. His current research focuses on education economics, social policy, and issues related to violence in children and adolescents.

With a PhD in Political Science at Universidad de los Andes (Colombia), Ervyn is a former police officer of the National Police of Colombia, with the rank of Major, 21 years of police experience, and a trajectory in tactical criminology and evidence-based policing. Currently, he is fully dedicated to research and consultancy in the areas of criminology, policing, legal psychology, security and justice.

Emma is an intersectional feminist and activist. She is working at Tilioq in Greenland, which supports people with disabilities. Her focus areas are preventing harm for people with disabilities. She has previously worked with Azadi Kenya that supports women with lived experience of modern slavery and human trafficking. Her areas of interest include ethical and participatory data management and the intersection between marginalised peoples and abuse and exploitation, particularly the element of power.