Applied Criminology MA

Amy Johnson

Amy has been a lecturer at the University of Worcester for four years. Amy enjoys bringing real-world challenges and issues into her classroom and draws upon her experience of working with various client groups (homelessness, addictions, offending and domestic abuse) to demonstrate application. Specifically, Amy enjoys listening to her student’s ambitions and supporting them throughout their degree to reach their potential. Amy has been working with organisations across Worcestershire to ensure students have the best volunteer and work placement opportunities.

Amy enjoys researching offending behaviour and exploring how the criminal justice system is set up to support individuals with behavioural challenges and those who have a lower intellectual ability. Amy has an interest in the development of behaviour change interventions and evidence-based practice, particularly within the community and healthcare settings. Most recently, Amy is working on a large scale research project relating to the development of an integrated intervention targeting men in substance use treatment who perpetrate intimate partner abuse. Over the past twelve months, Amy has been delivering intimate partner violence and ADVANCE training all over the UK to practitioners at substance use services.

Michael Allen

Michael is a former police officer who served 27 years in West Mercia Police. He was fortunate enough to serve the community in a broad range of operational front-line policing duties.

After serving 12 years in a wide variety of uniform policing roles, Michael became a Detective and later Detective Sergeant. He developed a keen interest in interviewing, which included the interviewing of suspected offenders, victims of crime, and witnesses involved in serious and major crime investigations.

Courtney Smith

Courtney joined the University as an Associate Lecturer in March 2021, having previously gained her undergraduate degree in Law and Masters in Criminology from the University of Nottingham.

Courtney’s interests within Criminology are in the field of green criminology. Specifically, Courtney enjoys exploring the criminogenic nature of the current environmental crisis and investigating the distribution of criminal responsibility for such acts. Courtney is also interested in critically thinking about how traditional criminological theory may apply in the context of green criminology, exploring the challenges and benefits that this may bring to mainstream understandings of ‘crime’ and ‘justice’.  Courtney enjoys taking a multi-disciplinary approach to her work, drawing on expertise from a range of academic fields.

Jenna Page

Jenna has worked at the university as a lecturer in criminology, teaching on the undergraduate criminology degrees, since 2018. Prior to moving into academia Jenna was a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Legal Executives specialising in housing litigation law. Jenna is passionate about both education and criminology and enjoys the privileged role of supporting students throughout their university journey. Jenna enjoys working with students from a diverse range of backgrounds and uses contemporary issues and case studies to encourage student engagement and passion within the discourse of criminology. Jenna undertakes the role of Learning and Teaching Coordinator within the School of Psychology with the aim of discussing and disseminating outstanding learning and teaching practice throughout the school.

Isabel Gilbert

Isabel has a background in the heritage sector and has specialised in the relationship between interpretations of history and racism in contemporary society. She brings her knowledge of societal inequality, social justice, symbolism, politics and ideology, and the influence of popular culture to the subject of Criminology.

Isabel enjoys researching cultural conflict, social justice movements, reactionary politics and legacies of colonialism.

Dr Beverley Gilbert

Beverley has over 30 years of experience working within the criminal justice system. She was a Police Officer in Birmingham deployed in various uniform and plain clothes roles, including in plain clothes surveillance roles and as a Detective Family Protection Officer. As a Probation Officer, Beverley worked with individuals who posed a high risk of causing harm, including perpetrators of domestic and sexual violence. She was a semi specialist officer working with custodial cases, including those serving Life and Indeterminate Sentence prisoners. Beverley has been a sessional Expert Domestic Violence Risk Assessor for London based DViP and the Family Courts in the London and Greater London areas.

Mikahil Sulaiman Azad

Mikahil Azad is a Lecturer in Criminology at the University Worcester. He joined the team in September 2023 and has previously taught at Birmingham City University and Arden University in Criminology. Mikahil is toward the end of his doctoral research which focuses upon safety in and around the space of mosques using ethnographic methodologies.