Melissa Leach#
| Membership Number: | 4938 |
| Membership type: | ORDINARY |
| Section: | HUMAN MOBILITY, GOVERNANCE, ENVIRONMENT AND SPACE |
| Elected: | 2019 |
| Main Country of Residence: | UNITED KINGDOM |
| Homepage(s): | http://www.ids.ac.uk |
| ORCID: | 0000-0002-1293-6848 |
| Twitter: | @mleach_ids |
Present and Previous Positions
- June 2024 - present Executive Director of the Cambridge Conservation Initiative CCI
- April 2014 - 2024 Director, Institute of Development Studies (IDS), UK
- August 2000 Professorial Fellow, Institute of Development Studies (IDS), UK
- Founder and Leader of Knowledge, Technology and Society (KNOTS) team 2005 - 2010
- May 1990 Fellow, Institute of Development Studies (IDS), UK, Leader of Environment Group
Fields of Scholarship
- Geography
- Local knowledge, citizen science and community practices
- Social anthropology
- Social studies of science, technology and the politics of policy processes
- Global health and epidemics
- Interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary research approaches
- West Africa (Guinea, Sierra Leone, Gambia, Liberia, Ghana)
- Development studies
- Environmental sustainability
- Political ecology
Honours and Awards
- 2017 Queen’s Birthday Honours CBE for Services to Social Science
- 2017 Elected Fellow of the British Academy
- 2018 International Society for Neglected Tropical Diseases (ISNTD Award for Community Engagement
- 2016 ESRC International Impact prize – team award for the Ebola Response Anthropology Platform/Ebola Lessons for Development initiative
- 2015 Honorary Doctorate, University of Antwerp
- 2012 European Association for the Study of Science and Technology Ziman Prize for public engagement with science, for STEPS Centre ‘New Manifesto’ initiative
- 2006 UK Economic and Social Research Council, major £10m award for STEPS (Social, Technological and Environmental Pathways to Sustainability) Centre
- 1998 Amaury Talbot Prize of the Royal Anthropological Institute, for best book in African Anthropology, for ‘Misreading the African Landscape’
