Anna Skeels is a Senior Research Fellow at the Wales Centre for Public Policy and is currently leading theCentre’s work on equalities and social inclusion. Her research interests include refugee and migration studies, children’s rights and protection, conducting research with potentially vulnerable groups in low income and challenging settings and the use of participatory methodologies. Anna has a strong commitment to research addressing the most pressing social issues in Wales.
Anna has worked in the voluntary sector in Wales on a range of issues including children’s rights and participation, child protection, community safety and youth offending. More recently, she has worked in the humanitarian sphere, for example as a Consultant for UNHCR and as the lead for Save the Children on an academic-practitioner collaboration measuring the separation of children in emergencies in Ethiopia and the Democratic Republic of Congo. Prior to joining the WCPP, she was Head of Elrha’s Humanitarian Innovation Fund (HIF), leading a team funding and supporting innovative new solutions to improve the effectiveness of humanitarian response.
Anna has significant experience of establishing and leading new initiatives, collaborative working and managing project-focused teams.
Anna holds a PhD from Swansea University’s Centre for Migration and Policy Research (CMPR), an MA in Cultural Geography from the University of British Columbia and a BA in Human Geography from the University of Oxford.