President
Baroness Janet Whitaker
whitakerj@parliament.uk
Joint Chairs
Lisa Smith
Lisa obtained an MA in Inclusive Education in 2015 from the University of Worcester and is currently Youth Editor at Travellers’ Times a national magazine for and by Roma and Traveller communities. She is also a Global Leader for Young Children at the World Forum Foundation and a freelance education consultant for the Council of Europe as part of the INSCHOOL project on Roma Education.
Candace Thomas
Candace G. Thomas is Program Coordinator with EPIC Assist Scotland and delivers all ongoing and newly developed projects.
Candace has an MPhil in Sociology from the University of Cambridge and is currently undertaking a PhD in Sociology at University College Dublin. Her research is looking into Irish Traveller Identities and how they negotiate their identity over time, space, and place. Candace has extensive experience designing and implementing various integration/ community education projects both in the UK, and internationally. Candace has worked with children of various ages, with insight into the experiences of refugee and ethnic minority children (providing psychosocial support to residents of the Serres refugee camp, in Northern Greece).
Candace is a Trustee of Fair Scotland a registered Scottish Charity aiming to promote the heritage and culture of Scottish Fairgrounds and sits on the Executive Committee of ACERT. Candace is also the Team Coordinator of the GTRSBC group at the United Nations House Scotland and therefore benefits from an up-to-date understanding of international development and contemporary human rights issues. She has undergone trauma and recovery training with Rape Crisis Glasgow and Clyde, in cooperation with the University of Glasgow, which included an induction and triage sessions on childhood trauma, ACE’s, and domestic violence. Candace is knowledgeable in universal safeguard training and is therefore well equipped to handle any upsets or unforeseeable circumstances which may arise with respectful ease.
Vice Chair
Esther Stubbs
I am Esther, born into a large Romany Gypsy family that worked and travelled in and around East Anglia. I have five children and am a registered social worker, which in part, I owe to my grown-up children who stepped in to help take care of their younger brothers and sisters whilst also working in the family engineering business. During my MA in social work I was surprised, and still am, at the lack of awareness and understanding for the differentiation between Gypsies, Roma and Travellers and our status as ethnic minorities and legally recognised as a race with protected status in accordance with the Equality Act 2010. On this basis, I now work as a research assistant on the GRTSB higher education pledge at ARU.
Vice Chair
Marie Bowers
Marie Bowers is a Romany Gypsy woman born and raised in the southwest of England. In 1997, Marie obtained a BSc (Hons) degree in Biochemistry and Applied Molecular Biology with Physiology at the University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology. She then worked in private sector and academic research laboratories where she has contributed to pre-clinical trials, clinical trials and research papers including fundamental research on treatments for rare diseases.
Marie has worked as a Technician in the Human Physiology Teaching laboratory at the University of Glasgow since 2020. Understanding the need for representation of all backgrounds in Science education, and with the assistance of a core group of Academics, Marie secured funding from The Physiological Society to set up an outreach project called ‘Science Travels’, where the team seek to increase the representation of GTRSB communities within scientific fields as well as raising the issues these communities face in wider society. The project has won awards for Research and Public Engagement at the University of Glasgow and the project has travelled to parliaments at Westminster and Holyrood to talk about these issues in relation to the teaching of physiology and the sustainable development goals. The project was also mentioned by name in a debate on International Women and Girls in Science Day in 2023.
The project has led Marie into research for a PhD in Medical Education at the University of Aberdeen where she hopes to investigate barriers to Science and Medical Education for the communities and offer advice on how to overcome them.
Treasurer
Anne Walker
anne.walker@acert.org.uk
Executive
Thomas Acton
thomas.acton@acert.org.uk
Dr. Thomas Acton OBE (b.1948) ran the first Gypsy Council caravan school on an illegal site in 1967 and went on to become the UK’s first professor of Romani Studies, at the University of Greenwich. He is also Patron of the Roma Support Group and secretary of the Brentwood Gypsy Support Group. He has published many books and articles on Roma, Gypsies and Travellers.
Colin Clark
colin.clark@acert.org.uk
Colin teaches applied social sciences at the University of the West of Scotland (UWS) where he is currently Professor of Sociology and Social Policy. Colin’s PhD is from Edinburgh University (2001) and his research is mainly located within the connected fields of Romani Studies and ethnic and racial studies, with an interest in issues of identity, migration and citizenship. Colin has published widely in these areas as well as supervised and examined a large number of PhD students. Outside of UWS, Colin sits on the Board of Directors of the Glasgow anti-racist group Coalition for Racial Equality and Rights and is a Trustee of the Glasgow-based Roma Rights group Romano Lav (Roma Voice). He also is a member of the Research Advisory Group for the Scottish Human Rights Commission as well as the Traveller Movement. Colin is from a Scottish Traveller background, on his mother’s side, the extended Robertson family of Aberdeenshire. He tweets at: @profcolinclark and more information about his research work can be found here: https://research-portal.uws.ac.uk/en/persons/colin-clark
Brian Foster
brian.foster@acert.org.uk
Hazel Marsh
hazel.marsh@acert.org.uk
Hazel Marsh is Associate Professor in the school of Politics, Philosophy, Language and Communication Studies at the University of East Anglia, UK. Her research interests include popular music and social activism, politics and popular culture, the creative arts and community action, collective memory and identity, culture and disaster risk reduction, music and social movements, migration and displacement, and Romani Studies. Hazel has published widely in these areas and worked on a number of interdisciplinary research projects drawing on participatory, arts-based methods to support knowledge exchange between decision-makers and ‘at-risk’ communities. She is an associated member of the European Academic Network on Romani Studies and tweets at @HazelMarsh18. Hazel is from an English Romanichal background on her father’s side. More information about her work can be found here: https://research-portal.uea.ac.uk/en/persons/hazel-marsh
Sue Mutter
sue.mutter@acert.org.uk
Margaret Wood
margaret.wood@acert.org.uk
Margaret Wood has been interested in Traveller education since volunteering at the Gypsy Summer School in Wisbech in the early ‘70s. She taught languages in comprehensive schools before joining Cambridgeshire and Peterborough’s newly established Traveller Education Service in 1988. Having spent 8 years as a teacher of Travellers, she worked as the team manager for a further 13 years. Following her retirement, she acted as a consultant to the DfE on Gypsy, Roma and Traveller Education. She has contributed a few articles and chapters on good practice to various books and journals. She has been an active member of ACERT since 1990.
