Melanie joined Liverpool Hope as a Senior Lecturer in Criminology in September 2023, having previously worked as a senior lecturer at the University of Huddersfield, a research fellow at UCL, and a crime analyst with Sussex Police. Her research interests are in the field of green criminology, particularly nonhuman animal-related harm, animal victimology, and vegan criminology. She also has many years of professional and academic experience in crime prevention, opportunity theories, spatial crime concentrations, analysis, evaluation, and evidence-based policing. Melanie gained her PhD in Criminology from UCL in 2018.
Melanie holds Fellowship of the Higher Education Academy (FHEA) status and is a member of the Vegan Society Research Advisory Committee, the British Society of Criminology (and green criminology network), and the European Society of Criminology. She is an experienced conference presenter and has published a number of highly-cited papers.
In May 2024, Melanie was appointed as Associate Dean for Research, Scholarship and Knowledge Exchange (Faculty of Business, Law and Criminology). She also has previous leadership experience, as acting Head of Division of Criminology and Deputy Director of the Applied Criminology and Policing Research Centre (both at the University of Huddersfield).
At Hope, Melanie is the Level C year lead for BA Criminology, course lead for CRMCORE1C Introduction to Criminology, and has co-designed and delivered Level H green criminology. She teaches across all years, and supervises dissertations and research projects. More recently, Melanie was involved in the design and validation of new postgraduate taught provisions, including the MRes in Green Criminology. An experienced postgraduate supervisor, Melanie has successful completions at masters and doctoral level and external examining experience.