Anna is Professor of Social Justice. She founded and co-directs the Centre for Social Mobility.

Her research interests include opportunities to enhance equality across education; higher education access, progress, and success; inequality, social mobility; elective home education; teaching excellence; teaching for inclusion; access to professions (law, medicine, academia); policy research (what works). She has written a book on admissions to highly selective universities in England and the United States. She has recently co-authored articles with colleagues at the University of Exeter looking at regional inequalities in educational transitions and a charity scheme supporting international educational mobility. She is presently working on mapping the higher education social mobility space for England

Anna has authored more than 50 national and international conference presentations, 30 peer-reviewed articles, five book-chapter, over a dozen research reports as well as one monograph, two edited books and two edited peer-reviewed journal special issues. She has led an impact case-study with colleagues from the Centre for Social Mobility for the REF2021. Her research has been funded by OfS and its predecessors HEFCE and OFFA, the EU, ESRC, Nuffield Foundation, British Academy, SRHE, CRAC, SEDA, Social Mobility Commission, Fair Education Alliance, (then) HEA, (then) SPA, institutions (Nuffield College Oxford, King’s College London, Manchester University, University of Exeter) and charities.

Anna is a Principal Fellow of Advance HE, a Trustee of the Society for Research into Higher Education and joint editor of Research Papers in Education. 

Anna welcomes enquiries from motivated prospective MA and PhD students. She welcomes PhD students with interests in Education, Sociology and both quantitative and qualitative methods.  If you want to explore a proposal within her areas of expertise and would like to study at the University of Exeter, please get in touch.