The INCLUDE Webinar Series – Teaching INCLUsion, Diversity and Equity

Associate Professor of Sociology of Cultural and Communication Processes, with research focusing on the analysis of identity formation and belonging in contemporary societies, particularly in relation to socialization processes and gender inequalities. Her work examines how cultural and institutional dynamics shape opportunities for inclusion, participation, and agency. Recent research addresses social innovation as a reconfiguration of social practices and meaning frameworks, with particular attention to technology-mediated transformations in health and education.

Helen Coulshed is Associate Vice Dean (Academic Quality and Assessment) and Senior Lecturer in Chemistry Education at King’s College London. Her work focuses on equity, diversity and inclusion in STEM higher education, with particular expertise in neuroinclusion and inclusive assessment design. Helen co-creates research, teaching and training with undergraduate, postgraduate and doctoral students, centring lived experience to inform institutional change.  

She has led faculty-level EDI initiatives, developed neuroinclusion training for staff and students, and collaborated with doctoral programmes to improve researcher development and belonging. Her research interests include evaluative judgement, feedback literacy and inclusive pedagogies that support confidence, capability and participation for diverse learners. 

Donatella Fantozzi is Associate Professor of Special Education and Pedagogy at the University of Pisa, Department of Civilisations and Forms of Knowledge. She serves as Chair of the Degree Programme in Primary Education (2025–2028) and as Teacher Education Coordinator for the University of Pisa’s Teaching and Learning Centre. Her research focuses on the inclusion of people with Special Educational Needs in educational and work contexts, and on the accessibility of learning and working environments. She is a member of the Executive Board of the Italian Society of Special Pedagogy (SIPeS) and has published widely in the field.

Annapia Ferrara is a social scientist. She is specialised in social inclusion in rural and extremely peripheral areas. Her research investigates how marginalised groups can be meaningfully integrated within the sustainability transition of agri-food and tourism systems, with particular attention to the transformative role of social entrepreneurship as a driver of social innovation. Grounded in participatory action-research, she adopts collaborative, multi-stakeholder approaches enabling the co-design of innovations in response to complex socio-environmental challenges. She engages in sustainability education and in the design of experiential, community-based didactic activities that foster students' transversal competences in sustainability and entrepreneurship.  

Carla Finesilver is a Senior Lecturer in Mathematics Education and Inclusion in the School of Education, Communication and Society. Through both research and teaching, she aims to make mathematics, STEM subjects, and education in general more inclusive and relevant for diverse learners. Prior to academia she taught for 10 years in London schools, including setting up and heading the mathematics department at a specialist school for neurodiverse students. Carla has contributed to national guidance on dyscalculia, and international discourse on inclusive education. Her research has included studying students' representational strategies in arithmetic, and teachers’ attitudes to inclusion; current interests include creating more positive experiences and outcomes for students from whom 'traditional' school is a poor fit, and anti-ableist work in a variety of education contexts.

Vera Gheno is a sociolinguist and a translator from Hungarian. She collaborated with the Accademia della Crusca for 20 years. After 18 years as a contract professor at various universities, she has worked as a researcher at the University of Florence since the end of 2021. 

Her publications include "Femminili singolari. Il femminismo è nelle parole" (2021, effequ) and "Grammamanti. Immaginare future con le parole" (2024, Einaudi). "Nessunə è normale" (June 17, 2025, UTET) is her seventeenth monograph. She hosts the podcast "Amare Parole" for Il Post. 

She focuses on digital communication, gender issues, diversity, equity, and inclusion. 

Edoardo Ghezzani is a PhD student in Philosophy of Inclusion at the University of Pisa and a research fellow at the Catholic University Centre. His master's thesis was awarded by the Intesa Sanpaolo Foundation in 2023 as the best national thesis on the subject of disability. He created the “Sport4All: sport for everyone” project for Happy Wheels Asd, which won the University of Macerata's International Inclusion 3.0 Award in 2024 and a European Solidarity Call in 2025. Between 2022 and 2023, he conducted research at the CIDIC of the University of Pisa. He has published in ISBN-edited volumes and peer-reviewed scientific journals. 

Alex Hadwen-Bennett is Senior Lecturer in Inclusion and STEM Education at King’s College London. His work focuses on creating equitable and accessible learning experiences in STEM disciplines, with a particular emphasis on inclusive pedagogies and the design of inclusive learning tools. He has led interdisciplinary research projects exploring the role that embodied and tangible programming experiences can play in making programming more accessible for learners with visual impairments. He collaborates widely with educators and researchers to translate evidence-based practices into classroom innovation, aiming to broaden participation and foster belonging in STEM fields. 

Jessica Könnecke is a PhD Student in Entrepreneurship at the Department of Management, Aarhus University. Her research is anchored in feminist perspectives on entrepreneurship. In November 2025, Jessica was appointed Junior Innovator at Aarhus University. Together with Helle Neergaard, she co-founded LAB99, an experimental, interdisciplinary incubation environment for students from any institution of further education in Aarhus. The project supports individuals who rarely find a place in established startup environments with a focus on social, cultural , and sustainable value creation. In other words, those individuals and projects that are overlooked in or excluded from the high-growth unicorn discourse.  

Alessandra Meoni is Educational Content Project Officer within the Circle U. Alliance and co-coordinates Work Package 5 on Societal Engagement. With over ten years of experience as a lecturer at the University of Pisa, she brings a solid academic background in philosophy and literature to the design of inclusive, interdisciplinary learning experiences. Her work focuses on Equity, Diversity and Inclusion, innovative pedagogy, and the connection between universities and society. Within the InCU.bator, she operates at the intersection of strategy and practice, translating institutional visions into concrete educational formats and collaborative initiatives that engage students, staff, and external communities across the alliance. 

With a background in law, medicine, and contemporary literature, Viktoria Nagy is an educational researcher, innovator, and changemaker specializing in active learning, student empowerment, equity, diversity and inclusion (EDI), and the Europeanisation of higher education and teacher training. An active member of the Circle U. InCU.bator, she has contributed to the design and facilitation of multiple design-thinking hackathons, challenges, and innovation programmes, including the Sustainable Changemakers Programme, within which she provides pitch training grounded in inclusive and ethical approaches for future entrepreneurs. Her EDI expertise is further shaped by spearheading the Circle U. Women Founders project, which aims to empower young women innovators and entrepreneurs across the Alliance. Today, she works at the Louvain Learning Lab and co-coordinates the Circle U. Teaching Innovation Lab, where she supports inclusive, learner-centred pedagogical innovation at European level. 

Helle Neergaard is Professor of Entrepreneurship at the Department of Management, Aarhus University. She was recently appointed Distinguished Senior Innovator at Aarhus University. As DSI, her focus is on creating gender intelligent incubator environments to make entrepreneurship a more natural career choice for academic women and other underrepresented groups. Her initiative builds on more than 20 years of research on women’s entrepreneurship and on her experience as an entrepreneur herself. She has published widely on women’s entrepreneurship, often taking a critical or controversial perspective, and is happy to swim against the stream in her efforts to create knowledge that makes an impact. 

Gülüm Özer is a scholar whose work on workplace bullying is deeply informed by more than three decades of professional experience. After a long corporate career, she developed a strong academic interest in understanding and stopping bullying at work, which led her to complete a PhD focused on bullying perpetration. Her research examines the factors that shape perpetrators’ behaviour. She has published in high‑impact journals, contributes to international conferences, supervises postgraduate research on negative workplace behaviours, and leads modules in organisational behaviour and research methods at King’s College London. Her work is driven by a strong commitment to improving employee wellbeing. 

Aisha Phoenix is a Social Justice lecturer at the School of Education, Communication and Society at King’s College London. She is a UKRI Future Leaders Fellow and Principal Investigator of the Understanding Colourism Among Young People in the UK research project. She conducted the first major sociological study exploring colourism in the UK and has discussed colourism on radio programmes and podcasts. She has a PhD in Sociology (Goldsmiths) and Masters in Social Research (Goldsmiths), Social Anthropology of Development (SOAS), and Creative Writing (Birkbeck). Her undergraduate degree was in Arabic and Modern Middle Eastern Studies (the University of Oxford). 

Christina Richardson is Senior Lecturer in Language Education within the School of Education, Communication and Society where she works as a teacher educator, contributing to a range of language-related programmes. Her research interests, include teacher identity, decolonising the curriculum, and inclusive practices for learners with English as an Additional Language and those with Special Educational Needs and Disabilities. She is leading an anti-racism in Initial Teacher Education Working group for the School’s Post-Graduate Certificate in Education programme. She is Editor-in-Chief of the EAL Journal, published by the National Association for Language Development in the Curriculum. 

Ruth Rubio-Marín is Professor of Constitutional Law at the University of Sevilla, adjunct Professor at the School of Transnational Governance of the European University Institute (Florence), and Director of the UNIA UNESCO Chair in Human Rights and Interculturalism. She has taught at leading academic institutions including NYU, Columbia Law School and Princeton University. Her research focuses on comparative constitutionalism, gender and the law, immigration, citizenship and transitional justice, examining how public law constructs inclusion and exclusion. She is the author or editor of numerous influential publications with Cambridge, Oxford, Brill and Routledge. She has worked extensively as a consultant for the UN, the EU and international NGOs, with field experience in post-conflict societies. 

Riccardo Ruffoli is Associate Professor of Human Anatomy at the School of Medicine of the University of Pisa. A physician and specialist in Sports Medicine, he served as President of the Degree Program in Medicine and Surgery from 2019 to 2025. With over thirty years of university teaching experience, he combines his work in anatomy and neuroanatomy with an interest in interpersonal communication, inclusive pedagogy, and neurodiversity, with particular attention to the design of accessible learning environments in accordance with the principles of Universal Design for Learning. In 2025, he published Le basi del prompting, a practical manual on conscious and effective interaction with artificial intelligence. 

Elettra Stradella is Associate Professor of Comparative Public Law at the Department of Law, University of Pisa. Her research focuses on fundamental rights, law & gender, law & technology and biolaw. She has been a Jean Monnet Chair holder of the “EUWONDER” Chair (European Women’s Law and Gender, 2022-2025), and she was President of the Guarantee Committee of the University of Pisa, and Coordinator of the Gender Equality Plan Team. She isthe  Director of the Teaching and Learning Centre at the University of Pisa. 

Lara Tavoschi, is associate professor of Public Health at the University of Pisa. She worked for the Italian National Institute of Health and the European Centre for Disease prevention and Control on translational research and evidence-based public health, being based in South Africa for more than 5 years. Her areas of research are prevention and control of communicable diseases, including viral hepatitis, STIs and cancers attributable to viral infections, with a focus on health equity. 

Jacopo Venè is a PhD student at the University of Pisa. His research is situated in the field of Special Education and focuses on the accessibility of educational tools and methods and on self-narration among individuals with Special Educational Needs, with particular attention to higher education contexts. In 2023, he graduated with honors in Primary Education Sciences from the University of Pisa. Since April 2024, he has served as a subject expert in pedagogy-related courses, and since September 2024 he has been a tenured preschool teacher. He has presented his work at national and international conferences and has published in ISBN-edited volumes and peer-reviewed scientific journals.