School of Social and Political Science

Background

Meryl is Professor of Gender and Politics at the University of Edinburgh. She was, recently: Deputy Director of Learning and Teaching and QA Director for the School of Social and Political Science (2021-24); Acting Deputy Head of School and Director of Learning and Teaching (2022), and Co-Director of the Centre on Constitutional Change (2021-2023). She joined the subject area of Politics and International Relations in August 2015, having held previous positions at the University of Leicester and the University of New South Wales (Sydney, Australia). 

At Edinburgh, Meryl is also founding convenor and member of the Gender Politics Research Group, and was Education Lead, and a founding steering group member of, the University's cross-disciplinary GENDER.ED network (2018-2023). She is Co-Director of the Feminism and Institutionalism International Network (FIIN), and co-editor of the book series Studies in Feminist Institutionalism with Oxford University Press. She is currently a team member of the ERC (UKRI) Synergy Project QUALREP, investigating the quality of women’s political representation in five European countries; and PI of a BA/Leverhulme funded project on gender, ministers and institutions in Scotland.

Meryl is the incoming Deputy Lead Editor of Regional and Federal Studies; and formerly an Associate Editor of The British Journal of Politics & International Relations (2019-21) and Scottish Affairs (2015-19). In 2021, she was awarded the UK Political Studies Association's Richard Rose Prize, awarded to a younger scholar who has made a distinctive contribution to the study of British politics; in 2022 received the (peer-nominated) CAHSS award for Excellence in Leadership; and in 2023 won the PSA's Joni Lovenduski Prize for outstanding contributions to political studies by a mid-career scholar. She is a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences. 

Collaborating with undergraduate students, Meryl led on the design and was the founding convenor of the course Understanding Gender in the Contemporary World (Pre-Honours), which provides an introduction to gender for students from across the University.  In 2015/16, Meryl's course SPS in Practice was awarded 'Best Course' at the EUSA Teaching Awards, and was also the Runner-Up for the Innovative Assessment Prize. You can listen to Meryl and MA Politics graduate James Bryson talking about the SPS in Practice experience here and read her Teaching Matters blog about co-creating a course with students here. With Claire Duncanson and Fiona Mackay, she won the Political Studies Association Innovation in Teaching Politics (Group) Award in 2019.

Topics interested in supervising

Meryl is able to offer PhD supervision in most areas relating to gender politics (international, national and local), party politics, elections and political representation, and Scottish, British and comparative politics. She would particularly welcome prospective students with interests in feminist and institutionalist approaches to the study of party politics, political recruitment, and/or territorial politics in the UK and/or comparatively.