The Stephen Lawrence Research Centre team

Dr Lisa Amanda Palmer is the Interim Director of the Stephen Lawrence Research Centre at De Montfort University, Leicester. She was the former Course Director for the Black Studies undergraduate programme and Senior Lecturer in Sociology at Birmingham City University.

Lisa is a qualified librarian and previously worked for Birmingham Libraries and Archive Services for many years. She has a keen interest in working with local archive collections, specifically, the Vanley Burke Archive held at the Library of Birmingham.

Her research focuses on Black feminism, Black cultural politics and the intersection of race, racism, gender and sexuality.  Her writing covers a broad spectrum of fields including the gendered politics of lovers’ rock music, the production of local community archives and the misogynoir faced by Black women in British public life. She is the co-author of the book Blackness in Britain (2016) and is currently writing her book on Black women in the UK’s lover’s rock reggae scene.

As Deputy Director of the Stephen Lawrence Research Centre (SLRC), Sherilyn Pereira leads on key strategic initiatives, including the SLRC’s Teaching to Transform programme, funding and research development, and an impactful public engagement agenda. She plays a pivotal role in advancing the Legacy in Action Fellowship Programme and ensuring the long-term growth and stability of the centre.

Sherilyn joined SLRC in January 2019, initially focusing on developing the centre’s public profile and professional presence. Prior to this, she was a member of De Montfort University’s Communications Team.

Her career spans Communications, Marketing, and Public Relations (PR), with early experience in international fashion PR. She worked in New York as PR for Ivana Trump and other high-profile clients before holding roles at the Metropolitan Opera and Cambridge University’s US Development Office, marking her entry into the Higher Education sector.

With a wealth of experience across industries, Sherilyn continues to drive SLRC’s vision and impact, shaping its contributions to education, research, and public engagement.

Chris has been working as a journalist and a senior press officer for the last 30 years.

He has covered all major events relating to the Stephen Lawrence Research Centre since it was officially opened in 2019, highlighting its work through regional and national newspapers, television, radio and social media.

Chris joined the team as Public Engagement Manager in January 2025 on a one year secondment from the DMU Media Office. He is busy leading, managing, developing and implementing strategies to support and promote the value the centre brings to discussions and actions around topical issues, of national importance, which challenge people’s perceptions of race and social justice.

He liaises with DMU students, schools, charities, community groups, businesses and politicians to celebrate the legacy of Stephen Lawrence while working to influence Government policy on racial literacy in education.

You can contact Chris by emailing cjohnston@dmu.ac.uk

Dr Fatima Rajina is a Senior Legacy in Action Research Fellow at the Stephen Lawrence Research Centre at De Montfort University. She is trained as a sociologist and social anthropologist.

After completing her MA in Islamic Societies and Cultures at SOAS, she went on to do a PhD after successfully securing a Nohoudh Scholarship with the Centre of Islamic Studies, SOAS, University of London. Completing her PhD at SOAS, Fatima's work looks at British Bangladeshi Muslims and their changing identifications and perceptions of dress and language.

She specialises on the Bangladeshi community in the UK, with a focus on Tower Hamlets, Luton and Birmingham. Her book, British Bangladesh Muslims in the East End: The Changing Landscape of Dress and Language, was published in July 2024 with Manchester University Press.

She also curated the Jummah Aesthetics: British Muslim men and their sartorial choices, funded by the British Academy. It was hosted at Oxford House in Bethnal Green, consisting of 25 photographs where Muslim men were captured outside four mosques in Tower Hamlets: Al Huda Mosque, Shoreditch Mosque, East London Mosque and Brick Lane Mosque.

Dr Yusef Bakkali grew up in Brixton, South London, and from an early age became aware of injustice and inequality operating in society.

His key research focuses around the lives of young people involved in ‘Road Life’ - a contemporary street culture of which elements have recently been the subject of popular media representations in shows like Top Boy (Channel 4/Netflix) and films like Blue Story (BBC Films/Paramount Pictures).  

Yusef says: “It is important to me to be working with people who have a lot of faith in what we are trying to do. We have to respect the legacy of the Lawrence family and our research has to have an activist dimension to it. Activism is about taking a stance. We do not necessarily want to be part of the current research canon. Our research needs to challenge and it needs to take risks.”

Yusef’s areas of expertise are youth, social exclusion, race, crime, music, youth cultures, road life, austerity, decoloniality and masculinities. He holds a PhD in Sociology, an MSc in Social Research Methods and a BA in Politics and Society.

Dr Camille London-Miyo co-leads on the centre’s ‘Teaching to Transform’ programme and Racial Literacy programme delivered in schools and colleges.

Camille’s recent research focused on co-authoring a report evaluating the Teaching to Transform programme, exploring the history of self-organising with Black teachers in UK education trade unions, developing radical pedagogies that challenge empirical ideas about teaching and learning, and developing a global English Literature Curriculum as part of a holistic anti-racist strategy in schools. Her doctoral thesis explored how Black educators navigate the dynamics of racism in secondary schools.

Camille has thirty years’ experience as a teacher, middle and senior leader in inner-city schools. As an active trade unionist, she became the first Black President of the Leicester National Education Union and latterly, the first Black President of the National Education Union East Midlands Regional Council.

Camille sits on the Leicester City Task Force Group, whose remit is to develop city-wide guidance for creating a Leicester Diverse Curriculum and is a co-founder of the Leicester Black Educators Network. She is currently a school governor, and a Trustee of The Race Equality Council and is co-founder and Principal of the Phoenix Agenda Supplementary School CIC.

Francesco Sani works as research officer for outreach and engagement at De Montfort University’s Stephen Lawrence Research Centre.

With a background as a playwright and performer, in 2025 he received his doctorate from De Montfort University for a research project focused on the employment of Bertolt Brecht’s practice of the Learning Play to thematize economic and political theory.

In May 2021, he was artist in residence at the annual conference of the research network for critical theory (T)Error on Tour at Malmö University (Sweden). His scholarly publications have appeared in journals like Linguae &, Review of Irish Studies in Europe, Das Brecht Jahrbuch/The Brecht Yearbook, and Performance Research.

He is currently developing theatre projects focusing on labour rights advocacy and antiracism in partnership with trade unions from across the UK as well as educational institutions and charities.