Meet the Widening Participation team

Sam Bailey - Head of Widening Participation (Interim)

Sam is responsible for LSE’s widening participation strategy, and works with colleagues across the School to ensure effective development, delivery and evaluation of the commitments made in our Access and Participation Plan.

After completing a BSc Zoology degree at the University of Southampton, Sam has worked in a number of roles developing partnerships with schools and colleges in London, Essex and Hampshire to increase access to Higher Education. Prior to joining LSE in November 2022, he led the evaluation of outreach programmes at Imperial College London.

Outside of work, Sam is a governor at a sixth form college in North London and spends his weekends tending a garden full of wildlife. 

Email: s.e.bailey@lse.ac.uk

Alice King - Deputy Head of Widening Participation (Programme Operations)  

Alice leads the day-to-day operations of the team’s pre-entry outreach and widening access programmes, events and activities to ensure the team is delivering exciting, impactful and high-quality activity, aligned with the Schools’ strategic priorities.  

Alice joined the WP team in August 2020 as a Widening Participation Officer. Alice is a qualified teacher with global experience in widening participation. She worked at the University of Sydney, delivering their admission pathway schemes, and in the Widening Participation team at UCL, delivering post-16 outreach, including their flagship residential summer school. She has also worked for a social mobility charity, delivering outreach in schools. 

Email: a.m.king1@lse.ac.uk 

Bradley Crack - Deputy Head of Widening Participation

Bradley joined LSE in December 2024 as a Deputy Head of Widening Participation covering an internal secondment. Bradley oversees pre-entry and transitional support for care-experienced students, financial monitoring and strategic planning, recruitment and training of student staff and the development of new lifecycle initiatives for contextual offer holders. 

Joining from the Southern Universities Network, Bradley started life in WP at Bournemouth University before moving to the University of Southampton where he led the Learn with US secondary programme, managed school partnerships and delivered a broad portfolio of events and activity on behalf of the directorate.

Outside of work, Bradley continues to work with young people and vulnerable adults through community football, providing support for Saints Foundation on their social mobility programmes. 

Email: b.crack@lse.ac.uk

Becky Saxby-Smith - Senior Widening Participation Officer

Becky joined the WP team in November 2015 and has worked across many of the team’s projects.

Becky currently manages the Student Ambassador Programme and leads on the development and delivery of the Schools Partnership work.

Prior to working in the widening participation team at LSE, Becky studied Psychology at Cardiff University and has worked in higher education for eight years.

Email: r.m.saxby-smith@lse.ac.uk

Jess Thompson - Senior Widening Participation Officer (on maternity leave)

Jess works with the team on projects relating to improving access to LSE, as detailed in our Access and Participation Plan, and also leads on our support for care-experienced students.

Jess currently manages the Student Ambassador Programme and leads on the development and delivery of Schools Partnership work, including the LSE Maths Tutoring programme in partnership with Team Up.

Jess is a graduate of the University for the Creative Arts with a BA (Hons) in Fine Art. Jess has worked in Higher Education since October 2012 and before this for the Learning Department at Tate. Jess has a passion for supporting young people and ensuring fair access and opportunities within higher education. In her previous role at Central Saint Martins, Jess supported various departments to contribute to the widening participation agenda by leading on the operations and delivery of a large number of University events, activities, and staff training.

Email: j.king4@lse.ac.uk

 Alice Chowen - Senior Widening Participation Officer

Alice joined LSE in August 2023.

Alice currently oversees the design and delivery of our post-16 access programmes including LSE Springboard, Thrive and Explore, as well as the Black Achievement Conference.

Alice is passionate about improving opportunities for young people from widening participation backgrounds and has worked in the sector for over seven years. Before joining LSE and working in the Widening Participation Team at the Royal Veterinary College, Alice spent much of her career working for a number of education and youth charities, including Action Tutoring and the Prince’s Trust.

Email: a.chowen@lse.ac.uk

Catherine O'Mahony - Senior Widening Participation Officer

Catherine oversees the delivery of our Pathways to Law and Pathways to Banking and Finance programmes, delivered in partnership with the Sutton Trust.

As a qualified careers adviser, Catherine has spent many years supporting young people with their education and career goals. In addition to undertaking advisory roles, she has managed a variety of teams and projects in London careers services. For a while, careers guidance formed part of a portfolio career, which also involved teaching yoga and managing an adult training course. Catherine moved into the higher education sector in 2019 and previously worked in LSE's WP team until 2021. She then worked in the schools engagement team at the University of Exeter, before returning to LSE in October 2024.

Catherine is also an agented writer and her spare time is mainly spent working on her sixth book.

Email: c.omahony@lse.ac.uk 

Hannah Summerscales – Senior Widening Participation Officer (maternity cover for Jess Thompson)

Hannah joined the team in April 2024. She is currently taking the lead on our care-experienced student support, Student Ambassador programme and is the team’s web editor.

Hannah studied a BA in Sociology (with Specialism in Social Inequalities and Public Policy) at Warwick University, and is currently undertaking a MSc in Inequalities and Social Science at the LSE. Prior to joining the team she worked as a Widening Participation Project Coordinator at the University of Cambridge, delivering their residential programmes and student ambassador schemes.

Email: h.summerscales@lse.ac.uk

Zack Hurst - Widening Participation Coordinator (Pathways Programmes)

Zack graduated from the University of Birmingham in 2019 with a BSc (Hons) in Sociology and joined LSE in July 2022. He is responsible for the coordination of the Pathways to Banking and Finance Programme.

Zack has a keen passion for widening participation and working towards equal access and opportunities in higher education. Prior to joining LSE, Zack worked for the Leicestershire and Rutland UniConnect hub, as well as working as an Outreach Officer at the University of Leicester. During this time, he oversaw a variety of programmes and events to help support a range of young people throughout their education, with the aim of promoting fairer access to higher education for students across the East Midlands.

Email: z.hurst@lse.ac.uk

Fatimah Alli - Widening Participation Coordinator (Pathways Programmes)

Fatimah joined the team in March 2023 and is responsible for the coordination of the Pathways to Law Programme.

Prior to joining the team, Fatimah was a student at LSE and graduated in 2021 with a BSc (Hons) in Sociology. Whilst she was a student, Fatimah had the opportunity to become a student ambassador where she worked with young people from under-represented backgrounds in state schools and colleges. Fatimah supported with a number of widening participation initiatives such as LSE’s Choice masterclasses, subject-specific sessions and mentoring.

After graduating from LSE, Fatimah then went on to work as the Responsible Business and Inclusion Assistant at Slaughter and May where she supported with the integration of the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals as part of the firm’s social mobility strategy.

Email: f.a.alli@lse.ac.uk

Catherine Long - Evaluation Manager (Access)

Catherine joined LSE in 2021 and is responsible for evaluation, monitoring, data analysis and data management. Her work contributes to the evidence base for the team’s strategic and operational decisions with respect to LSE’s APP priorities for widening participation.

Catherine is a graduate of the Universities of St Andrews, Oxford, and Glasgow. She has worked in widening participation since 2018 and is a strong supporter of social justice and education policy reform. Catherine also previously worked in disability mentoring and advocacy in higher education and the third sector.

Email: c.m.long@lse.ac.uk

Jo Reed - Widening Participation Coordinator

Jo joined us in February 2023 and is currently responsible for coordinating LSE Explore, our subject-specific access work and LSE Springboard, our regional access programme for students who reside outside of South East England.

Jo is a graduate of History and Politics from the University in York. Prior to joining LSE they worked as a University Access Officer for The Access Project, delivering widening participation programmes to support students access higher education.

Email: j.reed.1@lse.ac.uk

Phil Gerrard - Office Coordinator

Phil provides administrative support for the Widening Participation team across the full range of its programmes. He also deals with general external queries about Widening Participation at LSE. 

Phil graduated from Manchester University with a BA in Drama, and his first job at LSE was in the Graduate Registry. He then moved on to admissions roles at the Institute of Education and the University of London External Programme, before taking time out to pursue an acting career. During this time, he also took up temporary posts at SOAS, the University of East London, QMUL, and several other HE institutions. He returned to full-time work in the HE sector when he joined LSE’s Widening Participation team in February 2020. 

Email: p.n.gerrard@lse.ac.uk or widening.participation@lse.ac.uk

Tel: +44 (0)20 7852 3662