Stephanie is a Professor in Sociolinguistics. She is also the Director of Postgraduate Research Studies in Applied Linguistics. Her main research interests are leadership discourse, professional communication, and medical communication. Stephanie has researched and published widely on leadership, gender, identity, humour, and culture in a wide range of professional, medical, and sports contexts. She is particularly interested in interdisciplinary collaborations, especially with colleagues researching leadership and medical communication.

Stephanie is originally from Germany but has lived in New Zealand (where she obtained her PhD from Victoria University of Wellington), Hong Kong (where she held a tenure track position at The University of Hong Kong), and now the UK. She lives in Warwickshire with her husband, four children, two horses and a dog.

Emily F. Henderson joined Education Studies as an Assistant Professor in 2015. She is now Professor and Director of the Doctoral Education and Academia Research Centre (DEAR). Her research and approach to teaching are inherently international and interdisciplinary, and are influenced by her earlier studies in literature and modern languages and time spent working or studying abroad in Togo, France, Senegal and India. She has further connections with the US and South Africa. At Warwick, she founded the MA programme, 'Global Education and International Development', which was launched in 2017, and was course leader until 2020. From 2019-2023 she was Co-Director of the Post-Graduate Research programme for Education Studies and from 2024-25 she served as Director of Research and Impact in Education Studies. From 2025 she is the Ethics Lead in Education Studies and also teaches on the BA Education Studies (Masculinities module) and the Advanced Research Methods course and supervises and mentors PhD and post-doctoral researchers. In 2024 Emily was Winner of the Warwick Research Awards Doctoral Supervision Award (Faculty of Social Sciences), and in 2023 Emily with Dr James Burford was awarded the 'Warwick Wonders and Wows' Award for their contribution to Warwick's positive research culture for PGRs and ECRs through research and practice.

Research

Projects relating to the academic profession and doctoral education:

(i) 2022-2026: Co-Principal Investigator (overall project lead) with Dr Nidhi S. Sabharwal, CPRHE, NIEPA, India (Co-Principal Investigator - India lead) and Prof Ann Stewart, Law School Warwick (Co-Investigator) on a 4-year research project (funded by the Fair Chance Foundation). The project is entitled 'Widening Access to Higher Education in India: Institutional Approaches' (WAHEI) and focuses on the role of faculty members in developing a formalised higher education outreach culture in India.

(ii) 2024-2025: Co-investigator on a project evaluating the PATHWAY scheme for Black Researchers at Warwick (funded by Research England Research Culture Fund).

(iii) 2024: Principal Investigator for 'The Heart of Research: Exploring the Aims, Nature and Values of Education Research Centres' (funded by Warwick IAS).

(iv) 2023-2024: Co-investigator for 'Mitigating and Adjusting Doctoral Education' (funded by Research England Research Culture Fund).

(v) 2022-2023: Co-investigator for 'Pre-Application Doctoral Communications (PADC) Projects' (funded by Research England Research Culture Fund,shortlisted for Warwick Social Inclusion Award 2023).

(vi) 2017-18: Principal Investigator on 'In Two Places at Once: The Impact of Caring Responsibilities on Academics' Conference Participation' (funded by University of Warwick Research Development Fund and Institute of Advanced Studies Delivering Results).

(vii) 2017-2018: Co-Investigator (with Prof Pauline Reynolds, University of Redlands, US as PI) on 'The Symbolic Power of Academic Conferences in Fictional Texts' (Funded by University of Redlands).

(viii) 2016-2018: Founder and Co-Convenor of AMIN - Academic Mobilities and Immobilities Network

Other projects relating to higher education in India:

(i) 2020-2022: Co-Investigator for 'Enhancing Informed Choices for Higher Education: Building Outreach Culture in Haryana, India' (Funded by University of Warwick ESRC Impact Acceleration Account and Fair Chance Foundation).

(ii) 2017-2022: Co-investigator on a 5-year research study on gender and higher education in Haryana, India (funded by the Fair Chance Foundation).

Platforms:

(i) 2021-present: Founder and manager of the web platform Diary Method Community, a web platform hosting resources and advice about using diary method in social sciences and including a monthly online international reading group.

(ii) 2017-present: Co-editor of the academic blog Conference Inference: Blogging the World of Conferences with Dr James Burford.

Publications - highlights:

Emily is author of Gender Pedagogy: Teaching, Learning and Tracing Gender in Higher Education (Palgrave, 2015) and Gender, Definitional Politics and 'Live' Knowledge Production: Contesting Concepts at Conferences (Routledge, 2020) and co-author with James Burford of Making Sense of Academic Conferences: Presenting, Participating and Organising(Routledge, 2022), and co-author of Gendering the Massification Generation: Higher Education Access and Choice in India (Routledge 2023). She is co-editor with Z Nicolazzo of Starting with Gender in International Higher Education Research (Routledge, 2019) and co-editor with Xuemeng Cao of Exploring Diary Methods in Higher Education Research: Opportunities, Choices and Challenges (Routledge, 2021). She has also co-edited with James Burford a special issue of Gender and Education, 'Thoughtful gatherings: gendering conferences as spaces of learning, knowledge production and community', and a special issue of Higher Education with Charikleia Tzanakou, 'Stuck and sticky in mobile academia: reconfiguring the im/mobility binary'. 

Academic service

From 2022 Emily has served as a mentor on the CARA (Council for At Risk Academics) Fellows Mentoring Scheme. She has served as a Research Advisory Group member for a British Council-funded project on gender and higher education in India, and for an SRHE-funded project on women academics in relation to the pandemic lockdowns. From 2021 Emily has been serving as an Invited Member of the British Academy's Higher Education Policy Development Group. From 2020-2023 she served as External Examiner for MA Education (International), University of Manchester. From 2018 to 2024, Emily has served as an elected member (trustee) of the Governing Council of Society for Research into Higher Education and as a member of the SRHE Research and Development Committee. From 2016-2021 Emily was Co-convenor of the SRHE International Research and Researchers Network. In 2022, Emily gained Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy status. At Warwick, Emily is chair of the Education Studies Ethics Committee, the Education Studies representative for the Warwick Interdisciplinary Research Centre for International Development (WICID), and an affiliate of the Centre for the Study of Women and Gender. She is also a committee member of the Post-graduate Research Sub-Committee (2022-).