Padmini
Head of Research and AdvocacyI joined Making the Leap as Head of Research and Advocacy in September 2021. My role involves capturing and communicating Making the Leap’s unique grassroots knowledge and perspectives from our work with schools and young adults, the UK Social Mobility Awards and Black Charity Leaders.
I have over ten years’ experience as a mixed-methods social researcher. My research has focused on inequalities in education related to gender, ethnicity and socio-economic status in countries including the UK, Ethiopia, India and Vietnam. I passionately believe that high-quality, ethical research has the power to improve society, and I’m really excited to be working with the Making the Leap team to advance social mobility and racial equality in the UK.
You can find a full list of my publications here.
An interesting fact about me:
I tried to learn conversational Hindi while doing my PhD research in India. Unfortunately, after a three-month course all I could do was negotiate taxi fares – this was a handy skill while living in Delhi, but less useful for my research with young people!