MEET THE TEAM
Laura Seymour
Principal Investigator
Laura researches neurodivergence in early modern British and Spanish literature, and neurodivergence-inclusive pedagogy.
Bridget M. Bartlett
Postdoctoral Research Associate
Their research focuses on the role of neurodiversity in the formation of ideas about racial and religious difference in early modern English literature.
Vicky Hansly
Senior Project Administrator
Vickys research interests include discursive representations of immigrant groups, neurodivergence, gender, and sexuality.
Dr Ryan Sweet
University of Plymouth
Dr Ryan Sweet is a cultural and literary historian of disability with a passion for inclusive practice and widening participation in Higher Education.
Leandra Craine
Disability Activist & Advocate
A neurodivergent person with physical impairments, bringing lived experience & deep insight to her work in the third sector, focusing on advancing disability rights & inclusion.
Willow Holloway
An Expert by Experience
With chronic health conditions and a late diagnosis of autism, she has used her lived experience to campaign for the rights of disabled and neurodivergent people in Wales.
David Turner
Professor of History
A Professor of History at Swansea University. His work in disability history has mostly focussed on the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.
Amrita Dhar
Assistant Professor
Of English and Comparative Literature at the University of California, San Diego. Her main interests are in early modern studies, disability studies, and postcolonial studies.
Dr. Sahana V Rajan
Asst. Professor of Philosophy
an autistic non-binary pansexual person, and a parent to two dogs. Further, she also serves as the Associate Director for Centre for Neurodiversity Studies at JGU.
Angie Alderman
Integrative Psychotherapist
Angie has worked in social justice–oriented practice, supporting predominantly neurodivergent clients across private practice and organisational settings.
Kirsti Bohata
Professor of English Literature
co-Director of the Centre for Research into the English Literature and Language of Wales (CREW) and the Climate Action Research Network (CARN) at Swansea University.
JORDAN
Professor Alan Quay
Space to introduce this person from the project team.
Allegra
Professor Alan Quay
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Tommy
Professor Alan Quay
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Dr Laura Seymour
she/her
Laura Seymour is the Principal Investigator of the AMEND project. She researches neurodivergence in early modern British and Spanish literature, and neurodivergence-inclusive pedagogy. She is interested in how literary texts can be used to explore and enhance neurodivergent people’s wellbeing and our understanding of ourselves and each other.
For more, see Laura’s profile on the Swansea University website:
Dr Laura Seymour - Swansea University
To contact Laura about the project email:
Bridget M. Bartlett
they/them
Bridget M. Bartlett joined the AMEND project as a postdoctoral research associate after receiving their PhD in English from the University of Mississippi in 2025. Broadly, their research focuses on 16th- and 17th-century Anglophone culture and neurodiversity as an intersectional consideration. They are currently working on a first monograph focused on the role of neurodiversity in the formation of ideas about racial and religious difference in early modern English literature. Bridget’s research interests also include neuroqueer and neurotrans theory and Renaissance and contemporary rhetorical theory.
To contact Vicky about the project, email:
Vicky Hansly
she/her
Senior Project Administrator for AMEND. Vicky is an experienced administrator, having previously worked on multiple projects in both research and administrative roles. She is currently completing a PhD in applied linguistics; her research interests include discursive representations of immigrant groups, neurodivergence, gender, and sexuality. Outside of her professional and academic ventures, she is a huge fan of cats, painting, and sushi.
To contact Bridget about the project, email:
Bridget.Bartlett@Swansea.ac.uk
See Bridget’s Linktree for more:
Dr Ryan Sweet
he/him
Dr Ryan Sweet (University of Plymouth) is a cultural and literary historian of disability with a passion for inclusive practice and widening participation in Higher Education. Ryan has published extensively on the ways in which prosthetic body parts were imagined and represented in Victorian literature and culture. His most notable publication to date is his Open Access monograph Prosthetic Body Parts in Nineteenth-Century Literature and Culture (2022). Thanks to generous funding from the Arts and Humanities Research Council, in collaboration with the serious games company Focus Games Ltd., Ryan developed the research from his book into the board game Legless in London, which was taken to market in 2025. Legless in London won Best Board or Tabletop Game for Impact at the Games for Change Awards 2025. Ryan was previously Senior Lecturer in Humanities at Swansea University.
To find out more about Ryan:
Leandra Craine
she/her
Leandra Craine is a passionate disability activist and advocate for the Social Model of Disability. As a neurodivergent individual with physical impairments, she brings lived experience and deep insight to her work in the third sector, where she focuses on advancing disability rights and inclusion. After earning her MPhys in Astrophysics, Leandra made a deliberate shift from academia to advocacy, driven by a commitment to challenge societal barriers and promote equity for disabled people. Leandra’s approach is rooted in the belief that disability arises from systemic exclusion rather than individual impairment. She works collaboratively across organisations and communities to ensure that disabled people are not only included but empowered.
To find out more about Leandra:
Willow Holloway
she/her
Willow is an expert by experience, following the development of chronic health conditions and a late diagnosis of autism, she has used her lived experience to campaign for the rights of disabled and neurodivergent people in Wales Willow has been involved in the Disability Rights Movements for many years and the Autistic Rights Movement for the last decade. She is a director and trustee of several Disabled Peoples Organisations including Fair Treatment for the Women of Wales, Disability Wales, and Autistic UK as well as being a trustee of RASAC North Wales. Through her roles Willow has been involved in research as a stakeholder and consultant using her lived experience to develop and design research projects through the process of co-production and shared learning. She supports research which includes the experiences of disabled and neurodivergent people. She is currently a Swansea University research affiliate and Community Council Advisor on the Wellcome Trust-funded ‘Autism: from menstruation to menopause’ project led by Dr Aimee Grant and is a partner and co-researcher on other studies Willow’s interest lies in improving the wellbeing and quality of life for disabled and neurodivergent people and firmly believes in “Nothing About Us Without Us “and that community voices should be involved in all decisions that impact our lives. Willow works with organisations across Wales to encourage and support co-production at all levels from national policy to local service design. Willow is a member of the Welsh Governments Disability Rights Taskforce and the Ministerial Advisory Group on Neurodivergence and acts as an advisor to The National Autism Team Wales. At a local level she co-chairs The North Wales Integrated Autism Service Strategy Board.
To contact Willow about the project:
David Turner
he/him
David Turner is Professor of History at Swansea University. His work in disability history has mostly focussed on the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries and his books include Disability in Eighteenth-Century England (Routledge, 2012) and Disability in the Industrial Revolution: Physical Impairment in British Coalmining 1780-1880 (Manchester University Press, 2018), co-authored with Daniel Blackie. However, his forthcoming book, Disability: A History of Resistance (Bodley Head, 2026), takes a longer view, exploring disabled people's activism and agency from the sixteenth century to the present. David is committed to making disability history more widely accessible via collaborations with schools, museums, archives and broadcasters. He was historical advisor on Disability: A New History (BBC Radio 4, 2013) and Silenced: The Hidden History of Disabled Britain (BBC2, 2021). Outside his academic work, he is Vice Chair of Disability Arts Cymru, one of the longest running multiform disabled people's arts organisations in the UK.
To find out more about David:
Amrita Dhar
she/her
Amrita Dhar is Assistant Professor of English and Comparative Literature at the University of California, San Diego. Her main research is interests are in early modern studies, disability studies, and postcolonial studies. She has written on a range of topics, including John Milton’s blind poetics, premodern critical race studies and Shakespeare, and social justice pedagogy, for both academic and popular venues. She is completing her monograph on Milton’s Blind Language and Disability Poetics. She is Director of the multi-year open-access digital project Shakespeare in the “Post”Colonies: Postcolonial Shakespeareans at Work, https://shakespearepostcolonies.osu.edu; co-editor of a Borrowers and Lenders special issue on “Shakespeare in Undivided Bengal” (https://borrowers-ojs-azsu.tdl.org/borrowers/issue/view/34; open access), and co-editor of an Arden Shakespeare volume on Shakespeare in the ‘Post’Colonies: Legacies, Cultures and Social Justice (Bloomsbury, 2025).
To find out more about Amrita:
Dr. Sahana V Rajan
they/them
Dr. Sahana V Rajan is an autistic non-binary pansexual person, and a parent to two dogs. She is also Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Jindal Global Business School, O P Jindal Global University (JGU) (Haryana, India). Further, she also serves as the Associate Director for Centre for Neurodiversity Studies at JGU. They broadly work on the ontology of neurodiversity, specifically through a new materialist perspective. From this perspective, they try to understand, philosophically, the complexities that embody neurodiversity, especially the way in which the world around us - the environment, our relationships - co-constitute our ways of being and how our current models might or might not be able to capture such complexities.
You can reach out to them about the project at:
Angie Alderman
she/her
Angie Alderman is an MBACP-accredited Integrative Psychotherapist, Counsellor, and Executive Coach with an MSc in Counselling and advanced qualifications in counselling psychology and therapeutic practice. Since 2011, she has worked in social justice–oriented practice, supporting predominantly neurodivergent clients across private practice and organisational settings. Her work integrates evidence-based counselling, coaching psychology, and experiential approaches, including psychotherapy, solution-focused techniques, somatic and narrative methods, and nature-based interventions such as “walk-and-talk” sessions. Angie is recognised for creating inclusive, strengths-based spaces that support clients in exploring meaning, developing emotional agility, and achieving sustainable personal and professional outcomes. Angie is also an author; her book A.N.G.E.R.: Get What You Want Without Losing Yourself offers practical self-coaching tools for transforming difficult emotions into insight and constructive action.
More info: angiealderman.com | Counselling Directory | LinkedIn
Publication details: A.N.G.E.R. was published in December 2025 by Leading in Coaching Ltd, ISBN 9781919275086 (paperback) / 9781919275093 (hardback).
Kirsti Bohata
she/her
Kirsti Bohata is Professor English, co-Director of the Centre for Research into the English Literature and Language of Wales (CREW) and co-Director of the Climate Action Research Network (CARN) at Swansea University. Recent publications include Disability in Industrial Britain: A Cultural and Literary History of Impairment in the Coal Industry, 1880-1948 (Manchester University Press, 2020), co authored with Alexandra Jones, Mike Mantin and Steven Thompson, Queer Square Mile: Queer Short Stories from Wales (Parthian 2022), co-edited with Mihangel Morgan and Huw Osborne, and an abridged scholarly edition of a queer Victorian diary: The Diary of Amy Dillwyn, 1863-1917 (SWRS, 2025). She is currently co-lead of a four-year AHRC Mission Award developing transdisciplinary approaches to biophilic living www.biophilic.wales.
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