Dr Gavin Stevenson is the Director for Student Development and a Fellow in sociology at Murray Edwards College. He completed a BA, MPhil, and PhD in sociology at the University of Cambridge. He has taught extensively across undergraduate papers in sociology as a supervisor and has supervised a wide range of undergraduate dissertations on themes related to identity formation, belonging, and affect.
Gavin’s PhD was a mixed-methods qualitative project exploring the feeling and phenomenon of being offended and its contemporary relevance in public discourse surrounding terms such as “woke” or “cancel culture”. This project focused on the University of Cambridge and its student population and utilised a combination of interviews, autoethnography and discourse analysis. Gavin’s academic interests lie within the exploration of queer, critical race and feminist epistemologies and methodologies as they related to feeling, emotion, affect, and identity formation.
Gavin is passionate about widening participation and access to Higher Education as well as fostering inclusive practices in teaching and learning within Higher Education settings. He works on a range of widening participation projects with students (aged 14-19) considering University Education and has organised sessions for educational practitioners on fostering inclusive learning environments.