People
The Centre now has a staff in double figures, a growing number of research students and six figure annual turnover, as well as a truly international profile working with partners across the globe.
The Director of the George Ewart Evans Centre for Storytelling is Prof Hamish Fyfe, the Associate Director of the George Ewart Evans Centre for Storytelling and Project Leader of Storyworks is Karen Lewis, the centre Research Assistant is Emily Underwood-Lee, and the Research Fellow is Dr Patrick Ryan. Co-Founder Prof Mike Wilson also retains an affiliation with the centre. We have a growing team of researchers and are proud to partner Storyworks, an organisation based at the Wales Institute for Health and Social Care at the University of Glamorgan. Our team also includes a number of people employed to work on specific projects.
Core Team
Professor Hamish Fyfe
Director, George Ewart Evans Centre for Storytellling
Hamish Fyfe has worked as a teacher, actor, and researcher in a variety of contexts. He worked for twenty years in Belfast, Northern Ireland before taking up his post as Chair of Arts in the Community at the University of Glamorgan in September 2004.
His research interests currently fall into three broad areas;
- Creative community building through cross-sector collaboration with the arts
- What is creativity, how does it ‘work’ and how can it be fostered?
- Theatre, ritual and identity
He worked on a research project for the Welsh Assembly which is concerned with cross-sectoral arts activity throughout Wales. Recommendations from the report are forming an element of the developing cultural policy for Wales. In a recently published a book – She Danced and We Danced – Artists, Creativity and Education Hamish examines the role of artists and other creative professionals in learning and community building in Northern Ireland. He is currently researching for a new publication the working title of which is Making Play Work which is concerned with the developing international debate about creativity and its contribution to social and economic development.
Karen Lewis
Associate Director of the George Ewart Evans Centre for Storytelling and Project Leader, Storyworks
Karen started her career as a teacher of English, Drama and Media before moving into the voluntary sector, where she worked as a Senior Practitioner for Barnardos and Training and Communications Manager for the Special Needs Advisory Project (Wales). She spent some time as a freelance trainer and consultant, undertaking work for a range of organisations including Save the Children, Torfaen Council, Clybiau Plant Cymru, Cardiff Council and Children in Wales.
Karen then joined the BBC in 1999, where she stayed for ten years. During this period she worked in radio, television and new media and was the founder producer of the Bafta Cymru award-winning digital storytelling project, Capture Wales. Her final position at BBC Wales was as Partnerships Manager, with responsibility for relationships with external organisations and BBC Wales’ charities broadcasts.
Karen joined WIHSC in January 2009, to lead the development of StoryWorks, which has been established to support public service organisations interested in using people’s stories to improve what they do.
Professor Michael Wilson
Co-Founder, George Ewart Evans Centre for Storytellling
Michael Wilson is Professor of Drama & Dean of the School of Media and Performance at University College Falmouth and Co-Founder of the George Ewart Evans centre for Storytelling at the University of Glamorgan.
His areas of interest fall broadly into the areas of popular and vernacular performance, with particular interests in storytelling, Grand-Guignol and Bertolt Brecht and his contemporaries. His work on storytelling has led him to become involved in researching the relationship between storytelling and digital technology and broader issues relating to the digital economy. He is also interested in stage translation and his work in all the above areas has involved translating performance texts from both German and French.
Dr Patrick Ryan
Research Fellow, George Ewart Evans Centre for Storytellling
Dr Patrick Ryan, a well-established professional storyteller for well over twenty years, also undertook his doctoral research at Glamorgan under the supervision of Professor Mike Wilson and Maggy McNorton. Pat is initiating a number of new research projects with the Centre. To see more about Pat’s work please visit his personal webpage www.patryanstoryteller.co.uk.
Emily Underwood-Lee
Research Assistant, George Ewart Evans Centre for Storytellling
Emily is Research Assistant at the George Ewart Evans Centre for Storytelling and is also currently studying for a PhD at the University of Glamorgan. Her thesis is titled The Body Exposed: Strategies for Confronting Objectification in Contemporary Women’s Autobiographical Performance. Emily’s research interests include performing the body, autobiographical performance and the performance of illness. Emily is a founder member of the Factory Floor creative network for women solo performers/writers.
Project Teams
Communities 2.0
Chris Morgan (Mog)
Outreach Worker Communities 2.0
“My background is in digital storytelling and community based multi media work.
“I have worked with a wide variety of community groups both here in Wales and in Europe on projects that have ranged from music and film making to animation and web design.
Throughout my experiences and wide travels with digital storytelling, I feel the essential ingredient is ownership; ownership for the storyteller. The fact that this sense of ownership comes with a great deal of fun, laughs, tears and emotion for the listeners, both at the workshops and a wider audience, is a massive bonus for all involved.
“Having worked for many years in variety of media, I still find the power of that personal narrative incredibly engaging and moving and I hope that I can continue to participate and listen to the stories that walk by in human form every day.”
Angharad Dalton
Outreach Worker Communities 2.0
An International Politics graduate of the University of Wales Aberystwyth, Angharad is an environmental communications specialist having worked as a political monitor and analyst for public affairs agency StrataMatrix, a Project Manager for Sustainable Wales and then as a Development Officer with Science Shops Wales.
A fluent Welsh speaker, Angharad has a keen interest in Welsh politics and current affairs, animal rights, women’s issues and of course sustainability. Angharad engages with a number of groups and organisations outside her professional work and is currently an active member ARK, a social design group based in Cardiff, a volunteer with SUSSED and Sustainable Wales and contributes to the Community Action for Climate Change Network. Angharad’s wider interests include design – especially interiors and print and pattern, IT, music and fashion. A keen dog-lover, she dotes on Siân, her rescue Corgi and much of her spare time, when not volunteering, is taken with the sustainable renovation of her Cardiff-based victorian flat.
Dan Taylor
Administrator Communities 2.0
Matt Chilcott
Funded PhD Researcher Communities 2.0
Taking The Field
Dr Emma Peplow
Research Associate Taking the Field
Emma Peplow is a George Ewart Evans Centre for Storytelling Research Associate working in partnership with the Marylebone Cricket Club on ‘Taking the Field’, a digital storytelling project focusing on grassroots cricket clubs. After finishing a PhD in International History at the London School of Economics, the chance to work with George Ewart Evans Centre for Storytelling but based at Lord’s was an opportunity she could not resist. Emma is a lifelong cricket fan and has research interests in the interaction between social and international history and the role of individuals often overlooked by traditional historical narratives. She has published on the history of the post-war occupation of Berlin and on TTF.
