Our board

Engender’s board is responsible for the organisation’s strategic direction and governance.

Nina Murray, Convener

Nina joined Engender’s board in 2012 and is currently Convener. She has a background in migration and human rights and worked as Women's Policy Development Officer at Scottish Refugee Council for six years. In 2017 she joined the Secretariat of the European Network on Statelessness, where she is currently Head of Research and Policy. Nina is also a Trustee of Ngbotima Charity Trust, supporting young people through education in Sierra Leone.

Louise Brodie

Lou is a freelance applied artist and project manager. She has a background in creating projects and artworks within the community, youth arts and young audiences’ sectors and has worked with a range of national and international companies and artists including; Platform Glasgow, Imaginate and the Edinburgh International Children’s Festival, Mammalian Diving Reflex, Nic Green, London's Southbank Centre and The WOW Foundation.

Lou is currently undertaking a part-time MSc in Applied Gender Studies at Strathclyde University in addition to her portfolio of on-going projects. These currently include the creation of youth consultation events for the First Minister’s National Advisory Council on Women and Girls, Women Dancing: A film series with artist Geraldine Heaney and Creative Facilitator for the National Theatre of Scotland and All the Queens Men’s Scottish Premiere of The Coming Back Out Ball.

Dr Shelly-Ann Brown

Emma Hutton

Emma currently leads communications, outreach and participation for the Scottish Human Rights Commission, having previously spent two years in London setting up Equally Ours, a UK-wide campaign to spread the positive story about human rights in everyday life. Emma has also worked as a lobbyist, campaigner and frontline business developer in the social enterprise movement, working in Scotland, London and Australia.

Zara Kitson

Zara is Head of Community at Shelter Scotland, leading their work enabling people with lived experience of the issues around housing and homelessness to campaign for change in their communities. Participation and raising the voices of those who are easiest to ignore has been a core part of Zara’s work across the public and third sectors. With her activism also centring around democratic participation, social, gender and environmental justice.

Lucy Mulvagh

Lucy is the Director of Policy and Communications at the Health and Social Care Alliance Scotland (the ALLIANCE). She previously worked at the Scottish Recovery Network, and before this spent several years working in international human rights. Lucy is also a member of the Advisory Group of the Human Rights Consortium Scotland and represents the ALLIANCE (as co-convenor) on the Health and Social Care Action Group of Scotland’s National Action Plan for Human Rights.

Jacquelyn O'Brien

Jacquelyn grew up in Scotland and has also lived in Canada where she owned and ran a yoga studio. Returning 3 years ago, she initially worked on a mentoring programme for women and is now a business adviser working in economic development.

Jacquelyn has a strong interest in addressing the gender imbalance in political representation and in ensuring that women’s voices are heard, especially in policy making. She’s currently working on an MBA and has two children. Jacquelyn is also on the board of the Ayrshire Women’s Hub and is a Prince’s Trust mentor.

Maria Pakpahan

Dr Nighet Riaz

Dr Nighet Riaz is an early careers researcher and associate lecturer in the University of the West of Scotland (UWS). Returning to education as a mature student, and becoming an activist, Nighet has become more critical of how women and in particular young people are framed by policy and media. Her research explores how young people and communities can become ‘othered’ fuelled by moral panics to tackle the perceived disaffection of young people and communities who have been identified as ‘at risk’ of social exclusion. Nighet teaches on various graduate and post-graduate modules on the topic of equality and inclusion. Her interest in race, identity and belonging has led to Nighet becoming an active member of British Educational Research Association, where she now co-convenes on the Special Interest Group on Race, Ethnicity and Education.

Nighet is a training and development partner in the Scottish Association of Minority Ethnic Educators (SAMEE), a member of the education subgroup of the ‘Tackling Islamophobia’ cross party group at Holyrood, as well as the Equality Officer at her local SNP branch, East Pollokshields.

Iffat Shahnaz

Iffat is a consultant, collaborator, and life-long campaigner committed to social justice, equality and inclusion. She specialises in programme and service development with particular focus on anti-racism, gender equality and minoritized women and girls nationally and internationally. She is a Trustee of Link Education International.

Leanne Wilson

Leanne Wilson is a PhD Researcher in the department of Law and Economics at Glasgow Caledonian university. She is a member of the WiSE Research Centre for Economic Justice where the aim is to create new knowledge to inform public policy and create a just society in Scotland and internationally. She is a feminist economist with research interest in the implementation of gender mainstreaming within economic policies both in Scotland and the European Union.

Leanne is also the Child Wellbeing and Protection officer in her sons’ grassroots football club where equality plays a key role in inspiring future generations. This role allows her to make small changes as well as stay close to the key role in her life, a full-time mum.