Dr Michael Mason, MEC Director
We are pleased to welcome Dr Michael Mason, Associate Professor of Environmental Geography, as the new Director of the Middle East Centre. Michael succeeds Professor Toby Dodge, who served as Director for the past five years.
Michael has carried out extensive research in the Middle East on the relationship between the state, identity, land and the environment. He has published work focused on Lebanon, Israel/Palestine and Syria. At the Middle East Centre, he will work closely with Deputy Director Robert Lowe and the rest of the team.
Toby will continue to work in the Middle East Centre as the Kuwait Professor and Director of the Kuwait Programme, as well as serving as Iraq Research Director for the DFID-funded Conflict Research Programme. He will also take a year’s research leave from his teaching responsibilities at the Department of International Relations.
Reflecting on his time as Director, Professor Dodge commented, ‘The last five years have been some of the most fulfilling of my academic career, helping to build the Middle East Centre and raise its profile in the region, while expanding its staff, the range of its research and the quality of its publications. Michael will make an excellent director. I am confident he will continue to strengthen the Centre, taking it in new and exciting directions’.