Alexandra Heron

Alexandra is a doctoral candidate in the Business School and a part-time Research Associate in its Women and Work Research Group. Her thesis topic is 'Organisational & employee responses to employee eldercare responsibilities'.

She has a legal background, and has practised as a lawyer in East London and then as head of the Legal Department of one of the UK’s largest health unions. Subsequently she has worked in a range of research, policy and teaching positions in Australia, France and England. Her focus is on employment, discrimination and gender issues and the impact of caring responsibilities on women’s lives.

Her major publications include reporting on research she undertook on the range and impact of programmes in six OECD countries to assist migrant women workers with less than a tertiary education into employment. for an OECD/EU initiative, a comparative analysis of pregnancy discrimination laws in a number of European countries for the then UK Equal Opportunities Commission and co-authoring a practical legal guide to enforcing UK sex discrimination laws.

Most recently she has worked as a consultant on the Australian Human Rights Commission’s 2014 Supporting Working Parents review which examined pregnancy and parental leave discrimination. She has also contributed to a similar enquiry by the UK Equality and Human Rights Commission.