Shahla Ghobadi served in this cross-faculty role, as part of the University’s Inclusive Learning and Teaching Development project. She worked across the University and within the faculty with Directors of Student Education, Academic Assessment Leads, and other key colleagues in schools to promote and embed inclusive approaches to education.
The role involved leading local change, developing practical initiatives, and working with students to advance the inclusive education agenda. Drawing on her research and industry expertise in digital development and user experience design, Shahla created an evolving collection of resources, webinars, podcasts, and panel discussions showing how inclusive practices can be applied to teaching, assessment, and communication with students.
Some of these activities included a a faculty-wide event on co-creation with underrepresented student groups, in which she examined the evolving and context-specific meanings of disadvantage and underrepresentation. A podcast explored the inclusion of women in technical fields. A panel discussion with speakers from Microsoft and Ghana’s IT sector considered how inclusive approaches in higher education can lay the foundations for more inclusive workplaces and support innovation.
Other webinars invited students from diverse backgrounds to share experiences of inclusion and exclusion. These were followed by sessions with researchers and practitioners examining the challenges of discussing sensitive experiences in classroom settings. Shahla also conducted research and delivered presentations on inclusive sustainability policies, competing institutional logics, and the tensions that can arise when organisations seek to advance multiple social objectives.
Senior Editor, Information Systems Journal (Special Issue on GenAI and Environment, 2026-2027)
Member of Peer Review College, British Academy of Management (2024–present)
Associate Editor, Information Systems Journal (2020–present)
Associate Editor, European Journal of Information Systems (Special Issue 2026: Designing Digital Futures)
Editorial Board Member, British Journal of Management (2023–present)
Editorial Board Member, Journal of Strategic Information Systems (2024–present)
External PhD examiner for doctoral dissertations at universities in the UK, Australia, and Asia
External Research Excellence Framework examiner for academic institutions in the UK
Comparing Technology Frames in Management Research (March 2025)
Bristol University Business School, UK
A Cognitive Method for Comparing and Elaborating on Technology Frames (August 2024)
Aalto Business School, Finland
Resilience and Innovation to Navigate Adversity in Crowdfunded Projects (August 2024)
Association for Information Science and Technology (here)
Digital Workforce in Development Teams: How to Identify and Capitalise (June 2024)
IT Summer Conference, University of Leeds, UK
Game Changing Software (February 2022)
London School of Economics (LSE), UK
Game Changing Software (February 2022)
Washington State University, US
Costly Pictures: A Longitudinal Perspective to Online Activism (December 2019)
Photographers’ Gallery, University of Art London, UK
A Generational Perspective to the Software Development Workforce (October 2019)
The University of Leeds, UK
Business Model Change in Software Organisations (July 2019)
University of Liechtenstein, Liechtenstein
Business Model Change in Software Organisations (July 2019)
University of St Gallen, Switzerland
Qualitative Research Processes and Strategies (January 2019)
University of Tehran, Iran
Morality and Design Practices (August 2018)
Northwestern University, US
Agile Development, Roles, and Knowledge Sharing (February 2018)
Erasmus University Rotterdam, Netherlands
Perceptions in Software Development Teams (January 2018)
Copenhagen Business School, Denmark
Agile Development, Roles, and Knowledge Sharing (March 2018)
University of Nebraska, Omaha, US
Generations Perspective in Software Industry (September 2017)
University of Bern, Switzerland
Research Processes and Publication Strategies (May 2017)
University of Tehran, Tehran, Iran
Generations and Software Development (November 2016)
London School of Economics (LSE), UK
Collaboration in Software Development (January 2015)
University of Canberra, Australia
Business of AI, Leeds Digital Festival (September 2024)
Leeds University Business School. University of Leeds
Panel of Business Model Innovation Contest (July 2022)
St. Mary High School, Leeds
Social Change and Online Activism (July 2020)
Centennial College of Toronto, Canada
Precocious Users of Social Networking Technology at the Workplace (June 2020)
The University of Leeds, UK
Children’s use of social media is changing the world (March 2020)
The Conversation, UK
Costly Pictures in Online Activism (November 2019)
London’s Photographers’ Gallery, UK
Risk Management in Agile Software Organisations (January 2019)
Café Bazar, Iran
Going viral: What social media activists need to know (2018)
The Conversation, UK
New Generations in Software Organisations (November 2018)
Atlassian, Australia
Truth Behind Creepy Suicide Game Momo (October 2018)
The Sun, UK
System Thinking for Analysing Climate Change Policies (2017)
Media Team @ The University of Manchester, UK
“Meet the NATS” (December 2016)
The University of Manchester, UK
The European Coopetition Project (December 2015)
Shared research experience studying coopetition and cross-functional collaborations.
Adaptive Comparative Causal Mapping (November 2015)
Method & Manchester, UK