Speakers

Dr Alison Heydari

Alison joined Hampshire Constabulary in 2000 and is now a chief officer in the Metropolitan Police Service on secondment to National Police Chiefs’ Council (NPCC).

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Professor Simon Lindgren

Simon Lindgren is a Professor of Sociology and director of DIGSUM, an interdisciplinary academic research centre for the study of social dimensions of digital technology.

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Gary Ritchie

Gary Ritchie is a Managing Partner in the Global Consortium Group (GCG).  Prior to this he was an Assistant Chief Constable with Police Scotland for 33 years, retiring in 2025. 

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Associate Professor David Thacher

David Thacher is Associate Professor of Public Policy and Urban Planning at the University of Michigan.

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Professor Jennifer Wood

Jennifer Wood is a Professor of Criminal Justice and Vice Provost for Faculty Affairs at Temple University in Philadelphia, USA.

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Dr Alison Heydari

Alison joined Hampshire Constabulary in 2000 and is now a chief officer in the Metropolitan Police Service on secondment to National Police Chiefs’ Council (NPCC).

Alison’s varied career includes roles in the Criminal Investigations Department, Public Protection, child abuse investigation, city commander and emergency response commander. Alison has managed impactive community issues and driven the force-wide strategic response to hate crime and harmful practices. Alison practiced as a Crisis Negotiator for eight years.

Alison’s policing roles have been enhanced by secondments to His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary Fire and Rescue and teaching at John Jay Exchange College of Criminal Justice, New York. Alison has supported victims of people trafficking in San Paulo, Brazil.

Alison transferred from Hampshire Constabulary and joined the Metropolitan Police Service in June 2020 as a Frontline Policing Commander with additional pan London responsibility for a number of portfolios including neighbourhood policing. Alison took up the role of NPCC Chief Officer lead for Out of Court Resolutions in 2021, she is responsible for supporting forces in readiness and ahead of the new Statutory Reform, according to Part 6 of the Police, Crime, Sentencing & Courts Act 2022, that delivers a rehabilitative approach to offending. Her appointment as Director for the Police Race Action Plan in August 2023 sees her driving a national programme of work necessary to respond to critically low levels of trust and confidence in Black communities. Alison is also a Gold Public Order Public Safety Commander.

Her policing imperative is to utilise the tenets of procedural justice to build legitimacy in building stakeholder trust and confidence, reduce harm to communities and drive equity in policing outcomes. This has been realised in roles in policing, influence on tactical delivery, impact on strategic policy and academic research.

Professor Simon Lindgren

Simon Lindgren is a Professor of Sociology and director of DIGSUM, an interdisciplinary academic research centre for the study of social dimensions of digital technology.

Simon’s research explores politics, power, and resistance at the intersection of society and digital technologies. He uses critical discourse approaches, computational text analysis, and social network analysis to study issues relating to movements, mobilization, opinions, and identities.

Gary Ritchie

Gary Ritchie is a Managing Partner in the Global Consortium Group (GCG).  Prior to this he was an Assistant Chief Constable with Police Scotland for 33 years, retiring in 2025.  During his time as a member of the Police Scotland Executive team he oversaw portfolios and directorates for Organisational Change; Partnerships, Prevention and Community Wellbeing, International Policing Development and Operational Support.

He was appointed Assistant Chief Constable in 2019 and during his tenure he oversaw directorate of Partnerships, Prevention and Community Wellbeing where he developed new public health led approaches in partnership with other public services to reduce and prevent harm and achieve better outcomes for communities and vulnerable people. As head of Drug Strategy, he compiled the first specific drug strategy for Police Scotland, shifting the emphasis from enforcement to harm reduction. As part of this new approach, he led the roll out of Naloxone (Narcan) to police officers which has resulted in Scotland becoming the first nation in the world to equip all its frontline police officers with nasal Naloxone. Since then, police officers have regularly used Naloxone in cases where people have taken overdose, helping to save hundreds of lives.

He also led on the establishment of Police Scotland’s International Academy, founded on the principles of police senior leadership development through international study, engagement and networking. He established several internal policing leadership development programmes with police agencies in the USA, Australia, South East Asia, South America and Africa based around principles of values based/adaptive leadership, strategic incident command, leadership modelling for conflict de-escalation, policing culture and international collaboration.

Gary also sat on the board of the Scottish Institute of Police Research, a nexus of eight Scottish universities in partnership with policing and supporting postgraduate research reflecting the most prominent policing and societal issues in order to assist policing in the development of evidence-based policy and practice. He has recently taken on the Chair of SIPR’s International Board.

He was awarded the King’s Police Medal in 2025 and, in recognition of his collaboration with academia over the past few years, he was made an Honorary Professor of Edinburgh Napier University.

Following his retirement from policing he emigrated to Australia and lives in Sydney.

Professor David Thacher

David Thacher is Associate Professor of Public Policy and Urban Planning at the University of Michigan. His research draws from philosophy, history, and the interpretive social sciences to develop and apply a humanistic approach to policy research. Most of his work has focused on policing, including studies of police order maintenance, the role of knowledge in police innovation, and the transformation of police authority in 19th and 20th century America. His current research focuses on the history of the police response to people with psychiatric and cognitive disabilities. David received his PhD from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. 

Professor Jennifer Wood

Jennifer Wood is a Professor of Criminal Justice and Vice Provost for Faculty Affairs at Temple University in Philadelphia, USA.

Jennifer’s research focuses on the many intersections between policing and public health, including changes in frontline responses to people with health vulnerabilities such as mental illness. She serves on the Board of Directors for Pathways to Housing, PA. 

Jennifer is a member of the Vulnerability & Policing Futures Research Centre’s International Advisory Board. In this role she works to advance the Centre’s comparative research agenda on policing and vulnerabilities.