Keynote Speakers
Dr Kirsty Liddiard
Re-imagining the disability research process: Which way to the future?
Kirsty Liddiard is a feminist disability studies scholar whose co-produced research centres on lived experience, emotion and embodiment as core axes through which to understand the everyday lives of disabled people and their families. She is currently a Senior Research Fellow in the School of Education and iHuman at the University of Sheffield.
Dave Lupton aka 'Crippen'
title tbc
Dave Lupton is the Disabled Cartoonist Crippen. He has been creating disability related cartoons based on the social model understanding of disability for over 40 years. He retired due to health in 2025 and is currently digitising his work which will be archived at The Centre for Disability Studies Archive. Dave will also be joining learning disabled and/or neurodiverse artists from Pyramid Inclusive Arts Collective for an afternoon of cartooning and conversation. Dave will introduce artists to Crippen and explain how he uses humour and illustration to shine a light on disability rights. Participants will also share their own approaches to cartooning and collaborate on creating new work inspired by the themes discussed.
Beatriz Miranda-Galarza, PhD
Reimagining Human Rights and Compassionate Care: A Vision for the Disability Future
Beatriz Miranda-Galarza is the coordinator of the Critical Disability Studies Programme at 17, Institute of Critical Studies in Mexico City, where she also coordinates the area of Critical Studies in Health. She is currently the UN Special Rapporteur on discrimination against persons with leprosy.
Professor Stuart Murray
Reading Disability; Processing Research
Stuart Murray is Professor of Contemporary Literatures and Film in the School of English at the University of Leeds, where he was also the founding Director of the University’s Centre for Medical Humanities. He has published widely across a variety of disability-related topics, including Representing Autism: Culture, Narrative, Fascination (Liverpool UP, 2008), Autism (Routledge, 2011), Disability and the Posthuman: Bodies, Technology and Cultural Futures (Liverpool UP, 2020) and Medical Humanities and Disability Studies: In/Disciplines (Bloomsbury, 2023). He is the co-editor of The Cambridge Companion to Literature and Disability (CUP, 2017).
