Professor Lesley McAra CBE holds the Chair of Penology in the School of Law. She was appointed Director of IASH in 2022.
Lesley McAra is an alumna of the University of Edinburgh and of the Open University In 1995, she joined the University of Edinburgh as Lecturer in Criminology, was promoted to Senior Lecturer in 2005, and to the Chair of Penology in 2009. Her inaugural lecture can be listened to here. She is also Assistant Principal Community Relations. Lesley was the first ever woman (in over 300 years) to be appointed as Dean of Edinburgh Law School and, with alumna Karina McTeague, set up the Leadership Foundation for Women in Law. She was also the inaugural Director of the Edinburgh Futures Institute (2018-2022), a major new investment focused on data driven innovation for social good.
In 2018, she was elected as President of the European Society of Criminology and following her term of office continues involvement in the ESC contributing to working groups on juvenile justice and the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. For the past twenty-six years, she has been Co-Director (with Professor Susan McVie) of the Edinburgh Study of Youth Transitions and Crime. She has won multiple prizes for research impact, including, in 2019, the ESRC award for Outstanding Public Policy Impact, and was awarded a CBE in the New Year’s Honours List of 2018 for services to Criminology.