Brittney has a Master’s in Educational Neuroscience from UCL and a PhD in Psychology from Birkbeck, with 7 years of experience leading quantitative research. She has a background in understanding how external factors hinder or successfully support development and learning, from infancy to late adolescence, and the role that socioeconomic status plays in this.
During her PhD, Brittney was awarded an Advanced Quantitative Analysis training grant, enabling her to develop expertise in many techniques, including structural equation modeling, linear mixed modeling, principal component analysis, and linear regressions. She has additionally used qualitative techniques, including surveys and interviews.
Brittney worked as a Research Associate at the University of Cambridge, where she consulted for a start-up by developing a Theory of Change model for their intervention and created an implementation and evaluation proposal to scale their programme across the globe. Most recently she worked at a start-up where she co-developed and evaluated a digital game-based neurodevelopmental assessment tool, where her quantitative analysis revealed much stronger findings than predicted and influenced the future direction of the company.
Rupal is the Director of Research and Impact at The Brilliant Club and has a PhD in social policy with over 15 years’ experience of managing and commissioning education evaluations and research projects for various government departments and third-sector organisations, including the Department for Education, The Education and Training Foundation, Wellcome Trust, Office for Students and the Social Mobility Commission.
She has held roles at the Education Endowment Foundation, Youth Employment UK, CFE Research and National Centre for Social Research. Rupal is a mixed-methods researcher and is experienced in a range of methodologies, from conducting randomised controlled trials and quasi-experimental studies to process and impact evaluations. She has led on study designs, including development of evaluation frameworks, production of research collection tools, data analysis and reporting. She is interested in innovative approaches, particularly as the use of AI increases in the field. A passionate advocate for educational equality, she is committed to using research and evidence to make decisions that close the disadvantage gap.
Emma is part of the Brilliant Consulting team and leads on various research and evaluation consultancy projects. She is a mixed methods researcher with experience in both the higher education and charity sector. She has a wide range of experience in areas such as survey design, focus groups, interviews, process evaluations, randomised control trials (RCTs) as well as delivering workshops and training sessions on conducting evaluations.
Before joining The Brilliant Club, Emma worked at the University of Sheffield evaluating various student support services, with a focus on widening participation. Prior to this, she worked at the children’s charity Coram where she led on quantitative and qualitative research projects involving children and young people from disadvantaged backgrounds such as children in care and young migrants and refugees.
Emma holds an MSc in International Social Change and Policy from the University of Sheffield.
Before acting as Interim CEO of The Brilliant Club, Susie was Chief Programmes and Communities Officer. In that role, she led the development and implementation of The Brilliant Club’s programmes which support underrepresented students to progress to the most competitive universities and succeed when they are there.
Prior to this, Susie was Executive Director of Services at School-Home Support where she led a range of programmes tackling the barriers to learning within the home, including the Parent Support Advisor and Troubled Families initiatives. Susie chaired the National Home School Development Group and led Unlocking Potential, an initiative to engage parents in their child’s learning, in partnership with the Mayor’s Fund for London.
Susie started her career on the first cohort of Teach First, where she taught English in a London secondary school and worked as a Literacy Consultant for the DfE’s National Strategies programme.
Natalie leads on university stakeholder relationships across all The Brilliant Club’s programmes and projects. A priority of her role is ensuring alignment between our offering and universities’ strategic agenda, with a particular focus on expectations from the regulator. In recent months, Natalie has applied her extensive sector knowledge and research background to support the development of Access and Participation Plans at three UK Higher Education institutions.
Natalie holds a PhD in Sociology from Newcastle University, and is proficient in qualitative research methods.
Haider is an associate consultant to the Brilliant Consulting Unit supporting us with strategy development. Originally from Pakistan, Haider is the founder of The Kafalah Trust – a non-profit that helps underprivileged Pakistanis find safe and legal employment overseas. He received his Bachelor of Arts in Public Policy from Princeton University and is currently pursuing his MBA at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. Prior to his MBA, Haider was a Strategy Consultant at Bain & Company.
We work with other researchers and academics to support the delivery of our projects. We do this by drawing upon our PhD community of over 400 PhD and post-doctoral researchers, who we can bring into projects to utilise specific skillsets and subject expertise. We also regularly collaborate with academics on research projects. Currently, we are working with Dr Sonia Ilie, Associate Professor at the Faculty of Education University of Cambridge, and further information about our latest research project can be found here.