Meet the team
Melissa Nolas is co-Founder and Director of the Children’s Photography Archive; she is a research consultant, writer, and photographer. A visual sociologist before she even knew what that was, she has been taking photographs since the age of 10 and loves working with children, young people, their teachers, community and youth workers. To her role as Director of the CPA, she brings over 20 years’ worth of educational, research and leadership experience gained at a number of UK universities and third sector organisations. She has published widely childhood, gender, participation, archives, health, publics and photography, and curated three exhibitions of children’s photography.
Christos Varvantakis is a social anthropologist and co-founder of the Children’s Photography Archive. As a Senior Partner Manager at Wikimedia Deutschland, his work focuses on open knowledge and the digital commons and to this end he is responsible for bringing together software engineers, communities, and GLAM organisations in the adoption and maintenance of linked open data repositories. Prior to joining Wikimedia Deutschland, he worked on a number of international research projects based in German, Greek and UK universities and was the Head of Programming at Ethnofest, the Athens Ethnographic Film Festival. He has published widely in visual anthoropology, sociology and childhood and youth studies.
The work of the Children’s Photography Archive is supported by an international advisory group who meet once a year.
Konstantinos Aivaliotis is Assistant Professor at the Cultural Technology and Communication department of the University of Aegean and the co-founder and director of the ETHNOFEST organisation and titular festival. He holds degrees in Socio-cultural and Visual Anthropology (UK, Goldsmiths College) and Anthropology of Education (France, Univ. Rouen) and his work and academic interests focus on directing and screenwriting for creative documentaries, as well as documentary history and theory, audiovisual heritage, film festivals, and film markets, applying an interdisciplinary lens to the study of cultural industries.
Jose Bellido is Reader in Law at the University of Kent in the United Kingdom. He is the Spanish national editor of Primary Sources on Copyright (1450-1900) an online archive curated by Lionel Bently & Martin Kretschmer. He is particularly interested in the history of intellectual property law and has additional research interests in legal theory, evidence, and legal history. His recent book projects are Landmark Cases in Intellectual Property Law (Hart Publishing, 2017) and Adventures in Childhood. Intellectual Property, Imagination and the Business of Play (Cambridge University Press, 2022), co-authored with Kathy Bowrey.
Itza A. Carbajal is New Orleans born Texas raised American doctoral student pursuing a PhD in Information Science at the University of Washington Information School focusing on children and their records. Carbajal’s proposed dissertation research analyzes how records embody childhood trauma as well as how archival records may provide release or relief from traumatic memories. Previously, she worked as the Latin American Metadata Librarian for LLILAS Benson at the University of Texas Austin. She received a Master of Science in Information Studies from UT Austin and dual-degree Bachelor of Arts in History and English with a concentration on creative writing and legal studies from UT San Antonio.
Rebecca Coleman is Professor at the University of Bristol, UK. She has worked with image-based methodologies (drawing, collaging, photography, video-making) to explore people’s sensory and embodied experiences of media. She is now especially interested in the kinds of futures imagined by people who aren’t usually involved in the design and implementation of digital technologies.
Alice Corble (she/her) Dr Alice Corble is Lecturer in Library & Information Studies and Leverhulme Trust Early Career Fellow, at UCL, with a practitioner background in librarianship and community organising. Her current research examines academic library development and living archival legacies through decolonial and reparative justice frameworks, across transnational Caribbean and British contexts.
Hyo Yoon Kang is a Reader in Law at the University of Warwick, UK. Previously she was Lecturer of Science Studies at the University of Lucerne and a postdoctoral research fellow at the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science. She is particularly interested in knowledge practices, their materialities and political economies. Drawing upon anthropological and media theoretical works, she writes on intellectual property, political economy of knowledge, history of sciences, and law, culture and the humanities.
Ioanna Noula (PhD) is a childhood and digital citizenship expert. She is Senior Leader of Operations at the Internet Commission, a non-profit organisation that advances the accountability of online platforms evaluating their practices and governance of user-generated content moderation. She leads research in the area of corporate digital responsibility and her current work focuses on the subject of corporate citizenship and ethical business governance in the digital age. She has previously worked in Higher Education as a researcher at the UCL-Institute of Education, the University of Leeds and LSE’s Department of Media and Communications where she is a Visiting Fellow since 2016.
Jane Joo Park is a doctoral student in strategic management at the WHU – Otto Beisheim School of Management (Germany) where she is researching the role of diversity and inclusion and the influence of social movements in organizational strategy. She has extensive experience in philanthropy as both a professional fundraiser and fundraising consultant working with an array of organizations in the arts, education, humanitarian aid, and international NGOS among others. A long-time novice photographer, she is the mother of three children and lives with her family in Essen, Germany.
Claire Prater is an experienced Project Manager, she has worked on many UK, European and international projects and events with various companies including Royal Mail International, the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and the University of Sussex. During her time at University for Sussex Claire was the project coordinator for the Connectors Study (2014- 2017) enjoying her time on this challenging and varied project. Claire now works for the European Social Work Research Association, she is directly responsible for the day-to-day management of the Association as well as supporting and organising various elements of ESWRA including the Board, Committees and the Seminar series as well as providing support and advice for the yearly European Conference for Social Work Research. Claire lives in Hove, UK, with her two children, well young adults, two elderly cats and a very unruly garden. She enjoys swimming in the sea …. in the summer!
We thank previous advisory group members: Gabriella Giannachi (2020-2025); Annebella Pollen (2021-2024), Johannes Schoening (2020-2025).
The Children’s Photography Archive website is bought to you by Apostolis Troulitakis.