Lisa Smirl was a Lecturer in International Relations at the University of Sussex where she convened the MA on Conflict, Security, and Development. Her research and publications focused on the spatial practices and built environment of international humanitarian assistance. She previously worked for the UN Development Programme in South Eastern Europe, Central Asia and Africa on conflict prevention, crisis management, peacebuilding, and the harmonisation and alignment of aid. For Lisa’s CV, please click here.
Lisa was born in Notre Dame de Lourdes, Manitoba, Canada in 1975, where her family had a bee farm. She played in a punk rock band in Winnipeg and earned a degree in Politics and Economics at the University of Manitoba. She won a Rhodes Scholarship and completed an MA in Economics and Philosophy while at Balliol College, Oxford. She went on to do further graduate work at the London School of Economics before doing her PhD at the University of Cambridge. She married Arran Gaunt in 2011 and they lived together in Brighton and Leeds with a beloved cat they called Needy.
Lisa died of lung cancer in February 2013
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