Director of the Department for Continuing Education, Professor of Law and Society
Matthew is Director of the Department for Continuing Education and Professor of Law and Society at the University of Oxford.
After completing his Undergraduate and Master’s studies in law and criminology at the University of Cambridge, he undertook the research for his DPhil at the Centre for Socio-Legal Studies in Oxford, where he was also a Research Officer and a Stipendiary Lecturer in Law at New College. From there he moved to Birkbeck, University of London, where he was one of the founding members of the Law School. After periods as a Lecturer at the Open University and Keele University he returned to Birkbeck where, in 2011, he was promoted to Professor of Law and Policy and Pro-Vice-Master (Academic and Community Partnerships). From 2015-2020 he was Executive Dean of the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences at the University of Portsmouth, and from 2020 until returning to Oxford he was Deputy Vice-Chancellor at the University of Hertfordshire.
Matthew has a longstanding commitment to promoting higher and continuing educational opportunities for non-traditional learners, and to equality, diversity, and inclusion in higher education. He has been a Governor of Morley College, Athena SWAN Champion at Portsmouth and was Senior LGBTQ+ Champion at Hertfordshire. He is a keen writer of fiction and has an MA in Creative Writing from Birkbeck.
