Pre-University: Social Sciences

Dr Brian McGrail is a Lecturer at the Centre for Open Learning and an Associate Lecturer for the Open University. He has taught in UK higher education since 1992 and is a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy. Brian has mainly taught in the area of interdisciplinary social sciences (at foundation level), but also sociology, political economy and urban studies (at Honours level), and post-graduate students in the philosophy of science. Dr McGrail has undertaken post-doctoral research into UK financial landownership and the introduction of electronic surveillance into residential housing estates. He currently teaches on the Centre for Open Learning’s Access and International Foundation, and Short Course Programmes, and is an external examiner at the University of Glasgow.

Dr Morna Finnegan is a Teaching Fellow at the Centre for Open Learning. She is a social anthropologist who received her PhD from the University of Edinburgh in 2010. Her research interests include gender, child development and attachment, political egalitarianism and the anthropology of power more broadly. Morna has worked as an independent researcher and writer and has published several articles and a co-edited book on human origins from a social anthropological perspective. She has been teaching social anthropology at the Centre for Open Learning since 2018, and has worked both on short courses and on the International Foundation Programme. She has also taught Access Social Sciences.

Dr Andrew Drever is a Teaching Fellow at the Centre for Open Learning. He has a PhD in Politics (University of Edinburgh, 2016), an MA in Political Philosophy (University of York, 2010), and a BA (Hons) in Politics (University of Strathclyde, 2008). His doctoral research focused on theories of distributive justice.

Dr Drever teaches at the Centre for Open Learning, the School of Social and Political Science, and at the Open University. He has taught courses on international relations, political science, political theory, social theory, social science, and study skills.

Dr Vangelis Chiotis is a Teaching Fellow at the Centre for Open Learning. He has been working as lecturer and teaching assistant in higher education since 2010, teaching economics and politics. His research interests include moral philosophy, applied and normative ethics, theories of justice and philosophy of economics. Dr Chiotis holds a PhD in Politics, Economics and Philosophy from the University of York, an MA in Political Economy from the University of Essex and a BSc in Economics from the University of Piraeus, Greece.