University of London, Birkbeck College

Faculty Member, Law

Professor of Law and Policy and Pro-Vice-Master (Academic Partnerships)

About

Matthew Weait graduated with a BA(Hons) in Law, and an MPhil in Criminology from the University of Cambridge before going to work at the Centre for Socio-Legal Studies at the University of Oxford, where he researched his DPhil under the supervision of Dr Keith Hawkins.  He has taught at New College, Oxford, the Open University and Keele University, and has been Parliamentary Research Officer for Lord Lester of Herne Hill QC at the Odysseus Trust.  Matthew was awarded a Queen Mother Major Scholarship by the Honourable Society of the Middle Temple and was called to the Bar of England and Wales in 1999, but does not practise.  Matthew's research centres on the impact of law on people living with HIV and AIDS and he has worked with a number of local, regional, national and international organisations including the WHO and UNAIDS.  His recent projects have included a review of communicable disease legislation in the WHO European region and a Discussion Paper on a rights-based approach to HIV/AIDS in the EU.  in 2010 he was appointed to be a member of the Technical Advisory Group for the new Global Commission on HIV and Law.  Matthew is currently working on a research project, partly funded by the Wellcome Trust, on the response of civil society organisations and activists to HIV criminalisation in Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden. 

Matthew has held visiting academic positions at the American Bar Foundation, Cardozo Law School and the University of British Columbia.  He was recently awarded an MA (with distinction) in Creative Writing at Birkbeck College.  His story "Air and Sea and Salt" was published in Issue 5 of the Mechanics Institute Review (September 2008), and another "the days he had seen", was shortlisted for the 2009 Bridport Prize.  He is in the process of completing his first novel.

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