Dr Gabriel holds a BA Honours degree in Journalism Studies and a PhD in Media, Culture and Communication. From the outset of her journey through higher education, her mission was to promote empowerment, transformation and social change, seeing media as a powerful tool for advancing new ways of thinking and empowering people. Her past journalistic work focused on giving voice to the perspectives and experiences of marginalised groups and articulating issues around inequality. She wrote for several publications including Times Higher Education, Guardian and Independent and was frequently called upon as a media commentator to provide analysis of historic and contemporary issues and events. She has been interviewed across television, radio, print and online in the UK and US for a range of media outlets including BBC, Guardian, Independent and Times Higher Education.
During her academic career she combined a traditional role in teaching, research, and professional practice with leadership in educational equity, creating the Black British Academics global community in 2013 as a collective platform to promote equality, diversity and inclusion in higher education. As a research leader, she developed the ‘Ivory Tower Project’ on raced and gendered experiences in academia, leading two research teams on the edited volumes: ‘Inside the Ivory Tower’ and ‘Transforming the Ivory Tower’, published by UCL Press. She also specialized in inclusive teaching strategies, developing a framework called 3D Pedagogy, to decolonise, democratise and diversify the curriculum, creating a workshop for lecturers, teaching, and programme staff.
Dr Gabriel developed a keen interest in genealogy while embarking on a family history project in 2011. It became a passion she nurtured over the years, leading to the discovery of a four times great grandmother, Jenny Harriott, and the creation of a charitable foundation in her name. Dr Gabriel’s research at Oxford is focused on the genealogy of John Harriott, a Fellow of Exeter College in 1789 and the hidden histories of enslaved ancestors in the Parish of Saint Elizabeth, Jamaica from 1783-1834. In addition to her focus on historical research, Dr Gabriel is a probate genealogist at a leading international probate research organisation.
