She first became involved with the Athena Swan charter in 2009 as part of Newcastle University’s application for a bronze award and led the first Newcastle University’s Athena Swan unit application for the Institute of Health & Society (IHS) achieving a silver award in 2011.
Since then Judith has supported a number of unit level applications (STEM and AHSSBL), Newcastle University’s bronze renewal in 2012 and silver applications in 2015 and 2020. She led the IHS Athena Swan SAT from 2010-15, been a member of the University’s SAT since 2009 and chaired the University SAT from 2016. In addition to the Institutional Silver award, Newcastle University’s Faculty of Medical Sciences holds a Silver award and 13 units hold bronze awards. Judith acted as an Athena Swan panel member and chair on a number of occasions as well as acting as a critical friend advising other Universities on their applications. She is familiar with the Athena Swan cycle.
Judith developed the University's EDI strategy underpinning its education, research and global strategies. She also chairs the University’s EDI Committee, University Athena Swan SAT and is a member of the University's Race Equality Charter SAT. She led the University’s application to become a University of Sanctuary, successfully achieved in 2021 and chairs the Newcastle University Sanctuary Steering Group. She has been co-chair of the Network of EDI Academic Leads (NEDIAL) for the past two years, a national network of University academic leads.
Judith acted as consultant on the University of Huddersfield-led Independent Athena Swan Review survey, was a co-applicant on the ESPRC Inclusion Matters Northern Power project, and a co-applicant on the recently OfS-funded Pro:NE project which aims to increase representation of postgraduate students from ethnic minoritised groups. She has also led qualitative work on retaining women in academic medicine.