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- Qualifications:BA(Hons), MA, PhD, FHEA
- Position:Senior Lecturer in Criminology
- Department:HAS - Health and Social Sciences
- Telephone:+441179656261
- Email:Amber.Phillips@uwe.ac.uk
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About me
Having initially trained as a translator, Amber's journey as a criminologist began in 2012 while she was living and working in Calabria, Italy. Her experiences with anti-mafia organisations inspired her AHRC-funded PhD at the University of Bristol, which she successfully defended in 2018. She was appointed Lecturer in Criminology at the University of Gloucestershire in 2018, before joining UWE as Senior Lecturer in Criminology in 2020.
Amber's primary research interests are organised crime and financial crime, both of which draw on her continuing interest in mafia-type groups. She has developed collaborative partnerships with law enforcement practitioners and fellow academics both in the UK and abroad, and is a member of the ECPR Standing Group on Organised Crime, as well as the RUSI Strategic Hub for Organised Crime. She is the co-organiser of the annual UWE Symposium on Organised Crime, and her work has been published in international journals including Trends in Organised Crime. She is a member of the editorial board for the Journal of Economic Criminology.
Amber's most recent work has focused on the social reuse of confiscated mafia assets in Italy, and the challenges faced by police officers investigating financial crime. She is currently researching asset recovery in England and Wales, supported by a VC Early Career Researcher Award.
Amber leads the final year core criminology module Transnational Crime and Comparative Criminology and the optional final year module Organised Crime, as well as the Crime, Media and Culture module in the second year. Amber has been nominated and shortlisted for the UWE Outstanding Teacher Award, and has written teaching-focused articles for Times Higher Education. She is a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy.
Funding Awarded
| 2024-2026 | Vice-Chancellor's Early Career Researcher Award (£25,000) Project title: 'Beyond the figures: exploring success measures in asset recovery' |
| 2021-2022 | Higher Education Innovation Fund grant (£5,000) awarded in collaboration with Dr Mary Young, Faculty of Business and Law, UWE. Project title: 'Exploring the resilience of transnational organized crime in the pandemic and post-pandemic world'. |
Area of expertise
- Organised crime
- Mafia-type crime
- Transnational crime
- Financial crime
- Crime and the media
Publications
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