Professor Laura McAllister

Professor Laura McAllister comes from Bridgend and is Professor of Governance at the University of Liverpool’s School of Management. Her areas of expertise are devolution, Welsh politics and political parties. Her PhD Thesis was entitled ‘Community in Ideology: the Political Philosophy of Plaid Cymru’.

Laura was a member of the Richard Commission on the Powers and Electoral Arrangements for National Assembly for Wales that reported in March 2004 and expert advisor to the Independent Panel on AMs Pay and Support in 2008-9.

Recent books include Plaid Cymru, The Emergence of a Political Party (2001), Women and Constitutional Politics in Wales (2007), and a forthcoming biography of Lord Dafydd Elis Thomas, Presiding Officer at the National Assembly (2012). She is a visiting Professor at the Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane, Australia and the China National School of Administration, Beijing. Laura has worked as a political analyst for BBC Wales and is a commentator on Welsh and British elections.

A former Wales football international and national team captain with 24 caps, Laura is currently Chair of Sport Wales,  the Government’s national organisation for the strategic delivery of sport. She is also a Board Member of UK Sport. Laura is also a Board Member and Director of the Welsh Football Trust. She is currently project sponsor for sport at the University of Liverpool, and chairs the Sport Liverpool Strategy Group and its sports scholarships panel. She is a member of the judging panel for BBC Wales Sports Personality of the Year.