Dr Joanne Doherty is a lecturer in Education in the Manchester Institute of Education at the University of Manchester. Joanne is a critical scholar, and her research interests include parental engagement, school governance, school leader retention and education policy. She is currently engaged in a research project exploring parents’ experiences of becoming and being school governors and another that focuses on school leader retention. Joanne is interested in the role played by identity and biographies and how these can shape actors’ experiences of education. In addition to teaching on the MA Educational Leadership programme, she is a school governor for a federation of infant and junior schools.