Iman Khan

Iman is an award-winning doctoral researcher within the Institute of Creative Futures. Her research is a part of the Centre for Doctoral Training on 'Unequal Academic Citizenship: Opportunities and Barriers to Participation and Inclusion of Cultural Diversity and Intersecting Identities in Higher Education (CITHEI)'. 

As a keen scholar-activist, she has participated in various governance committees ranging from being the committee chair for Loughborough Students’ Union Postgrad Support and Social Network (PSSN) for 4 years in which she won the Loughborough Academic Awards and Loughborough Experience Awards in recognition of her advocacy and community-building work for the London campus. 

Building upon this, Iman worked in collaboration with Ladders4Action, Dr Angela Martinez Dy and Rhianna Garrett to launch a pilot of Loughborough University’s first-ever Freedom School programme for BAME doctoral researchers. As a business undergrad and master’s holder, Iman experienced a significant career trajectory after engaging with Loughborough University’s 2021 work for the Race Equality Charter. She has always taken a keen interest in student advocacy and building a platform for elevating BAME student voices. Her research challenges the flow of knowledge and focuses on the ecological barriers and facilitators of what enables a culture and environment to decolonise curriculum development, using Loughborough University as a case study through the lens of Bourdiean field theory. Working with groups such as Demilitarise Education, Science for the People, MEDRACE and many more has unveiled unique insights in Iman’s research such as the hidden link of militarisation of universities being the biggest barrier to decolonising curriculum in the UK. 

Background

As someone born in colonial Hong Kong, Iman's identity and family history has always been directly impacted by British colonisation for generations. Her time spent growing up in London and Dubai has been the building blocks of her insatiable curiosity of why people behave the way they do. This is reflected in her choice to study for a BA Business and Marketing at University of Essex and, subsequently, an MSc in Digital Marketing at Loughborough University London; she’s always been fascinated with multicultural consumer demographics and how these indirectly influence daily behaviours.

For both her BA Hons and MSc degrees, Iman achieved Distinctions for her dissertation works in investigating the culturally relevant and organisational-level barriers to digital marketing adoption within London-based startups during lockdown for her undergraduate thesis. In light of the Sheikh Jarrah protests in 2021, she explored Muslim consumer attitudes towards brand activism in the context of #FreePalestine on Instagram for her thesis research. During her time as the Postgrad Support and Social Network (PSSN) committee chairperson,

Iman won a Loughborough Academic Award and Loughborough Experience Award for eight months of her work as PSSN's chairperson that revolutionised the postgraduate taught experience at Loughborough University London. She spearheaded innovative communication flows, collaborations and partnerships with Loughborough University’s student bodies and LSU key departments to launch 15+ sports, arts and community social events for London students through offline and online channels. By representing PSSN as chairperson to senior university stakeholders, Iman participated in Loughborough University's CARE x CUK Leadership Training to understand anti-racist activism within higher education institutes. She was able to swiftly assimilate into Loughborough's staff and student community to proactively engage with other ongoing anti-racist initiatives such as providing Race Equality Charter feedback and conducting relational and house meetings for the University's Listening Campaign. In October 2021, she co-hosted Loughborough University’s first-ever Race Equity Town Hall alongside Dr Angela Martinez Dy to showcase the next steps of the Race Equality Charter strategy for the University.

Iman’s PhD project is 1 out of 5 research pieces commissioned by the University in 2021 as a bid to commit towards Loughborough University’s Race Equality Charter (REC) goals as highlighted in section 3(a) addressing the University’s limited research in research race and ethnicity. This project was intended to develop Loughborough University’s understanding of what ‘decolonising’ the curriculum looks like in the Loughborough context through mapping out what are the macro, micro and meso-level barriers and facilitators of initiating a decolonising curriculum project. 

In addition, to explore any factors of influence’s subsequent ripple effect on racial equity issues like BAME student engagement, attainment gap, sense of belonging and such at the University. Typically portrayed by mainstream British tabloids as ‘woke’ and ‘erasing extraordinary achievements of Western civilisation’, however, the unprecedented global solidarity movement for Palestinian cause marks a shift in history of the general public’s perceptions of ‘decolonising’ which marked a big shift in Iman’s research during data collection. 

This project utilises a conceptual framework that combines Bordieuan field concepts and multi-level mapping combined with decolonial white supremacy theorisation to map out barriers and facilitators at Loughborough University. The qualitative interviewing techniques to explore the perceptions of change among Loughborough University’s staff and students across departments and levels of seniority to extend scholarship on how long-term societal change can be achieved by shifting the centre of gravity of canonical structures in education.

Awards

• Iman was awarded a fully funded studentship from the Centre for Doctoral Training CITHEI’s project to pursue her PhD at Loughborough University London
• £6,450 jointly awarded for CITHEI’s Unequal Academic Citizenship conference programme. £1,970 jointly awarded for ‘BAME PhD Pathways’ Event from Loughborough University’s REC/LURES funding bid.
•  £2,331.79 jointly awarded for ‘Liberation of Identity and Arts’ programme from Loughborough University’s REC/LURES funding bid.
• Postgraduate Volunteer of the Year Award.
• Loughborough Academic Awards 2021
• Loughborough Experience Award 2021. 

Papers

•  Khan, I.H.N. (2025). Do universities serve to pursue the truth? An essay on how the militarization of British universities is the biggest barrier to decolonizing the university curriculum. ‘Race’ and Socially Engaged Research Working Paper 2024: Contributions from second conference held in York. Volume 2, pp. 56-77
• Dy, A. M., Swann, T., Oelgemoller, C., Khan, I., Esson, J., & Legaspi, F. (2024). Community organising for the anti-racist university: Collective Anti-Racist Efforts (CARE) and Citizens UK. ephemera: theory & politics in organization, 24(2). 
• An exploratory study on UK Muslims consumers’ attitudes towards companies using brand activism in the context of #FreePalestine. MSc thesis, Digital Marketing, Loughborough University London. Khan, I. (2020)
• An investigation into the digital marketing adoption gap and barriers in London startups. BA (Hons) thesis, Business and Marketing, University of Essex. 

Iman’s research interests are around decoloniality (across disciplines), militarisation, white supremacy, sociology of education, Islamophobia, free speech and anti-colonial causes such as Palestine. Outside researching and activism, Iman enjoys playing horror games, Pilates and exploring new foodie spots in London. As a keen horse rider and kickboxer, she is always interested in trying out new sports and took up basketball and badminton during undergrad. She follows political commentary on social media and has an insatiable curiosity to hike around unexplored parts of the country. Iman has the knack of decolonising anything - from Kew Gardens to Love Island.