Isaiah Wellington-Lynn

About
Isaiah is an award-winning polymathic creative scholar from Stratford, East London, passionate about belonging, education, and creative expression. His interdisciplinary career spans academia, investment management, law, venture capital, technology, and branding. Recipient of the inaugural Amos Polymath Award in 2021, Isaiah joined LIS in 2019, where he teaches anthropology, design, ethnography, and ethics, while leading the undergraduate and master’s coaching programmes. He completed his undergraduate degree at UCL, LSE, and Harvard, and is currently pursuing a government-funded PhD in anthropology at Oxford, exploring belonging and social mobility among diverse students. Isaiah has collaborated with organisations such as Adobe, Cambridge University, Depop, Airbnb, Hachette, the British Royal Family, and the NHS, and works as a writer, speaker, curator, consultant, and creative strategist.
News
- Published an article, ‘From Widening Access to Widening Belonging’, with the University of Oxford, commissioned by the Diversity of Student Experience Project on Oxford’s history of widening access
- Presented a paper on Integration Coaching at the annual Teaching and Learning Conference, University of Derby
- Presented a paper on DPhil belonging research at the Royal Anthropological Institute’s annual conference, ‘Once You’re In, What Makes You Stay? Do You Assimilate, Co-Exist, or Hide Away?’
- Presented a paper on ‘What Will Education Look Like in 100 Years?’ at the University of Cambridge
Teaching
- Integration Coaching (BASc year 2)
- Synthesis Coaching (MASc)
- Qualitative Methods: Participant Observation and Design Thinking (BASc year 1)
- Applied Ethnography, Practical Ethics (BASc year 3)
Research
Isaiah’s DPhil research project, currently titled ‘Once You’re In, What Makes You Stay? Do You Assimilate, Co-Exist, or Hide Away?’, examines how specific initiatives and programmes at elite institutions, such as the University of Oxford, promote a culture that champions various forms of diversity. Some of these 'structures' of particular interest include university-wide initiatives such as the Astrophoria Foundation Year programme and Opportunity Oxford, college-specific programmes, and student and alumni-run societies and organisations. He aims to explore how social anthropological insights from these 'institutionalised structures of advocacy' can guide us from a narrow focus on widening access and participation, to a more holistic understanding of belonging and retention within elite institutions.