Sharon Witherspoon is head of policy at the Academy of Social Sciences. She was at the Nuffield Foundation, a grant-giving endowed charitable trust, for 19 years, first heading its programs of social research and social policy, and then for three years as director. Before that, she was a practicing social researcher at NatCen and the Policy Studies Institute, designing and analysing large-scale social surveys. She was awarded an MBE for services to social science in 2008, received the British Academy President’s Medal in 2011, and was awarded an honorary doctorate by University College London in 2015 for services to social sciences and law.