Policy Fellow of the Centre for Science and Policy

Ben is a Special Adviser to the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra).

Prior to this role Ben was Chief of Staff at Labour Together, leading political strategy, research insights, and project delivery to support Labour in government and to achieve electoral success. This included co-authoring Labour Together's 2024 election review and being seconded to Labour HQ’s campaign strategy team during the 2024 election campaign working on insights and messaging design.

Previously Ben worked for the Behavioural Insights Team (BIT) where he was the Senior Policy Advisor to the CEO. Whilst at BIT he also spent time on secondment to Nesta as a Senior Policy Manager. The focus of Ben's policy work at Nesta was on economic growth, productivity, taxation and public finances, as well as undertaking public polling and innovative public deliberation methods.

Ben has also held board positions as an independent commissioner on climate change for the Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Combined Authority, for which he has also chaired the just transition subgroup, and as Deputy Chair of The Albion Foundation, a football-based charity in the West Midlands with more than 70 staff.

Earlier in his career Ben worked in Parliament as a researcher, as Chief Executive of a community-based charity in Cambridge and on UK trade in Myanmar. Ben was also part of a team which jointly won the IPPR Economics Prize in 2019 and was also shortlisted for the Bennett Public Policy Prize in 2022. He holds an MSc with distinction in Economic and Social History and a first-class BA in History, both from Oxford University. During both degrees he won prizes for his research, and he has published academic work on the history of migration and social cohesion in the UK as well as on mental health in secondary schools.