Stephen Peter Lissenburgh also known as Steve Lissenburgh (30 April 1964 – 26 December 2004) was a British policy researcher, economist, school teacher and social scientist.^[1] He was married to Sri Lankan born economist Sonali Deraniyagala. He was one of the victims of the devastating 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami which claimed the lives of an estimated 227,898 people.^[2]

Biography

He was brought up in East End of London, an area in London. He attended the Little Ilford School for his primary level education in Manor Park, London. He studied Economics at Girton College, Cambridge which was one of the constituent colleges of the University of Cambridge. He gained reputation of being a clever student during his time studying at the Girton College and he coincidentally met his future wife in Sonali Deraniyagala.^[3]

Career

Despite the educational qualifications he received from the University of Cambridge, he decided to become a secondary school teacher, much to everyone's surprise especially among his social circles. He started working at schools in impoverished and underprivileged inner-city areas.^[3] He also collaborated with his wife Sonali to focus on educational projects in Sri Lanka targeting underprivileged children in the island nation. He resumed his post-graduate studies from where he left off after his five years of service in teaching schoolchildren and completed his Master's degree in the field of Industrial relations at Warwick School. He then returned to where it all began at the University of Cambridge in order to pursue his Doctorate in Economics. His Doctor of Philosophy focused immensely on discrimination against women, which he innovatively connected through the usage of economic sense with sociological methods by applying his paradigm shift approach to tackle societal injustices and challenges.^[4]

He did not eventually begin his career in the field of policy research until the age of 30. He entered the Policy Studies Institute (PSI) in the level of junior research grade in 1994 at the age of 30. He quickly rose to prominence as the head of a large research group and up until his untimely demise, he served as a key figure playing a pivotal and instrumental role in policy evaluations in the field of labour market disadvantage.^[3] His most important early contribution in his field of work came in the form of a research paper titled Value for Money on the costs and benefits of distributing equal rights for part-time workers, which he, in fact, conjured up on a significantly crucial small-budget fund granted by the Trades Union Congress. He moved to the Institute for Public Policy Research in 1997 where he worked on university-industry knowledge transfer related aspects. However within a year by around 1998, left the Institute for Public Policy Research and rejoined the Policy Studies Institute where he involved in numerous projects ranging from unemployment and he produced a steam of publications on the topic of unemployment.^[3]

He was known for his people management skills and social skills where he displayed his potential to the core by facilitating to co-ordinate about nine co-authors in a complex project proposal on the Government's New Deal during the timeframe 2000–2001. The study was successfully published in 2001 as New Deal for Young People: National Survey of Participants, Stage 2.^[3]

Death

In December 2004, he went on holiday vacation to Sri Lanka with his wife Sonali and with two sons Vikram and Nikhil as a part of his family's annual Christmas trip.^[5] Sri Lanka was their usual winter holiday location, and on a fateful day, he and his family visited the country coinciding with the unprecedented 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami during the latter part of December. It was at Yala National Park that Steve, his children, and Sonali's parents all lost their lives when the tsunami hit the said location on Boxing Day on 26 December 2004.^{[2][6][7][8][9][10]} Stephen Lissenburgh was 40 at the time of his death.

References