Suyin
Haynes
I’m an AHRC-funded Collaborative Doctoral Researcher based at the University of Westminster and the Royal Geographical Society, where my PhD research explores the photographic archive of Elizabeth Wilhelmina Ness. Here is more information about the project. In 2026, I completed my MA in Southeast Asian Studies at SOAS with a focus on Southeast Asian cinemas.
Alongside my research, I am a Lecturer in Journalism at City St George’s, University of London. I also work across cultural programming, media consultancy and storytelling campaigns. As a journalist over the past decade, I’ve reported on stories in the UK and internationally with bylines in The New York Times, Al Jazeera, CNN, the Guardian, Jacobin and more.
My creative practice includes independent projects: I write Ginkgo Leaves, a personal newsletter inspired by the resilience of the ginkgo tree, and I am the co-founder of fragments, a collaborative newsletter exploring sibling grief. I am also a published short story writer.
Previously, I served as Head of Editorial at gal-dem, the award-winning media company committed to platforming people of colour from marginalised genders. Before that, I spent five years at TIME, first in Hong Kong as an Audience Editor, then in London as a Senior Reporter covering gender, culture and identity.
At the core of my work is a commitment to storytelling that centres complexity, care and sensitivity. My agent is Kat Aitken at Lexington Literary.
Digital & print press
-
Quoted in ‘Grief Journalism: How To Find Meaning When You’re Grieving — And Respect Other’s Grief’
Journo Resources
September 2025
-
Quoted in ‘Clare Rewcastle Brown: The cost of exposing Malaysia’s biggest corruption scandal’
Women in Journalism
May 2025
-
Quoted in ‘Uncertain future of PinkNews sparks fears for LGBTQ+ media in UK’
The Guardian
December 2024
-
Featured in ‘Who to follow: 90 media consultants to help your newsroom’,
Journalism.co.uk
October 2024
-
Quoted in ‘On documenting heritage’
Shado
August 2023
-
Quoted in Mixed Messages newsletter
Mixed messages
February 2023
-
Quoted in ‘#StopESEAHate: A Year On’
ELLE UK
May 2022
Judging
Podcasts & broadcast
-
In conversation with Dr Ghassan Abu Sittah for Amnesty International
Amnesty International UK
April 2024
-
‘Don’t Call Me Exotic’ with Oh Annie Oh
Don't Call Me "Exotic”
April 2022
-
‘But Where Are You From?’ with besea.n
‘But Where Are You From?’ with besea.n
January 2022
-
‘And Just Like That… He Died?!’ with The Grief Gang
December 2021
-
‘Do We Ever See Ourselves Clearly?’, So I Got to Thinking – The Sex and the City Podcast
August 2021
-
‘Expectations of Joe Biden from LGBTQ Europe’, with Rémy Bonny for PRIDE
January 2021
-
Segment on The Damage Report about the #MeToo movement in Asia
January 2019
Projects
My fortnightly newsletter loosely inspired by the ginkgo tree, sharing writing on the themes of growth, time and loss
I’m a Director at New Tide Media Network, a UK based network amplifying East and Southeast Asian perspectives in western media
I’m part of the strategy group for Chinatown Collective, a Community Interest Company dedicated to heritage-making activities connected to London’s Chinatown
I have been a coach to two young people through the charity Arts Emergency.
A mixed media exhibition as part of East and South East Asian Heritage Month in September 2021. Myself and my mother participated in this project highlighting the contribution of NHS migrant workers from the ESEA region from the 1960s – 1980s.