Our team
Roman Road LDN is a online community published by not-for-profit media organisation Social Streets C.I.C. It provides daily content about the area around Roman Road in East London. Our patch includes Bow, Globe Town, Fish Island, Mile End and Stepney – about 50,000 local residents.
Tabitha Stapely
EDITOR-IN-CHIEF
2016 to present
Tabitha is the founder and director of Social Streets C.IC, the not-for-profit news and media organisation that publishes the family of Slice titles for Tower Hamlets including Roman Road LDN. She has worked as a magazine editor at several top publishing houses, including Hearst Magazines where she lead on digital content strategy for titles including Elle, Red, Esquire, Handbag and Harpers, and previously The Telegraph Saturday Magazine. Stapely was Chair then CEO of Roman Road Trust from 2013 to 2018 and has extensive experience of local governance, neighbourhood forums and community capacity building.
Vacant role
PARTNERSHIPS MANAGER
Want to fix the media? Do the challenges faced by the local news industry interest you? Would you like to work alongside the award-winning founder of Social Streets CIC to pioneer a sustainable model of local journalism that will secure local democracy for all? If so, get in touch with Tabitha.
Agatha Scaggiante
EDITORIAL ASSISTANT
Newsroom Leadership Programme 2024-2025
September 2024 to present
Agatha graduated from The University of Edinburgh with a Philosophy MA in 2021. She is a freelance journalist, as well as an artist and curator. Agatha is interested in issues of housing, environment and culture. She joined The Slice Tower Hamlets as an editorial intern for Roman Road LDN in May 2024 to follow her interest in the future of local news. See all work by Agatha Scaggiante.
Sophie Howarth
INTERN
April 2025 to present
Want to work with us? As a social enterprise, we have an entirely educational editorial floor providing a mixture of training and work to people starting their careers in journalism, including opportunities exclusively for local young people. Read more about Social Streets C.I.C here, including internships, academic placements, citizen journalism and our Digital Editor Trainee and Leadership programmes.
Previous staff, interns, and work placement students
Ray Bonsall, Intern
Ray graduated with a degree in Journalism from Goldsmiths, University of London, in 2024, where her dissertation focused on citizen-led climate action in Scotland. A passion for local news led her to a four-month internship at The Slice between December 2024 to March 2025, where she wrote about local culture, art and democracy. Ray went on to get a job at the Liverpool Echo. See all work by Ray Bonsall.
Lorna McDonald, Intern
Lancashire-born Lorna graduated in Journalism at Nottingham Trent University in July 2024. Her dissertation project focused on the counterproductive nature of radical climate activists and who to trust in the climate crisis. After interning at the Slice from September to November 2024 she got a job as a Content Researcher for Pink News. See all work by Lorna McDonald.
Lara Bowman, Intern
Following her degree in English and a brief stint in digital marketing, Lara completed her NCTJ at News Associates before undertaking a month-long internship at The Slice in October 2024. She has lived in Cape Town and Buenos Aires and is interested in long-form features analysing social trends, particularly around evolving gender and social issues. Lara went on to freelance at BBC Radio Bristol and The Sun. See all work by Lara Bowman.
Imogen Garfinkel, Deputy Editor
After graduating from the University of Cambridge with an MA in English Literature, Imogen joined our Newsroom Leadership Programme in September 2023, while also studying for an NCTJ with PA Media. Imogen joined The Slice to follow her interest in the cultural and political powers of marginalised communities. She left in September 2024 for a reporting job at the Jewish Chronicle. See all work by Imogen Garfinkel.
Johannes Herman, Partnership Manager
Johannes Hermann has a background in fundraising for Clean Tech and Sustainable investing and describes himself as a business developer, entrepreneur and Web3 start-up hustler. Hermann worked at Social Streets C.I.C. between December 2023 and August 2024 to build partnerships with local stakeholders and launch CoJo School.
Albie Matthews, Intern
Albie graduated from City Investigative Journalism MA in 2023. They are interested in conducting in-depth public interest investigations looking into stories that expose human rights abuses. Albie joined Social Streets as an editorial intern for Roman Road LDN in 2024, then went on to get job at Farmer’s Weekly. See all work by Albie Matthews.
Sinead Campbell, Intern
Sinead graduated from King’s College London with a BA in Liberal Arts with a Major in History just before interning with us for three months between September and December 2023. She went on to do an internship at the Financial Times and was then accepted for the Guardian Scholarship. See all work by Sinead Campbell.
Ellie MacInnes, Commercial Assistant
Ellie graduated in Law from Dublin University in 2021 and worked for Ireland’s Department of Justice before joining Social Streets CIC in 2022 to lead the growth of memberships and advertising sales for The Slice Magazine.
Srinidhi Balakrishnan, Intern
Srinidhi Balakrishnan graduated in Social Sciences from Cambridge University in 2022 before working in media for a year in Mumbai. She joined Roman Road LDN in April 2023 for our four-month internship before moving to the FT. See all work by Srinidhi Balkrishnan.
Polly Nash, Newsroom Leadership Programme
City of London International Journalism MA student Polly Nash undertook a four-month placement from January 2022 to April 2022. She subsequently joined our Newsroom Leadership Programme in September 2022 and progressed to role of editor in autumn 2023. She went on to work for The Pie .See all work by Polly Nash.
Aasif Rahman, Intern
Assif Rahman, from Bow, completed a one-month work placement in June 2023 as part of his BA in Journalism at City University. See all work by Aasif Rahman.
Valerie Vishnevetskaya , Intern
Following her Masters in Russian and Post-Soviet Studies at UCL, English graduate Valerie just us for a two-month internship in April and May 2023 before securing a job at Raedas. See all work by Valerie Vishnevetskaya.
George Hayes, Intern
George Hayes graduated with an MA and BA degrees in English Literature from the University of Leeds then qualified with a gold standard in his NCTJ diploma in multimedia journalism before joining our four month internship programme in December 2022. He then secured a role as Reporter for Newsquest’s Romford Recorder. See all work by George Hayes.
Victoria Miller, Newsroom Leadership Programme
After working in the charity sector, Victoria Miller transitioned into journalism. She graduated with an MA in Magazine Journalism from City University in 2021 before joining Roman Road LDN as part of our Editorial Leadership Scheme, leaving as Editor in December 2022. Miller is currently Features Writer for The Caterer. See all work by Victoria Miller.
Panayiota Demosthenous, Intern
Yiota joined us after graduating from Goldsmiths with an MA in Television Journalism. She interned at the Slice from April to June 2022 and went on to take the role of lead reporter at My Local News. See all work by Panayiota Demosthenous.
Atiya Chowdhury, Work Placement
City of London Journalism MA student Atiya Choudhury undertook a two-week placement in February 2022 with us as part of her studies. See all work by Atiya Chowdhury.
Oyin Osin, Intern
Oyin graduated from the University of Warwick and joined us for a one-month internship in September 2021. Oyin’s work has also appeared in Black Ballad magazine, where she writes about the daily experiences of Black women in modern Britain with the hopes of educating others on racism and misogynoir. See all work by Oyin Osin.
Evie Breese, Editorial Assistant
Evie graduated from Goldsmith’s University with an MA in Journalism and joined in March 2021. She left in Ocober 2021 to work as a Digital Reporter at the Big Issue. See all work by Evie Breese.
Anna Lamche, Intern
Anna graduated from UCL with a first in English Literature in 2020 and joined us as an intern from April to July 2021. She went on to become a Reporter for the Islington Tribune, Assistant Editor at Camden New Journal and now works as a reporter for BBC News Online. See all work by Anna Lamche.
Natasha Shah, Partners and Patrons Manager
Natasha Shah ran her own creative agency for ten years before joining us as Partners and Patrons Manager. She established our Partners, Patrons and Pubilcation ecosystem and lead our crowdfunding campaign in November 2022 successfully raising £15,000.
Tom McGhie, Intern
Tom graduated from Goldsmiths with an MA in Journalism and joined us as an intern between January and March 2021. is now a Digital Reporter at Boat International Media. See all work by Tom McGhie.
Siva Thangarajah, Editorial Assistant
Siva graduated with a MA in International Journalism from City University in 2018. She joined us as Editorial Assistant in December 2019 and was promoted to Commissioning Editor. Siva left in December 2020 to become Digital Communications Officer at Imix. See all work by Siva Thangarajah.
Grace Boyle, Intern
Grace graduated from The Royal Conservatoire of Scotland in 2017, where she trained as an actor. She joined us as an intern for three months between September 2020 and November 2020 following a newly discovered passion for sharing stories in the written form. See all work by Grace Boyle.
Edna Bannor, Work Placement
We first met Edna Bannor, a Year Eleven student at Bishop Challenor School in Shadwell, when she took part in our Mad About Grime project, a youth project designed to give insights into the media industry to local young people. Enthused about reporting on politics Edna then undertook a work placement with us the following year and went on to study politics at university.
Francesca Lister-Fell, Intern
Francesca graduated in English Literature from The University of Edinburgh in 2019 and joined us as an intern in 2020 from September to November, an extra-long internship due to the pandemic. She went on to do an MA in Journalism at City University in 2020, did a stint as a reporter at Welwyn Hatfield Times before joining Camden New Journal. See all work by Francesca Lister-Fell.
Atifah Chowdhury, Work Placement
Atifah Chowdhury, student at Mulberry UTC in Bow, undertook a two-week work placement to get hands on experience in the creative and media industries.
Anna Lezard, Intern
Anna graduated with an MA in New Media and Digital Culture and joined us an an intern in March 2018. She was promoted to Social Media Assistant and helped developed the website giving her taste for coding. She left in December 2019 is now working as a developer for Mubi. See all work by Anna Lezard.
Fred O’Brien, Editorial Assistant
Fred joined us in 2018 as Editorial Assistant while completing his NCTJ in Multimedia Journalism. He worked for Roman Road LDN between November 2018 and November 2019. He is now a software engineer for The Guardian. See all work by Fred O-Brien
Scarlet Hannington, Intern
Scarlet graduated with First Class Honours in 2018 and joined us as an intern from November to February in 2019 and is now pursuing a career as a freelance journalist. See all work by Scarlet Hannington.
Natasha Forrest, Intern
Natasha Forrest graduated in English Literature graduate from Queen Mary University of London 2018 and joined us as an intern in 2019 from January to March. She is now Editorial Assistant at The Cultural Me. See all work by Natasha Forrest.
Dominkia Kubinyova, Intern
Dominika Kubinyova graduated from City University in 2018 where she did her MA in Magazine Journalism. After her internship here between September 2018 and December 2018, she pursued her interest in fashion journalism and is now Copywriter for French Connection. See all work by Dominika Kubinyova
Megan Agnew, Intern
Megan was a graduate of City University where she did her MA in Magazine Journalism. After interning at Roman Road LDN from May 2018 to July 2018 she went on to the Sunday Times Magazine. See all work by Megan Agnew.