About
DICKY DREAD
Writer • Researcher • Cultural Producer • DJ
Based: Off-grid community, DIY home in mid-Wales, UK
Fields: Anarchism, traveller culture, political ecology, culture, music
Formats: Books, long-form essays, video series, talks, festivals, events
PROFILE
Dicky Dread is a writer, public intellectual and cultural producer whose work documents and advances anarchism as a lived social practice rather than an abstract political theory. Emerging from sustained engagement with traveller culture, countercultural movements and mutual aid networks, his work combines lived experience with rigorous interdisciplinary research across political theory, anthropology, ecology and rewilding.
Across an extensive catalogue of books, talks and cultural projects, Dicky examines how people live outside – and in resistance to – dominant systems of property, money, work and authority. His approach is grounded, historically informed and explicitly anti-authoritarian, rejecting abstraction in favour of material conditions, everyday practices and practical alternatives.
CULTURE
Cuckoo Crew – Founder & Organiser
Dicky runs The Cuckoo Crew, a collective that organises festivals, gatherings and events rooted in misbehaviour, autonomy, humour and collective care. The crew operates outside commercial festival culture, prioritising self-organisation, participation, free food and community over spectacle and profit.
RESEARCH THEMES
Dicky's writing is characterised by humour, strong internal cross-referencing, careful citation and resistance to ideological simplification.
PUBLIC ENGAGEMENT
- •Public talks and presentations
- •Online interviews and panel discussions
- •Community-based political education
- •Planned lecture, podcast interviews and event series linked to "Practical Anarchy"
APPROACH
- •Anti-hierarchical and anti-authoritarian
- •Clear, direct prose without academic gatekeeping
- •Politically committed, analytically rigorous
- •Grounded in lived experience and material conditions
ACADEMIC BACKGROUND
(Summary)
ACADEMIC IDENTITY
Professor Richard Leach
BSc MSc PhD DSc CPhys CEng FHEA FInstP
Internationally recognised researcher in precision engineering and metrology. Works part time and remotely, with no teaching or admin duties.
EDUCATION
- • BSc Applied Physics – Kingston University London
- • MSc Industrial Measurement Systems – Brunel University
- • PhD Surface Metrology – University of Warwick
- • DSc Surface Metrology – University of Warwick
ACADEMIC APPOINTMENTS
- • Chair in Metrology, University of Nottingham (2015–present, part-time)
- • Principal Research Scientist, National Physical Laboratory (1990–2014)
RESEARCH PROFILE
- • ERC Advanced Grant awardee
- • h-index: 52 (Scopus), 63 (Google Scholar)
- • 250+ peer-reviewed journal papers, 300+ conference papers
- • Author/editor of 9 textbooks, and multiple book chapters and international standards
- • Founder of Taraz Metrology Ltd., a university spin-out company working on sustainable manufacturing
Total career research funding in excess of £34m.
Publications: Google Scholar profile
AWARDS
- • First Highly Ranked Scholar GPS "Surface Finish" (2024, 2025)
- • Finkelstein Medal from the Institute of Measurement and Control, for "notable contributions to measurement internationally" (2019)
- • High-level Expert Status, Harbin Institute of Technology, China
- • Visiting professorships at Harbin Institute of Technology and Loughborough University
- • 75 keynote and invited presentations across the globe