Personal statement

I am a research associate in the Social Work and Social Policy team at Strathclyde, working on the ESRC Centre for Lifecourse Health Equity: Equalise project. My background is in population health. My current research looks at how learning and work impact on health and health inequalities, and public engagement is a key part of this work.

The Equalise project is focused on health inequalities and the social determinants of health and uses quantitative, qualitative and mixed methods research. It's a partnership project, where I work with researchers from universities across the UK and in France, as well as with partners in third sector and government organisations. I am involved in the qualitative and mixed methods strands of the research, where I am working on literature reviews and developing proposals for primary research. I am also leading on developing the plans for public engagement. This will include establishing public scrutiny panels, who will feed into the research that we do, and running a set of citizens' juries, who will take our research findings and develop policy recommendations.

I undertook my PhD in sociology, looking at political decision making and how it varied between different UK cities in the second half of the twentieth century. My work since then has been focused on health inequalities and population health. I have worked on projects about how we measure deprivation and poverty, mental health service provision, demographic change in the city of Glasgow since the early 2000s, and housing and support for people experiencing homelessness. These projects have also been undertaken in partnership, working with government and the third sector, and with people with direct experience of the issues being studied.

At Strathclyde, I'm hoping to learn more about conducting research, working with partners and public and community engagement from an academic perspective. I'll also be undertaking teaching and supervision.

I would be interested in hearing from other researchers who've worked across academia and the public sector, or who've worked in interdisciplinary, mixed methods research groups, or who work on public engagement.