Professional memberships

Supervision

I am interested in supervising PhD students and establishing research collaborations on aspects of stigma, discrimination, and inequality. I am interested in the causes and practices of stigma, but also the lived experiences of people who experience inequality and how they make sense of these experiences. My work draws on both social psychological and sociological theory and includes both quantitative and qualitative methodologies.

• Reviewer for: British Journal of Psychology; Economic and Social Research Council; European Journal of Social Psychology; Gender and Education; Journal of Homosexuality; Leverhulme Trust.
• Member of: British Psychological Society; European Association of Social Psychology; Society for Personality and Social Psychology; Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues.

Recent Research Grants

• Wales Office of Research & Development April 2010- March 2013 (£55,650) Project title: The role of statutory social workers in suicide prevention. With Jonathan Scourfield.
• Economic and Social Research Council December 2005- December 2008 (£154, 477). The role of physiological arousal and intergroup anxiety in prejudice. With Greg Maio.
• Bausch & Lomb Europe: February 2004- February 2007 ( £18,653) Reducing contact lens related patient anxiety. With Tom Margrain.
• Welsh Office of Research and Development: Nov 2001 (£96, 803). Young people, gender, and suicide prevention. With Jonathan Scourfield, Lindsay Prior, and Jane Scourfield.
• Japanese Ministry of Education, Science, Sports, and Culture: 1998 – 2000. Project title: A comparative study on the contextual and social identity. With Toshikatsu Kakimoto.
• Nuffield Foundation Bursary: 1998 (£1,300). Project title: Intergroup anxiety and outgroup perception.

Undergraduate Teaching

• Year one Introduction to Social Psychology
• Year two Social Research Methods
• Year two Psychology and Social Behaviour
• Year three Dissertation

Postgraduate Teaching

• PGCE/ Cert Ed (FE): Foundations of Learning and Teaching
• Masters Social Work

Doctoral Students

• Constantino Dumangane (2010- ). African/Caribbean Boys' Experiences of Secondary Education. Co-supervised with David James and Debbie Epstein.
• Susanne Spooner (2010- ). Resilience and Volunteering by Looked After Children. Co-supervised with Sally Holland
• Tom Slater (2010- ). Evaluating the role of social workers in suicide prevention. Co-supervised with Jonathan Scourfield
• Richard Taulke- Johnson (2005- 2009) Living Differently: The Experiences of Gay Male University Students. Co-supervised with Debbie Epstein.
• Hannah Gee (2004- 2009) Identity Negotiation and the Equality Agenda in Universities. Co-supervised with Debbie Epstein.
• Helen Court (2004- 2007). Anxiety and the Optometric Patient. Co-supervised with Tom Margrain.

I am an applied social psychologist. At the core of my research is an emphasis on applying substantive social psychological theory to the social sciences. I work with theories and methods from experimental social psychology and apply them to everyday practice and experience. My research has employed a range of designs through experimental and quantitative surveys, to discourse and dialogical analysis. I remain committed to both quantitative and qualitative methods as and when they are most appropriate to the research question.

The themes that run through my work are emotions and social justice. I am interested in anxiety and distress, and how these emotions are central to the experiences and practices of stigma, inequality, and discrimination. My research explores how we fear particular groups of people (e.g., people with schizophrenia, children who are HIV+), and how these fears impact on actual interactions. Importantly, this analysis considers how fear is recognised and understood, but also how it is embodied in physiological and behavioural responses.