CURRENT POSITIONS
- Senior Research Fellow, Magdalene College, University of Cambridge.
- Research Associate, Department of Sociology, University of Cambridge
- Research placement: Work and Health Joint Unit, Department for Work and Pensions, UK Government. Co-lead evaluator for the Group Work / JOBS II intervention.
- Organiser of the 'Challenges of experimental government seminar series'.
- Technical Advisor for the Loneliness Commission, Department of Digital, Culture, Media & Sport
- Advisory group member - Health Inequalities: What Next? - 10 years on from the Marmot Review. Health Foundation
- Honorary research fellow, WHO-ECOHOST, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, London.
Academic positions and activities
- Supervisor - MPhil in Sociology - recent students: Sara Troedsson (Assessing the Relationship Between Workplace Presenteeism, Mental Health and Wellbeing in the United Kingdom and Marieke Botman (Designing and conducting a qualitative research project, aiming to explore challenges and best practices in mental health service provision for Syrian refugees in the United Kingdom and the Netherlands)
- Mellon Fellow in Public Policy (2016 to 2017), Department of Politics and International Relations (POLIS), University of Cambridge.
- Teaching Bye-Fellow, Magdalene College, University of Cambridge (2016 to 2017).
- Course lecturer and supervisor: MPhil in Public Policy: ‘Employment, Mental Health and Welfare: How do we get people into work (2016 to 2017).
- Co-organiser with Charlotte Sausman and Pedro Ramos Pinto: Understanding Inequalities: new thinking for public policy
Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Department of Politics and International Relations, Nuffield College, University of Oxford (2007 – 2009)
- Co-editor of Options for a New Britain and Options for a New Britain: cross cutting policy issues with Professor Iain McLean, Dr David Halpern and Dr Varun Uberoi.
- ESRC funded project which culminated in two books bringing together leading academics, politicians and policy-makers to provide policy options for the incoming British government in 2010.
- Organised three high-level conferences as well as seminars and roundtables in Cambridge, Oxford and London involving senior politicians, policy-makers, academics and journalists.
- Liaised with senior politicians and government ministers, prepared and wrote press releases, policy briefs, funding pitches, journal articles and book chapters, and raised project funding.
Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) Postdoctoral Fellowship, Faculty of Social & Political Science, University of Cambridge, Visiting post-doctoral fellow, Department of Social and Behavioural Sciences, Harvard School of Public Health (2005 – 2006)
ESRC-funded PhD student, Faculty of Social & Political Science, Magdalene College, University of Cambridge (2001 – 2005)
- Thesis: Psychosocial Health Impact of Welfare to Work Programmes on Lone Parents.
- This research has formed the evidence base for a series of publications most notably the Economics Task group for the Marmot Review and also the Fair Society Healthy Lives review. The evidence review was also used in the EU Working for Equity in Health projects in 2012. More recently the evidence review featured in the Social determinants of health and the health divide section 6.2.3 Active labour-market policies.
ESRC Overseas Institutional Visit Award, Centre for Society, Health and Human Development, Harvard School of Public Health
(Aug – Dec 2003). Under the supervision of Professor Ichiro Kawachi.
Queen Mary, University of London, Department of Geography, MSc (1999 – 2000)
- Thesis: “Health Impact Assessment of Employment Regeneration Schemes in East London” (40,000 words) (Grade: Distinction)
- Method: In-depth qualitative interviews with key stakeholders in regeneration programmes (programme participants, managers and local government officials).
BSc (2:1) Human Geography Queen Mary, University of London (1996 – 1999)
Academic reviewer
Journal of Social Policy, Lancet, British Medical Journal, Medicine Sans Frontiers, Social Science and Medicine, UNHCR, Scandinavian Journal of Public Health, International Journal of Culture and Mental Health, Oxford Companion to Architecture, Royal Commission for Environmental Pollution, Cambridge Journal of Economics, Journal of Evaluation and Programme Planning.
Grant reviewer for the Economic and Social Research Council (UK), European Commission and R2HC-DfiD.
Teaching
MPhil in Sociology and SOC 1 undergraduate (2017 to present): Department of Sociology, University of Cambridge
I have previously supervised statistics courses in Cambridge, acted as an external marker for the Int 1 Projects in the Department of Sociology. I have also acted as a supervisor on the Geography of Modern Britain paper, Department of Geography, Cambridge.