There were 29 inspiring participants in South West Crucible 2014.
Diego Acosta Arcarazo, University of Bristol
Dr Diego Acosta Arcarazo is a Lecturer in European Law at the University of Bristol. His area of expertise is EU Migration Law and he is currently interested in migration law and policies in South America. He is the author or co-editor of several books and papers in the area including: EU Immigration Law: Text and Commentary (Martins Nijhoff, 20112, with S. Peers, E. Guild, K. Groenendijk and V. Moreno-Lax); and EU Justice and Security Law: After Lisbon and Stockholm (Hart, 2014, with C. Murphy). Dr Acosta has provided consultancy for the EU and the ICMPD and will soon begin working as collaborator and co-supervisor on a five year research project entitled Prospects for International Migration Governance (MIGPROSP). Diego is very keen to increase public understanding on migration law and politics issues.
Rachel Arnold, University of Bath
Rachel obtained her BSc Sport and Exercise Science, MSc Sport and Exercise Psychology, and PhD degrees from Loughborough University. Rachel is now a Lecturer in Sport and Performance Psychology in the Department for Health, University of Bath. Rachel’s research centres around the psychology of performance excellence, with particular interests in the organizational stress process, performance leadership and management, performance environments and cultures, and the enhancement of personal performances. Rachel combines these research interests with her own elite sport experiences to provide sport psychology support to a number of athletes, teams, and organizations.
Rhian Atkin, University of Bristol
Rhian obtained a PhD in Portuguese literature and gender studies from the University of Leeds. She taught at Leeds, Manchester and Liverpool before joining the University of Bristol as Lecturer in Portuguese and Lusophone Studies in September 2012. Rhian has published on twentieth century literature and culture, most recently with a focus on masculinities and social change. Her research is broadly interdisciplinary. Rhian is in the early stages of a large project on trauma, conflict and the human body, the first stage of which will explore discourses of disability in Portugal during and after World War One. Rhian is particularly interested in the nature of relationships between the various ways that we talk about human experience and human bodies in cultural terms, and government policies relating to those experiences and bodies, and is looking forward to sharing ideas with and learning from researchers from a broad range of fields.
Laurence Carmichael, University of the West of England
Laurence Carmichael studied for her law degree at University Paris I, she got a Masters of Law from Bristol University. She went on to complete her PhD in Political Science at Newcastle University while a Lecturer in European studies at Sunderland University. She then worked for a year as a researcher at Southbank University before taking up an academic position at UWE, Bristol. She is now Senior Lecturer in the WHO Collaborating Centre for Healthy Urban Environments. She has carried out EU funded research on local governance and policies as well as evaluation work for various organisations and local authorities. She is keen to explore broad multidisciplinary synergies for promoting smart cities. She has been a local councillor, chair of twinning association, currently non-executive director of the social entreprise Renaisi and will cycle 1500km across France between the third and fourth SW Crucible Labs and fundraising for Parkinson’s UK.
Helen Cramer, University of Bristol
Helen has a degree in Social Anthropology from Sussex University, a masters in Medical Anthropology from Brunel University and a PhD on the gendered nature of homelessness from Glasgow University. Helen works in the Centre for Academic Primary Care at the University of Bristol. She is just finishing a NIHR, School for Primary Care post-doctoral fellowship. Helen’s research interests in health are wide but many recent studies have focused on mental health, gender and cardiovascular conditions. For her fellowship award she led a multi-site ethnographic study looking at heart attack care and variation in heart attack mortality between UK hospitals. Helen is about to start a pilot study of a new listening intervention for GP’s to help manage patients with medically unexplained physical symptoms and is working on a proposal for a trial to test the effectiveness of domestic violence perpetrator prevention programmes
Sam Creavin, University of Bristol
Sam is an NIHR Academic Clinical Fellow in General Practice in Bristol and splits his time between clinical training and the Centre for Academic Primary Care. His research examines the utility of clinical features for diagnosing dementia in general practice. During his undergraduate medical training, Sam spent additional time researching the epidemiology of pain and fatigue in the population and obtained an MPhil in Epidemiology. Sam’s postgraduate integrated clinical-academic training has been in Bristol where he has examined modifiable risk factors for dementia, and collaborated with colleagues in Oxford and Cambridge on a series of Cochrane diagnostic test accuracy reviews of neuropsychological tests for dementia
Anne Daykin, University of Bristol
Anne qualified as a Physiotherapist from the Cardiff School of Physiotherapy in 1990 and specialised in neuromusculoskeletal and pain management. She gained her Masters in Manipulative Therapy at the University of South Australia in 1996 and went on to complete a PhD at the University of East Anglia in 2002. Subsequently, Anne has been a Clinical Research Fellow at the University of Warwick and a Research Associate at the University of Dundee. Presently Anne is a Research Associate at the University of Bristol working on qualitative studies exploring trail oversight committees and loss to follow-up within RCTs. Anne still practises clinically and is passionate about enabling health care professionals and patients to maximise their management of chronic neuromusculoskeletal conditions.
Mirella Di Lorenzo, University of Bath
Mirella joined the University of Bath as lecturer of Biochemical Engineering, Department of Chemical Engineering, in July 2011. She graduated in Chemical engineering in 2003 from the University of Naples, Italy and carried out a PhD in Biotechnology at the University of Greifswald (Germany). She then had two post-doctoral experiences, one as Marie Curie Fellow at Newcastle University, and the other in the Nanotechnology Research Centre of Lecce. Mirella’s main research interest regards the development of innovative electrochemical devices to power portable devices with wastewater, implantable power sources that extract the energy from the sugars in blood and monitoring water quality.
Sally Dowling, University of the West of England
Sally describes herself as a ‘life-long learner’ having gained a BA, two Masters degrees and three professional qualifications between 1989 and 2011. She worked for 21 years in the NHS, in mental health, sexual health and public health before coming to UWE as a PhD student in 2007, gaining a post as a Senior Lecturer there in 2009. She mainly teaches evidence-based practice and research methods to undergraduate and post-graduate nurses and public health students as well as being involved in dissertation supervision. Her PhD, awarded in 2013, explores the experience of women who breastfeed long-term and has a strong anthropological and sociological focus. Sally is interested in interdisciplinary breastfeeding research and in thinking about the contribution that different disciplinary perspectives can bring to understanding breastfeeding experiences. She is currently exploring this in relation to young parents and breastfeeding, and in thinking about the influence of body image on young women’s experiences of breastfeeding.
Emma Dures, University of the West of England
Emma’s first degree was a BA in Literature and Film from the University of Kent. Years later, while bringing up her children, Emma started studying with the Open University and went on to gain a BSc in Psychology. This was followed by an MSc in Health Psychology and a PhD, both from UWE. She is a Senior Research Fellow at UWE, although she is based in Academic Rheumatology at the Bristol Royal Infirmary. Emma is a chartered psychologist with an interest in how clinical encounters can help patients acquire the information and skills needed to self-manage their long-term health condition. She has a particular interest in the use of cognitive-behavioural techniques by clinicians to support shared decision making and facilitate behaviour change. Emma is keen to explore models of care at individual, team and organisational levels, and how these can be implemented in clinical practice.
Tim Fowler, University of Bristol
Tim obtained his PhD in Political Philosophy in 2010 at the University of York. His thesis dealt with parental rights, and particularly whether parents have rights to send their children to religious schools. Following the PhD he did a two year teaching fellowship at the University of Warwick, where he founded the Children, Education and Philosophy working group. This year he took up a post as lecturer in Political Theory at the University of Bristol. His work concerns the ethics of intergenerational relations, including the rights of parents, children’s place in democracy and the obligations of current generations to future generations.
Katherine Hendry, University of Bristol
Kate was awarded her MA MSci degree in Natural Sciences from the University of Cambridge in 2004. She then completed her DPhil at Oxford University in biogeochemistry, during which she spent three summer seasons working at the British Antarctic Survey Research Station on the West Antarctic Peninsula. After eighteen months of postdoctoral work at Oxford, she was awarded a postdoctoral scholarship at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, US, where she stayed for over two years. After two years at Cardiff University as a research lecturer, she is now a Royal Society University Research Fellow (URF) and proleptic lecturer at Bristol University. Her most current research is focusing on the chemistry of silicon in seawater, and silica biomineralisation by organisms such as diatoms and sponges. Kate is looking forward to meeting with those working in social sciences and the humanities, and those who might be able to help her develop potential wider applications of her research.
Tristan Kershaw, University of Bath
Tristan obtained his MPhys in Physics at Exeter University and went on to complete a PhD in Physics also at Exeter. For the last five years he has worked as a research fellow in climate change adaptation, located within the Centre for Energy and the Environment at Exeter. In March 2014 Tristan took up the position of Lecturer in Low Carbon Design within the department of Architecture and Civil Engineering at the University of Bath. His current research is looking at how we can optimise the design of buildings to be efficient over their whole lifecycle and adapt urban areas to be resilient to the effects of climate change. Tristan is keen to explore how best to communicate the findings of this research and investigate the barriers that will prevent its implementation within society.
Erik Lenguerrand, University of Bristol
Erik obtained his Master’s degrees in Social and Medical Statistics from the Universities of Bordeaux-II and Paris-V, and completed a PhD in Road Safety Epidemiology in 2008 (IFSTTAR, Lyon-I). He then worked in Scotland for four years investigating social inequalities in health (MRC SPHSU, Glasgow). He joined the School of Clinical Sciences, University of Bristol, in 2012 and is now a Research Fellow in the Musculoskeletal Research Unit. Erik is involved with the development and analysis of clinical trials and large observational studies to improve patient experience of joint replacement surgery. This includes an NIHR-funded project for which he is investigating the aetiology of deep peri-prosthetic infection and is responsible for the methodological aspects of a multi-centre trial comparing surgical management techniques of hip joint infection. Erik is interested in using his academic expertise to develop research projects which aim to improve health services, with direct benefit for health care providers and their patients.
David Littlefield, University of the West of England
David Littlefield has undergraduate degrees in English & American Studies (University of Birmingham) and Interior & Spatial Design (Chelsea College of Art & Design, University of the Arts London), and an MA in ISD (also from Chelsea). David has written or edited more than 10 books on architecture and cities, and has worked at UWE as a Senior Lecturer for four years. David teaches on UWE’s architecture programmes, runs the BA (Hons) Interior Architecture, and leads the post-graduate module “Advanced Cultural Studies: Narratives of Built Form”. He has worked as an Artist in Residence at the Roman Baths, Bath, and is now working closely with Bath Abbey to help assess the manner in which the floor might be raised and repaired/replaced. This latter work informs David’s research interests in matters concerning heritage, authenticity, art practice and spatial narrative/interpretation. David’s research was submitted for the latest round of the REF.
Ana Lopes, University of the West of England
Dr Ana Lopes is currently a Research Fellow at the Centre for Employment Studies Research (UWE) and an elected executive member of the British Universities Industrial Relations Association. She was previously a lecturer at the University of East London. She has written on a variety of topics, including sex work, migrant labour and community organising, and is currently researching casualisation in Higher Education. She is committed to the values of inter-disciplinary research that does not shy away from sensitive and controversial issues, applying research to empower disadvantaged groups in society.
Cristina Lujan, University of Bath
Cristina obtained her degree in Chemistry at the University of Barcelona and went on to complete a PhD in Manchester after working in a pharmaceutical company for 6 months. She spent two years in St Andrews in Scotland working as a post-doctoral researcher for Professor Steven Nolan, followed by a position in Sasol Technology Ltd UK. She is now working with Dr Dave Carbery as a Research Assistant at the University of Bath. Her research focuses on the development of more efficient chiral organocatalysts which will lead to more selective organic transformations. Cristina enjoys the day-to-day basics of her research as well as her research environment. She also participates in teaching activities within the University of Bath.
Elena Marco, University of the West of England
Elena Marco graduated as an Architect from the UPC in Barcelona and built a strong profile in sustainable design at Feilden Clegg Bradley Studios working on many pioneering and award-winning projects, some as part of Europe-wide research initiatives. In 2005 she left practice to join the University of the West of England (UWE), Bristol. She has won an award for Teaching Excellence, has taught across the entire architectural curriculum and is now the Associate Head of Department for Architecture. As a member of the WHO Collaborating Centre for Healthy Urban Environments at UWE, Elena’s research leverages the links between health and architecture to be a driver for sustainability. She has been a Principal Investigator on projects exploring “Space in the Sustainable & Healthy Home” and “Sustainable Behaviours in the Home”, as well as a CEBE funded Learning & Teaching project on “Introducing Health as a Driver for Sustainability” which was identified by UKRC as one of their “Big ideas for the future”.
Lucia Marucci, University of Bristol
Lucia Marucci obtained her MA degree in Mathematics at the University of L’Aquila, Italy and went on to complete a PhD in Naples in Automatic Engineering, focused on modelling and analysis of Synthetic Gene Regulatory Networks. Later, she moved as an EMBO long-term fellow to the Centre for Genomic Regulation in Barcelona; she studied the role of oscillatory gene-networks in pluripotency of mouse embryonic stem cells and took care of both the modelling and experimental aspects of the project. She is now a Lecturer in Engineering Mathematics in the University of Bristol. Her research interests are in the fields of Systems and Synthetic Biology, and she is now in the process of establishing new collaborations and developing creative project ideas with experimentalists from the UK.
Angeliki Papadaki, University of Bristol
Angeliki obtained her BSc degree in Nutrition at the Technological Educational Institute of Thessaloniki, Greece and her MSc (MedSci) in Public Health Nutrition at the University of Glasgow. Her PhD at Glasgow University explored the impact of a web-based intervention on dietary behaviour change among University employees by focusing on understanding the processes of behaviour change. She then went on to do post-doctoral research at the University of Crete Medical School, acting as the national scientific manager of three major European nutrition intervention projects, while at the same time teaching Nutrition at the undergraduate level for six years. She is now working as a Lecturer in Nutrition at the University of Bristol and her current research interest is promoting the Mediterranean diet in adults, particularly in work settings. Angeliki is extremely keen to explore environmental interventions that would most likely increase her research’s impact at the local and regional level.
Alberto Pirrera, University of Bristol
Alberto Pirrera is a Lecturer in Composite Structures at the Advanced Composites Centre for Innovation & Science (ACCIS) of the University of Bristol, where he has been a faculty member since 2013 and completed his PhD in 2011. He obtained his MSc degree in Aerospace Engineering at Università degli Studi di Palermo in Italy. Alberto currently holds the position of Industrial Engagement Fellow for the Centre for Doctoral Training (CDT) within ACCIS. A modeller and a theoretician specialising in engineering science, Alberto’s research interests lie in the area of structural analysis, design and optimisation. In recent years, he has focused on well-behaved nonlinear structures, morphing and wind turbine blades. In his spare time, Alberto enjoys music, travelling and good food. Whenever possible he mixes the three things together and adds good company for perfect results.
Maria Pufulete, University of Bristol
Maria is a Research Fellow in Health Services research at the University of Bristol. Her research involves designing and conducting randomised controlled trials and other studies in cardiovascular disease and other health-related areas. Previously she was a lecturer in Nutritional Sciences at King’s College London, where she worked on nutritional genomics, specifically how dietary factors such as folic acid influence DNA methylation and gene expression, and how individual genetic variations interact with diet to alter the risk of disease. Her research has spanned across all stages of translational science, from basic laboratory research, clinical trials and observational studies, to outcomes research, which investigates the end results of particular health care practices and interventions.
Sujitha Subramanian, University of Bristol
Sujitha obtained her undergraduate law degree from the University of Madras in India and qualified to practise law in 2000. Thereafter, she worked as a legal associate in the Indian regional head office of a multinational french consumer electronics company, before moving to the UK in 2002. Sujitha completed an LLM degree from the University of Aberdeen and a fully-funded PhD degree from the ESRC Centre for Competition Policy, based at the University of East Anglia. She joined as Lecturer at Aberystwyth University in 2008 and moved to the University of Bristol in 2012. Her research interests include intellectual property and its interaction with innovation policy, international trade law and competition law. Her work so far has concentrated on US and EU jurisdictions but she has recently started incorporating issues from the emerging economies as well. Sujitha’s current research argues that it is necessary to reposition debates that divide the Global North and the Global South, and tilt the issues longitudinally to seek new perspectives to entrenched positions, especially in areas such as access to medicines and access to climate-change related clean technologies etc.
Fabienne Uehlinger, University of Bristol
Fabienne obtained her veterinary degree at the University of Bern, Switzerland, and went on to complete a PhD in Veterinary Epidemiology at the University of Prince Edward Island, Canada. Subsequently, she became specialized in large animal internal medicine and worked as an assistant professor in the large animal hospital at the University of Prince Edward Island before taking on the role as veterinarian and livelihoods officer for Veterinarians without Borders Canada in Laos. Fabienne is now working as Senior Lecturer in Farm Animal Sciences at the University of Bristol. Her current research interests include the (molecular) epidemiology of zoonotic diseases, particularly protozoan parasites and she is involved in livestock health research internationally focusing on livestock nutrition; parasite burden; socio-economic impact of diseases and effective mitigation strategies. Fabienne is particularly interested in one health; participatory epidemiology; adult education systems and farmer engagement.
Dina Vara, University of Bath
Dina obtained her BSc Honours degree in Pharmacology at the University of Hertfordshire and went on to complete a PhD in Regenerative Medicine at University College London. After completion of her PhD studies she joined the department as a post-doctoral researcher for three years. Dina went on to join a private medical communications company where she had a leading role in developing high-quality, message-driven and scientifically accurate work efficiently to pharmaceuticals, GPs and general public. Upon gaining a wide range of skills in the business sector, with a keen interest in academic research, Dina joined the University of Bath as a Post-doctoral Associate where her research currently focusses on understanding the mechanism of blood vessel formation, termed angiogenesis, in health and disease. Dina is extremely keen to share her research and knowledge and develop collaborations between various disciplines that could accentuate a decrease in disease such as heart disease and cancer.
Sarah Voss, University of the West of England
Sarah graduated with a BSc (Hons) in Psychology in 1996 and went on to complete a PhD on the Neuropsychology of Dementia in 2003. She spent the next eight years researching ways to improve the recognition and management of dementia in primary care, before becoming Research Fellow in Emergency Care at UWE in 2011. Sarah retains an interest in dementia and is currently researching ways to improve the recognition and management of the condition by emergency care staff. She is also working in other areas of Emergency Care Research, including out of hospital cardiac arrest and cervical spine immobilisation following traumatic injury. Sarah enjoys the challenges of emergency care and is interested in finding solutions to the ethical and practical research obstacles that arise.
Rohitha Weerasinghe, University of the West of England
Rohitha graduated from the University of Moratuwa Sri Lanka in Mechanical Engineering in 1994 and soon joined the staff as a Lecturer. He obtained his PhD from Imperial College, London in 2000 after working on a European project in gas turbine combustion. After completion of his PhD, Rohitha returned to Sri Lanka and worked as a Senior Lecturer at the University of Moratuwa for five years where he carried out teaching in Mechanical/Automotive Engineering and research in energy and transport. In 2005 he came to the University of Sussex to take up an EPSRC-funded research fellowship in thermal hybrid vehicle development. In 2007 Rohitha moved to industry, changing his area of focus into energy and sustainability in buildings with an emphasis on energy modelling. He worked as an energy and sustainability specialist whilst leading a few engineering groups until late 2012 when he returned to academia as a Senior Lecturer at UWE in Thermofluids. His research interests include energy behaviour of buildings and low carbon/low energy transport systems.
Cassie Wilson, University of Bath
Cassie obtained a BSc degree in Physical Education, Sports Science and Mathematics and a PhD in Sports Biomechanics from Loughborough University. She was a lecturer at Cardiff Metropolitan University for five years before joining the Department for Health at the University of Bath as a Senior Lecturer in Sports Biomechanics. Cassie’s research interests fall into two main themes: motor learning and skill development with a specific focus on the influence of movement coordination and its associated variability; and the application of biomechanical principles to training theory with the aim of making training more effective and efficient. Cassie is extremely keen to translate the methodologies she currently applies in sport contexts to applications such as re-learning of skills following illness or trauma.
Yvonne Wren, University of the West of England
Yvonne obtained her BSc in Speech Pathology at the University of Manchester and went on to complete a MEd and PhD at the University of Bristol. After working as a speech and language therapist in hospitals and schools in Liverpool and Bristol for ten years, Yvonne began a research career at the Speech and Language Therapy Research Unit at Frenchay Hospital. Her current role as a senior researcher at the unit is complemented by honorary research fellowships with both UWE and the University of Bristol. Her main research interests are in the field of children’s speech development and disorder and she currently holds a research fellowship from the NIHR to look at early speech development in children born with a cleft palate within a national cohort study. She is also involved in research projects in Australia and the US.