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Our People

Dr Siân Russell

Research Associate in Social S

  • Address: The School of Natural and Environmental Sciences
    Agriculture Building,
    Newcastle University
    Newcastle upon Tyne,
    NE1 7RU
Background

Siân completed her first degree in Social Anthropology at The University of Edinburgh in 2006 and, the following year obtained a MSc in Social Research Methods at the same institution before undertaking a PhD at The University of Dundee. Her thesis explored the long-term experiences of living with physical and cognitive impairments acquired by stroke. A Bourdieusian theoretical lens was applied to the analysis of interview data.

 

Siân is a qualitative researcher and has developed her qualitative skills working on exploratory and applied projects covering diverse topics including sexual health and relationships in areas of high socioeconomic deprivation, self-management intervention development, intervention evaluation, and experiences of working in long-term care. Siân acted as the lead of the Qualitative Special Interest Group (QualSIG), part of the Innovation, Methodology and Application (IMA) theme within the Faculty of Medical Sciences from April 2023 through to October 2025, stepping down to the role of deputy lead and continuing to co-lead the SIG's Data & Methods Group. The QualSIG was established in 2022. https://research.ncl.ac.uk/ima/qualitativesig/




Research

Siân currently works in the Asher Behavioural Lab and the Centre for Rural Economy in the School of Natural and Environmental Sciences. She is part of the social science arm working on effective interventions to improve the welfare, productivity, and sustainability in the free range egg industry.


She was previously based in the Population Health Sciences Institute (PHSI). In 2022 Siân joined the National Institute for Health and Care Research Blood and Transplant Research Unit in Organ Donation and Transplantation (NIHR BTRU in ODT), a collaboration between Newcastle and Cambridge universities, working within the Applied Health Research and Inequalities in Transplantation research theme and contributing to qualitative projects and project components and supports Patient and Public Involvement (PPI) activities. She left the BTRU in 2025.

Teaching

Siân has experience supervising undergraduate and master’s students, acting as an internal and external examiner at viva, and has been on PhD review boards . She is willing to be approached regarding supervision of students at all levels working on qualitative and mixed methods projects or for requests to join PhD review panels.


She has taught on topics such as developing topic guides, sampling and recruitment, data collection via interviews and focus groups, data analysis, and applying theory in qualitative research. While in PHSI, she regularly contributed to the teaching and marking of the qualitative component of NU’s Master’s in Public Health degree, and marking associated dissertations. She has also co-organised and taught informal qualitative methods workshops for colleagues within the Faculty of Medical Sciences.

Publications