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Staff Profile

Dr Sian Russell

Research Associate

  • Email: sian.russell@ncl.ac.uk
  • Address: Population Health Sciences Institute
    Faculty of Medical Sciences
    Newcastle University

    M4.078
    Leech Building
    Framlington Place
    NE2 4HH
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.

 

Since then, Siân 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. She is currently the co-lead of the Qualitative Special Interest Group (QualSIG), part of the Innovation, Methodology and Application (IMA) theme within the Faculty of Medical Sciences. The QualSIG was established in 2022.

 


Research

Within the Population Health Sciences Institute (PHSI), Siân is part of the Ageing and Geroscience and the Public Health and Health Inequalities research themes. 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 Siân contributes to qualitative projects and project components and supports Patient and Public Involvement (PPI) activities.
Teaching

She has taught on a range of topics relevant to qualitative research such as developing topic guides, sampling and recruitment, data collection via interviews and focus groups, data analysis, and applying theory in qualitative research. She has taught undergraduate students and regularly contributes to the teaching and marking of the qualitative component of NU’s Master’s in Public Health degree. She has also co-organised and taught informal qualitative methods workshops for colleagues within PHSI.

Siân has experience supervising undergraduate and master’s students. 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.

Publications