Group members
The Ageing & the Life Course Faculty research group brings together researchers with expertise in topics connected to ageing, from disciplines across the Faculty of Social Sciences & Law, other faculties within the University and within the wider community.
Group leads
Dr Matthew Lariviere, School for Policy Studies
Research interests: care futures; digital technology; loneliness; adult social care; chronic illness; disability.
Dr Helen Manchester, School of Education
Research interests: social connectivity; intergenerational encounter; (material) feminist ideas on care; arts and cultural experiences; design justice and co-design of technologies.
Group members
Dr Miranda Armstrong, School for Policy Studies
Research interests: physical activity; improved health following vascular illness.
Dr Jenny Barke, School of Education
Research interests:
Dr Victoria Bates, Department of History
Research interests: sensory environments of hospitals, including for older people.
Dr Vanessa Beck, University of Bristol Business School
Research interests: older workers, employment and retirement decisions as influenced by the pandemic, well-being and menopause experiences.
Dr Roberta Bernardi, University of Bristol Business School
Research interests: artificial intelligence in social care.
Dr Aggie Bezzina, School for Policy Studies
Research interests: mental health, adult social care.
Bijetri (Immi) Biswas, Department of Computer Science
Research interests: parkinson, dementia, stroke.
Dr Heather Brant, Bristol Medical School (PSH)
Research interests: delayed discharge for older people living with frailty; evaluating the delivery of a new model of care for those with Parkinson's.
Prof Ailsa Cameron, School for Policy Studies
Research interests: knowledge exchange in healthcare commissioning: private providers and NHS commissioners.
Prof Havi Carel, Department of Philosophy
Research interests: life cycle, values in life, transformative experience.
Prof Kirsten Cater, Department of Computer Science
Research interests: ethics of digital technologies; accessibility of technologies; developing new technologies in codesign with older people.
Dr Jan Connett, Bristol Health Partners (DREI)
Research interests: barriers and enablers to physical activity; social prescribing; risk of stroke for people with sickle cell disease.
Elaine Czech, Department of Computer Science
Research interests: using technology to improve quality of life of those living with dementia.
Dr Lesel Dawson, Department of English
Research interests: grief, death and end of life care training.
David Dewar, Department of Music
Research interests: using music among the healthy as well as those with various ageing-related conditions to alleviate feelings of anxiety, disconnectedness, social isolation, social phobia.
Dr Jo Elsworth, Library Services
Research interests: how our Cultural Collections (Theatre Collection and Special Collections) can engage with older adults in a meaningful way to improve wellbeing.
Dr Rebecka Fleetwood-Smith, Department of History
Research interests: creative ageing; dementia; health and social care settings; relational approaches to care.
Dr Karen Gray, School for Policy Studies
Research interests: creative ageing; arts and dementia; methodologies for research in creative ageing and arts and dementia; loneliness.
Dr Hannah Grist, Bristol Institute for Learning and Teaching
Research interests: learning and teaching in Higher Education and in Ageing Studies/Cultural Gerontology.
Prof Dawei Han, Department of Civil Engineering
Research interests: urban environment modelling (using WRF-Urban and WRF-Chem).
Dr Emily Henderson, Bristol Medical School (PHS)
Research interests: ageing/geriatric medicine; clinical trials in older people; neurodegnerative disease.
Prof Pauline Heslop, School for Policy Studies
Research interests: people with learning disabilities; mortality.
Amy Hicks, Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering
Research interests: loneliness, isolation, companionship.
Dr Jim Hudson, School for Policy Studies
Research interests: self-managed and collaborative housing for older people.
Prof Misa Izuhara, School for Policy Studies
Research interests: intergenerational relations; dynamics of care provision; housing and housing wealth; retirement trajectories; comparative policy analysis.
Lucinda Jarrett (PG), Department of Theatre
Research interests: stroke; neurological illness; Beckett and age related disability.
Ms Tricia Jessiman, Bristol Medical School (PHS)
Research interests:
Dr Harleen Johal, Centre for Medical Education
Research interests: conflict in intensive care units; end-of-life decision-making; mental capacity; best interests decision-making.
Dr Ellie Johnson, School for Policy Studies
Research interests: the role of volunteers in care settings; the provision of social care in extra care housing; the ethnographic study of residential care homes for older people.
Prof Liz Lloyd, School for Policy Studies
Research interests: extra care housing; healthy ageing; ageing in place; health services; adult social care.
Prof Ruud ter Meulen, Bristol Medical School
Research interests: justice in health care; the ethics of research; care of older people; evidence-based medicine.
Dr Emma Mitchell, North Bristol NHS Trust
Research interests: global ageing; health systems.
Dr Gemma Morgan, Bristol Medical School
Research interests: physical activity; improved health following vascular illness.
Dr Sandra Neumann, Bristol Medical School (PHS)
Research interests: falls in Parkinson's disease.
Dr Eleanora Pantano, University of Bristol Business School
Research interests: barriers to shopping for ageing consumers, in order to figure out the characteristics of new technologies that can help seniors to access satisfying, autonomous retail experiences, generating a sense of inclusion in the modern retail settings.
Dr Angeliki Papadaki, School for Policy Studies
Research interests: Meals on Wheels and their role in wider quality of life of older adults (who are housebound or are not able to access or prepare meals for whatever reason).
Jordan Parsons, Bristol Medical School
Research interests: ethical/legal/policy issues related to telemedicine in the context of older patients who are often said to fall foul of “digital exclusion”; impact of the wider shift towards telemedicine and out-of-hospital care on the social side of health and social care for such patients; remote consultations, loneliness.
Dr Demi Patsios, School for Policy Studies
Research interests: the effects of an ageing population on policy development; the roles and responsibilities and interactions between the market, state, voluntary sector and informal sector in meeting the needs of older people; how early life influences quality of life in older age.
Lois Peach, School for Policy Studies
Research interests: intergenerational relationships; dementia; materialities of ageing.
Dr Grace Pearson, Bristol Medical School (PHS)
Research interests: medical education in ageing and geriatric medicine.
Dr Hemma Philamore, Department of Engineering Mathematics
Research interests: tele-operated soft robots for bridging social connections between isolated humans; acceptance, familiarity with and trust of robots by older people.
Dr Lucy Pocock, Bristol Medical School (PHS)
Research interests: interprofessional communication and coordination of care at the end of life.
Dr Sabi Redwood, Bristol Medical School (PHS)
Research interests: Interprofessional working around hospital discharge and end-of-life care for older people living with frailty ; end of life care for older people living with frailty.
Dr Hannah Rumble, Students' Health Service
Research interests: death and dying.
Dr Lucy Selman, Bristol Medical School (PHS)
Research interests: life-limiting illness; death, dying and bereavement.
Dr Tim Senior, School of Education
Research interests: connecting through culture.
Dr Hayley Shaw, Bristol Digital Futures Institute
Research interests: digital futures as they relate to aging futures.
Research interests: housing and social care; older refugees and the provision of adult social care with a focus on global north societies who have responsibility for the wellbeing of this group of "citizens".
Dr John Troyer, Centre for Death and Society (Bath)
Research interests: ways death, dying, and bereavement intersect with ageing populations; increased life-spans create new ways of understanding human mortality; developing new technologies for ageing populations that address everyday needs.
Dr Joe Webb, School for Policy Studies
Research interests: interaction, disability studies, health care encounters and how to make changes to policy and practice.
Prof Karen West, School for Policy Studies
Research interests: community care; housing; grief and bereavement; personalisation of services.
Dr Paul Willis, School for Policy Studies
Research interests: inclusive housing in later life - including housing with care and support; sexuality, gender identity and ageing; loneliness and social isolation experienced by older men; social work with older people.
Dr Junko Yamashita, School of Sociology, Politics and International Studies
Research interests: welfare; care; families; intergenerational relations; inequality and gender.
Dr Fanqi Zeng, Department of Engineering Mathematics
Research interests: human cooperation modelling; human mobility.
Dr Xiaochun Zhang, Department of Modern Languages
Research interests: pleasure, play and desire from the perspective of media accessibility; making audiovisual products (such as film, TV and video games) accessible for people with visual or hearing impairments through services, such as audio description and subtitling for the deaf and hard of hearing.