Dr Sally Dowling

• Qualifications:PhD, MPH, MFPH, MA, BA, RMN, PG Cert (TLHE)
• Position:Visiting Fellow - Centre for Public Health and Wellbeing
• Department:HAS - Nursing and Midwifery
• Telephone:+4411732 88874
• Email:Sally.Dowling@uwe.ac.uk
• Social media:

About me

I no longer work at UWE although remain connected with the Univeristy as a Visiting Fellow with the Centre for Public Health and Wellbeing and through teaching research methods as an OL.

I trained as a mental health nurse but the majority of my NHS career was spent working in sexual health and public health. I undertook specialist training and qualifications in public health and was a Member of the Faculty of Public Health from 2001-2020.  I joined UWE in 2007 to commence doctoral studies and joined the Adult Nursing team as a Senior Lecturer in September 2009. In October 2018 I joined the Executive Team in the Department of Nursing and Midwifery as Associate Head of Department for Research and Enterprise. I was a UWE Teaching and Learning Fellow.

My PhD (supported by a UWE PhD Studentship) explored the experiences of women who breastfeed long-term. I have since undertaken three other funded research projects looking at breastfeeding support, for two Local Authorities. My academic background and interests are in the social sciences, including women's studies, and I am interested in using sociological and anthropological theory to think about a range of breastfeeding issues.

In 2014 I was awarded an ESRC Seminar Series Grant to run a 2-year series (2015-2016) of interdisciplinary seminars entitled 'Social experiences of breastfeeding: building bridges between research and policy'.  This was in collaboration with Dr Kate Boyer (Cardiff University), Professor David Pontin (University of South Wales) and Dr Julie Mytton (UWE).  More information available here: seminarseries An edited volume from this seminar series was published by Policy Press in 2018 http://policypress.co.uk/social-experiences-of-breastfeeding.

I was a co-recipient of a Vice-Chancellor's Interdisciplinary Challenge Fund Award in 2019/2020 (with Dr Susan Newman, FBL, and Dr Michal Nahman, HAS). Our work looks at the cross-border commodification of breastmilk. I was a co-recipient of a Vice-Chancellor's Challenge Fund Award in 2020/2021 (with Emma Douglass and Geraldine Lucas, HAS and Dr Clare Johnson, ACE). I am continuing to work on this project, which will look at supporting women with learning disabilities to make infant feeding decisions.

Area of expertise

My teaching at UWE was been primarily in the areas of evidence based practice and research methods, particularly those used in qualitative research.  I taught and module-led these subjects at undergraduate and post-graduate levels and also on the SCPHN programme. I was an experienced dissertation supervisor at both undergraduate and post-graduate levels (working with nurses and midwives and for the MSc Public Health). I have supervised many MSc dissertations to successful submission. I have supervised one PGR student to completion (Julie Ellis-Jones, DPhil, 2019) and am continuing to be involved in the supervision of Kelly Spurlock and Emma Douglass.

I am Associate Editor of ​International Breastfeeding Journal and an Editorial Board Member of Sociological Research Online. I regularly review for a range of social science, health and breastfeeding journals.  I have been a member of the ESRC's Peer Review College and the NIHR Dissemination Centre College of Raters.  I attend meetings of the All Party Parliamentary Group on Infant Feeding and Inequalities.

Publications

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