Print This Post
Dr Sarah Campbell
Name:
Dr Sarah Campbell
Job title:
Senior Lecturer
Place of work / study:
Manchester Metropolitan University
Area of Research:
Dementia and Ageing research
How is your work funded:
I have worked on various projects funded through a range of different funders from the National Institute for Health Research and the Economic and Social Research Council, to local funders such as Salford CCG.
Tell us a little about yourself:
I live in Hebden Bridge in West Yorkshire which is a small market town on the edge of the Pennines…I live here with my family which includes one dog and a cat.
I have worked for a long time in social research in and outside of academia, for the last decade my research has been interested in lived experiences of dementia and ageing.
Tell us a fun fact about yourself:
When I was 11 I got a pen pal from the Multi-coloured swapshop (a kids Saturday morning TV show)…she was Danish and we wrote to each other for the next 8 or so years and visited each other once in each other’s country. I went there at 16 and it was my first time travelling overseas. Sadly sometime around age 19 we lost touch.
Why did you choose to work in dementia?
My father and father-in-law both lived with dementia, and so my concern with the experiences for people living with dementia are both personal and professional.
But I had already began working a little in the area of dementia due to a project I worked with at the Foundation for People with Learning Disabilities in the late 90’s and early 2000s which was looking at the experience of growing older with learning disabilities. I was involved in facilitating a group of older people with learning disabilities called the GOLD group, and dementia began to effect people within the group and so we began to do some work in this area.
What single piece of advice would you give to an early career researcher?
For me, what has been important is making connections with other people interested in similar areas of work to me and developing strong networks of support.
What book are you reading right now? Would you recommend it?
My name is Lucy Barton by Elizabeth Strout, I love it, it is my second time reading it but I am reminding myself of the story because the author has now written a third book in this series called Oh William and I wanted to read the first two again to refresh my memory of the characters. And yes I would absolutely recommend it and in fact any book by Elizabeth Strout who I think is a wonderful author.
