Accepting PhD Students

    PhD projects

    Policing, victims, victimisation, cyber-crime, online harm, hate crime, youth crime, youth culture, digital media, mobilities and ethnographic methods.

    • 663
      Citations
    20092023

    Research activity per year

    Personal profile

    Biography

    Karen is an academic expert in sociology, criminology and qualitative research methods. She returned to her alma mater, the University of Aberdeen, to take up the post of Lecturer in Sociology in June 2022. She is developing and delivering teaching on the new MA Sociology & Criminology and the MSc in Criminology & Society.

    Previous academic posts include Assistant Professor in Criminology at the University of Nottingham, Associate Professor in Criminology at the University of Leicester, Senior Lecturer in Sociology at Loughborough University, and Lecturer in Sociology at the University of Abertay Dundee.

    Karen has conducted research, consultancy and evaluations in areas such as: policing, victims and victimization (including domestic abuse), digital media and online harms, and evidence-based policy and practice in policing.

    Karen also has extensive experience of designing and delivering qualitative research methods and academic skills training at universities including at undergraduate, Masters, and doctoral level, contributing to social research methods summer schools, and ESRC doctoral training centres. Examples of courses delivered include: qualitative design, qualitative interviewing, qualitative data analysis, thematic analysis, ethnographic methods and observation, narratives and storytelling, narrative analysis, participatory action research, and reflexivity. Karen has also previously delivered qualitative methods training to social research professionals via the Social Research Association. She has published on qualitative methods including reflexivity and autoethnography.

    Karen is currently on the Editorial Board of the journal Qualitative Research. She was previously Chair of the Editorial Board of Sociological Research Online and on the Editorial Board of Sociology.

    Research Profile

    Karen has conducted research, consultancy and evaluations on policing, victims and victimization (including domestic abuse), digital media and online harms, and evidence-based policy and practice in policing.

    She is currently completing a Leverhulme Trust and British Academy Small Grant: Breaking Bad News: A Qualitative Study of Frontline Police Work with the Bereaved. This is the first study of its kind to explore the delivery of the death message by frontline police officers in the UK.

    She has also researched and published on cyber-crime. This includes the edited collection, Online Othering (Palgrave Macmillan, 2014), which explores case studies of digital violence and discrimination on the web.

    Karen is an expert in qualitative research methods. She has published on reflexivity. For example, the monograph, Reflexivity: Theory, Method and Practice (Routledge, 2019) and the edited collection, Reflexivity in Criminological Research (Palgrave Macmillan, 2014). She is currently editing a collection on Crafting Autoethnography: Processes and Practices of Making Self and Culture (with Jackie Goode and Jan Bradford) to be published late 2022.

    Karen's early doctoral research was an ethnography of boy racers in Aberdeen and the social reaction to their behaviour. The research shed light on the common misconceptions concerning car modification (sub)cultures, which are labelled as deviant, risky and dangerous and whose rituals have helped fuel the myth of the boy racer. A monograph of this research, Boy Racer Culture: Youth, Masculinity and Deviance, was published by Routledge (2013).

    Qualifications:

    Postgraduate Certificate (PGCE) in Higher Education Learning & Teaching

    PhD in Sociology

    Masters in Social Research

    MA (Hons.) Sociology  (all from the University of Aberdeen)

    Teaching Responsibilities:

    SO1007 Introduction to Sociology 1

    SO1509 Introduction to Sociology 2

    SO2001 Introduction to Criminology

    SO2509 Sociology of Everyday Life 2

    Grants & Awards

    2022. Evaluation of Operation Tutelage. £11,200. Gloucestershire Police and Roads Policing Academic Network, UK.

    2020-22. Principal Investigator. Breaking Bad News: A Qualitative Study of Frontline Police Work with the Bereaved. £9955. Leverhulme Trust funded British Academy Small Grant.

    2019. Principal Investigator. LIASON Bid. £1000. Institute of Advanced Studies, University of Leicester, UK.

    2018-19. Prinicpal Investigator. Building an Evidence-Base for the Policing of Interpersonal Cyber-Violence: Examining the Experiences of Perpetrators in relation to the use of Digital Tools in Domestic Abuse and Stalking. £4043. College Research Development Fund, University of Leicester, UK.

    2018-19. Co-Investigator. Active Citizenship and Migration: Development of Good Practice Guidelines on the Benefits of Involving Community Perspectives on Roma Migration and Integration Post-Brexit. £36,567. Enterprise Project Grant funded via a Higher Education Innovation Fund, Loughborough University, UK (with Tileaga, Cristian (PI), Salomea Popoviciu (Co-I), Karen Lumsden (Co-I) and Jo Aldridge (Co-I)).

    2018. Co-Investigator. Improving the Health of Our Online Civic Culture: New Frontiers in the Social and Information Sciences (The Online Civic Culture CDT). £350,000. Loughborough University, UK (with Chadwick, Andrew (PI), Louise Cooke (Co-I), John Downey (Co-I), Suzanne Elayan (Co-I), Tom Jackson (Co-I), Karen Lumsden (Co-I), Simone Natale (Co-I), Martin Sykora (Co-I), Cristian Tileaga (Co-I), Cristian Vaccari (Co-I)).

    2016. Principal Investigator. Conference on Online Othering: The Dark Side of the Web. £1750. Internal funding from the Centre for Research in Communication and Culture, Loughborough University, UK (with Emily Harmer (Co-I)).

    2016-17. Principal Investigator. An Evaluation of West Midlands Police Early Intervention and Prevention Delivery Plan. £38,000. West Midlands Police, UK (with Helen Trivedi (PI) and Georgia Hyde-Dryden (Co-I)).

    2015-17. Co-Investigator. East Midlands Policing Academic Collaboration (EMPAC). £862,620. College of Policing and HEFCE Policing Knowledge Fund. Lead of the Victims, Witnesses and Public Protection Network at Loughborough University (with University of Northampton (PI)).

    2015-18. Prinicpal Investigator. Policing for the Future: Socio-Technical Resilience and Innovation. (Mini centre in doctoral training). £350,000 Loughborough University, UK (with 9 Co-Investigators from across Loughborough University). 

    2015. Principal Investigator. Victims’ Journeys through the Criminal Justice System. £3000. Enterprise Project Grant awarded via a Higher Education Innovation Fund, Loughborough University, UK.

    2015. Principal Investigator. Qualitative Methods Courses for Police Officers. £2000. Enterprise Project Grant awarded via a Higher Education Innovation Fund. Loughborough University, UK.

    2015-17. Co-Investigator. Loughborough University Advanced Training Courses in Social Sciences: Methodological Advances in Applied Ethnography. £28,999. ESRC Non-Standard FEC Grant (with Downey, John (PI) and other Loughborough academics (Co-Is)).

    2014-15. Principal Investigator. Nottinghamshire Police and Loughborough University Strategic Partnership Development. £117,179. Enterprise Project Grant funded via a Higher Education Innovation Fund. Loughborough University, UK.

    2014. Principal Investigator. East Midlands Policing Academic Collaboration Launch Event. £1750. Internal funding via Secure & Resilient Societies Research Challenge, Loughborough University, UK.

    2014. PrincipaI Investigator. Media Representations of Crash for Cash Insurance Fraud and Organized Crime. £2232. Internal funding via School of Social Political and Geographical Sciences, Loughborough University, UK.

    2013. PrincipaI Investigator. Crash for Cash Insurance Fraud and Organized Crime. £1358. Internal funding via School of Social Political and Geographical Sciences, Loughborough University, UK.

    Expertise related to UN Sustainable Development Goals

    In 2015, UN member states agreed to 17 global Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to end poverty, protect the planet and ensure prosperity for all. This person’s work contributes towards the following SDG(s):

    • SDG 16 - Peace, Justice and Strong Institutions

    Area of Expertise

    • Sociology
    • Criminology
    • Qualitative methods
    • Policing
    • Victims
    • Cyber crime

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