Disability Post-Lockdown: What's changed?

In this presentation Dr Nicole Brown will reflect on the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the disabilities communities. To this end, she will draw on her extensive research experience into the lived experience of people with disabilities, chronic illnesses and/or neurodiversities in academia. Nicole will present some challenges individuals have experienced and what a post-COVID-19 academia could look like.

Dr Nicole Brown is a Lecturer in Education at UCL Institute of Education and Director of Social Research & Practice and Education Ltd. Nicole gained her PhD in Sociology at the University of Kent for her research into the construction of academic identity under the influence of fibromyalgia. She has edited Lived Experiences of Ableism in Academia: Strategies for Inclusion in Higher Education and Ableism in Academia: Theorising Experiences of Disabilities and Chronic Illnesses in Higher Education, co-authored Embodied Inquiry: Research Methods, and is currently authoring How to Make the Most of Your Research Journal.

Nicole's research interests relate to physical and material representations and metaphors, the generation of knowledge and, more generally, research methods and approaches to explore identity and body work, as well as to advance learning and teaching within higher education. She tweets as @ncjbrown, @FibroIdentity and @AbleismAcademia.

This is a joint University of Birmingham and NADSN (National Association of Disabled Staff Networks) event.