Research Accelerator 2022 Speakers

Academic Consulting's Director, Dr Lyn Lavery, will be joined by an amazing line-up of guest speakers for this year's conference. Further details about each speaker can be found below.

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Nigel King

Nigel is a Professor in Applied Psychology at the University of Huddersfield. He has a longstanding interest in using qualitative methods, especially in “real world” settings and has written extensively on template analysis, interview methods and visual elicitation methods, amongst other topics. Theoretically, he draws on a variety of experiential traditions, especially phenomenology and personal construct theory. His substantive interests include human meaning-making in relation to nature and outdoor spaces, bereavement experiences and collaborative working in health and social care. Nigel is the author (with Christine Horrocks and Jo Brooks) of ‘Interviews in Qualitative Research’ (SAGE 2019), and (with Jo Brooks) ‘Template Analysis for Business and Management Students’ (SAGE 2017). Nigel's presentation is on Day 1 of the conference.

Pat Bazeley

Pat Bazeley is Director of Research Support P/L and Adjunct Professor at the Translational Research and Social Innovation Centre at Western Sydney University. Since graduating in psychology she has worked in community development, as an evaluation researcher, and in academic research development. For almost 30 years, Pat has provided research training and project consulting to academics, graduate students and practitioners representing a wide range of disciplines across Australia and internationally. Pat’s research has focused on qualitative and mixed methods data analysis, the development and performance of researchers, and the well-being of older women. She has published books, chapters, and articles on mixed methods and qualitative data analysis. She serves on the editorial board of the Journal of Mixed Methods Research and was president of the Mixed Methods International Research Association from 2015–2016. Pat will be presenting on Day 5 of the conference.

Helen Sword

Professor Helen Sword is a scholar, poet, and master teacher whose research-based books on writing and writers include ‘Stylish Academic Writing’ (Harvard 2012), ‘The Writer’s Diet’ (Chicago 2016), ‘Air & Light & Time & Space: How Successful Academics Write’ (Harvard 2017) and ‘Writing with Pleasure’ (forthcoming from Princeton UP). She is a Professor of Humanities, a research fellow in the Centre for Arts and Social Transformation at the University of Auckland and the recipient of several major research and teaching awards. Helen has facilitated writing workshops at more than 100 universities, conferences, and research institutes on every continent except Antarctica. Helen's presentation is on Day 5 of the conference.

David Thomas

David Thomas is an Emeritus Professor in Social and Community Health, School of Population Health at the University of Auckland. He has taught research methods and evaluation for many years and has published three books and over 100 papers and book chapters on multiple topics in cross-cultural psychology, community psychology, evaluation of health services and qualitative research. David has recently completed literature reviews in nutrition and health and social determinants of diabetes management. He is currently working on two review topics: interpersonal processes involved in social support and the role of social support in managing diabetes. He is the author of ‘Designing and Managing Your Research Project: Core Skills for Social and Health Research’ (SAGE 2010). David will be helping Lyn facilitate the Q&A session on Day 1 of the conference.

Peter Rawlins

Peter Rawlins is an Associate Professor and the Director of Academic Quality for the College of Humanities and Social Science at Massey University, New Zealand. Peter was a founding member of the Mixed Methods International Research Association Oceania Regional Chapter (MMIRA-ORC) and was the conference chair for the inaugural MMIRA-ORC conference held in Wellington, New Zealand in 2019. He is currently Secretary for the MMIRA-ORC committee. Peter is also the chair of the conference committee for the MMIRA global governance board and led the planning group for the online global MMIRA conference held in August 2022. Peter's presentation will be on Day 4 of the conference.

Christina Silver

Dr Christina Silver has been a researcher and methods trainer since the late 1990s, when she began working with the CAQDAS Networking Project (University of Surrey). She now leads the CAQDAS Networking Project’s training and capacity-building activities, which includes raising awareness about digital tools for qualitative and mixed methods analysis. Christina’s interests coalesce around the relationship between technology and methodology and the adoption of computer-assisted analysis. She has trained more than 12,000 students and researchers over the past 25 years, undertaken numerous research projects and provided consultancy for hundreds of individuals and teams in academic, government, voluntary and commercial contexts. She co-authored ‘Using Software in Qualitative Research: A Step-by-Step Guide’ with Ann Lewins (SAGE 2014) and ‘Using NVivo for Qualitative Analysis: The Five-Level QDA Method’ with Nick Woolf (Routledge 2018). Christina will be presenting at one of the pre-event webinars and is the opening speaker on Day 4 of the conference. There is also a recorded interview with her on Day 2.

Kristi Jackson

Kristi Jackson founded Queri in 2002 to provide resources and coaching to NVivo users worldwide. With almost 30 years of experience in qualitative research design, data collection, analysis, reporting, and stakeholder relations, Kristi is an expert in a diverse array of qualitative methodologies. Her theoretical frames tend to be sociological and her research interests include conceptualizations of qualitative research transparency and the constantly changing spaces where qualitative researchers and technologies meet. She is also a Qualitative Senior Scientist and Manager of Qualitative Services at QualityMetric. Kristi is the author (with Pat Bazeley) of ‘Qualitative Analysis with NVivo’ (SAGE 2019). Kristi will be taking part in the NVivo trainer panel we are running in the pre-event webinar series.

Anuja Cabraal

Dr Anuja Cabraal runs workshops on qualitative research methodology and design, and the application of NVivo. She also provides consultation and mentoring services for researchers at all levels. Dr Cabraal started her research career close to 20 years ago. For the last 10 years, she has been a global certified platinum trainer of NVivo, and her training skills extend to other software including MAXQDA and Quirkos. Her skills enable her to work in various qualitative research areas and disciplines. Past research areas include social welfare, migration and mobility, learning and teaching, architecture and psychology. She has also had the privilege of working on larger research projects, including Royal Commission work. Anuja will be taking part in the NVivo trainer panel we are running in the pre-event webinar series.

Susan Carter

Susan Carter coordinated the Student Learning Centre Doctoral Programme 2004–2007, taught in the Doctoral Skills Programme from 2007–2012, and contributed to the Postgraduate Certificate in Academic Practice, The Art of Graduate Supervision and the supervision seminar series within the Centre for Learning and Research in Higher Education (CLeaR) at the University of Auckland. She’s obsessively interested in how research writers can produce text that makes all the social negotiations needed for acceptance in their discourse community. Susan is now an Associate Professor, Honorary, at the University of Auckland. Her numerous co-authored publications include 'Doctoral Writing: Practices, Processes and Pleasures' (Springer Nature 2020), 'Developing Research Writing: A Handbook for Supervisors and Advisors' (Routledge 2018) and 'Structuring Your Research Thesis' (Palgrave MacMillan 2014). Susan will be helping Lyn facilitate the Q&A session on Day 3 of the conference.

Matt Plummer

Matt Plummer is a Senior Research Partner in the Research Office at Victoria University of Wellington. Matt’s background spans the arts and technology. He works with researchers from different disciplines to facilitate collaborative projects, especially those which utilise technology in innovative and transformative ways. He has assisted with developing a range of open-source projects, augmented reality applications and research tools. Matt will be presenting on Day 4 of the conference.

Stacy Penna

Stacy is the Engagement and Enablement Director at Lumivero (formerly known as QSR International). She has combined her educational and research experience with her work in the software industry and is delighted to be supporting and building a wider research community through her work at Lumivero. Stacy was awarded a doctorate in education (through the University of Massachusetts Lowell) using NVivo for both her literature review and qualitative research. She has worked at QSR International for 10 years and is excited about the future of research. Stacy will be presenting on Day 5 of the conference.

Julie Brown

Dr Julie Brown is the community manager for Covidence, based in the APAC region. She has been writing systematic reviews for more than 17 years, including Cochrane reviews and systematic reviews of observational studies. Her areas of expertise are in review methodology and the development of training materials to facilitate the production of systematic and other literature reviews. Julie will be presenting on Day 3 of the conference.

On-demand Sessions: Expert Interviews

As part of this year's conference, there are a number of expert interviews you can view on-demand. These sessions are a great way to learn about how the experts analyse their own qualitative data, and each interview is packed full of useful tips and tricks. There are interviews with Nigel King, David Thomas and Christina Silver (see bios above) in addition to Ginny Braun and Janine Wiles (see bios below).

Ginny Braun

Ginny Braun is a Professor in the School of Psychology at the University of Auckland, New Zealand. She is a feminist and critical (health) psychologist and teaches around gender and psychology, and critical health psychology at undergraduate and graduate levels. Ginny is well known for her co-authored publications with Victoria Clarke in the area of thematic analysis and qualitative research, including ‘Thematic Analysis: A Practical Guide’ (SAGE 2022) and ‘Successful Qualitative Research: A Practical Guide for Beginners’ (SAGE 2013) (in addition to an extensive range of chapters, editorials, and journal articles). Ginny also teaches thematic analysis in a wide range of settings internationally.

Janine Wiles

Janine is an Associate Professor in Population Health at the University of Auckland, New Zealand. She is a geographer and gerontologist, with a transdisciplinary research programme encompassing three disciplinary areas: social/health geographies, critical social gerontologies, and community health. Janine uses a variety of research approaches, but her expertise is in qualitative, participatory research and collaboration with colleagues and communities. She holds a PhD from Queen's University (Ontario, Canada) and has been employed in a permanent position at the University of Auckland since 2006. Previously, she held positions in Geography at McGill University (Montreal, Canada), and in Geography and Geosciences at St Andrews University (Scotland).