Speaker: Dr Sonali Shah
Dr Shah has grown up as a British Indian disabled woman with cerebral palsy. She is committed to research, scholarship and teaching that matters and makes a positive impact to the global challenges of equality, inclusion, health and social wellbeing of disabled people across intersectional identities and the life course. She currently works at the University of Glasgow.
She graduated with a PhD in Occupational Psychology and Disability at Loughborough University in 2002, after an undergraduate honours degree in Computing and Management. Since then she has developed a series of innovative projects, supported by prestigious awards and university fellowships on disability issues, human rights and social change with universities in Nottingham, Leeds and Glasgow. She has taught and convened different courses on sociology of disability and human rights across disciplines, levels and institutions.
Sonali's work has always adopted interdisciplinary and creative methodological and dissemination approaches to ensure it engages with stakeholders outside as well as inside of the academy, to help research to be translated into practice. She is author of 3 research monographs: on disabled high-flyers (Shah, 2005), young disabled people and future aspirations (Shah, 2008), disability and social change since WWI/ (Shah & Priestley, 2011, and 12 journal articles including those exploring disabled women's experiences of disablist violence, educating school groups about disability history, and the disabled researcher as a qualitative tool in disability research. Her forthcoming co-edited collection, Disability, Gender and Violence (Shah and Bradbury-Jones. 2018) brings together academics, practitioner and survivor voices from across the world to discuss experience of violence, barriers to disclosure and support for disabled women from childhood to older life.
About Dr Shah
- Sonali is married, is an avid traveller and enjoys theatre and occasional song-writing
- Books: Disability & Social Change: Private Lives & Public Policies; Career Success of Disabled High-flyers; Young Disabled People: Aspirations, Choices and Constraints
- Editorial Board for Scandinavian Journal of Disability Research
- Management Board for Birds of Paradise Theatre Company