Please, download my short CV from here.
I am Associate Professor at University College London at the Institute of Education.
I currently supervise dissertations at undergraduate, postgraduate and doctoral level, I lead two modules (“Disabilities, Chronic Illnesses and Neurodivergences in Contemporary Society” and “Foundations in Communication”), and I am a member of the UCL Press editorial board.
In previous years, I was Director of Social Research & Practice and Education Ltd., Head of Research Ethics and Integrity at UCL Institute of Education, a member of the UCL Academic Board, the board’s Education Committee and the UCL Library Committee. I worked as a departmental Academic Head of Learning and Teaching, as module leader for the modules “Literacy, Language and Communication” and “Researching Education and Society: Qualitative Methods”, and as programme leader, lecturer and tutor on a Secondary Teacher Education Programme. At London South Bank University I was module leader for the two EdD modules “What is Education For? Perspectives and Theories” and “Theorising Critical Issues in Educational Change and Development”.
I was awarded my PhD in Sociology at the University of Kent for my thesis “The ‘I’ in fibromyalgia: the construction of academic identity under the influence of fibromyalgia”. I hold the Master of Teaching from the Institute of Education, and a Magister der Philosophie in Anglistics & Americanistics and French from the University of Vienna, Austria. I also hold a Master in Creative Writing from Teesside University, the Postgraduate Certificate in Higher Education and Master in High Education from the University of Kent and the postgraduate IoLET Diploma in Translation. I am a Fellow as well as Senior Fellow of Advance HE (formerly HEA), a UKCGE Recognised Research Supervisor and in 2022 I was inducted as a Fellow to the Royal Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce (RSA).
After my first degree I worked as a secondary teacher of modern foreign languages and taught English and French in Austria and German and French in the UK. Having gained several years of practical experience in the classroom I made the move from secondary to higher education.
Research interests
I am a social researcher and author with special expertise in creative and embodied research practice. I focus on the development and pragmatics of research methods and approaches for data analysis as well as dissemination. I conceptualise my work as sitting on the cusp of practice/teaching/research, thereby emphasising that each area of expertise intersects with and impacts on another. My exploration of research paradigms, data collection methods, and data analysis therefore recognises the researchers’ interactions with the field of study, the research participants, the research contexts, and settings, as well as the variety of practices involved in developing understanding and generating knowledge through thinking-doing-being.
In that sense, my creative practices as a fiction writer and poet as well as my activist work in response to, on the back of and as research represent an extension of my conceptualisation of research practice that interweaves practice/teaching/research.
My most notable publications
Selected books
Brown, N. (to be published in 2025). Exceptionally Able. Ellipsis Imprint.
Brown, N. (2023). Photovoice Reimagined. Bristol: Policy Press.
Brown, N. (2021). Making the Most of Your Research Journal. Bristol: Policy Press.
Leigh, J. S. & Brown, N. (2021). Embodied Inquiry: Research Methods. London: Bloomsbury.
Brown, N., Ince, A., & Ramlackhan K. (2024). Creativity in Education: International Perspectives. London: UCL Press.
Brown, N. (ed.) (2021). Lived Experiences of Ableism in Academia: Strategies for Inclusion in Higher Education. Bristol: Policy Press.
Selected articles
Brown, N. & Brown, S. (accepted for publication). burn me down: Songwriting as an analytical tool to explore academics’ lived experiences of fibromyalgia. Journal of Creative Research Methods.
Brown, N., Ergül, H. & Power, N. (2025). Social Fiction: bridging academic inquiry and creative writing. Journal of Creative Research Methods, 1(1), 97-117. DOI: 10.1332/30502969Y2025D000000004
Brown, N. (2024). Disclosure dances in doctoral education. Social Sciences, 13(12:689). DOI: 10.3390/socsci13120689.
Brown, N. (2022). Research ethics in a changing social sciences landscape. Research Ethics. DOI: 10.1177/17470161221141011.
Brown, N. & Ramlackhan, K. (2021). Experiences of ableism in academia: A constructivist inquiry. Higher Education: The International Journal of Higher Education Research. DOI: 10.1007/s10734-021-00739-y.
Brown, N. (2021). Scope and Continuum of Participatory Research. International Journal of Research and Method in Education. DOI: 10.1080/1743727X.2021.1902980.
Selected book chapters
Brown, N. (to be published in 2026). Embodied scholarship as a catalyst for inclusion. In: Harpur, P. (ed.). Disability Rights in Higher Education: Universities as Disability Champions of Change.
Brown, N. (2025). Autoethnography: an ethics challenge for researchers and reviewers. In: Busby, H. (ed.). Reframing Qualitative Research Ethics (Advances in Research Ethics and Integrity, Vol. 12), Emerald Publishing Limited, Leeds. 95-110.
Brown, N. (2024). Object-work as a creative approach to data analysis in Embodied Inquiry. In: Kara, H., Mannay, D. & Roy, A. (eds.). Handbook of Creative Data Analysis. Policy Press. 98-112.
Brown, N. (2022). “It is…, it stands for…, it shows…”: arts-based representations in data generation and analysis. In: Hinsliff-Smith, K., McGarry, J., & Ali, P. (eds.). SmitArts Based Health Care Research: A Multidisciplinary Perspective. SpringerNature.
Brown, N., & Morgan, C. (2021). Rhythmanalysis as a method to account for time in qualitative research. In: Clift, B.C., Gore, J., Gustafsson, S., Bekker, S., & Batlle, I. C. (eds.). Temporality in Qualitative Inquiry: Theories, Methods, and Practices. Routledge. 111-126.
Selected open educational resources
Brown, N. (2022). Doing “fieldwork” in the virtual space. SAGE research methods. https://dx.doi.org/10.4135/9781529605853
Brown, N. (2021). Introduction to qualitative research. Moodle materials: https://open-education-repository.ucl.ac.uk/581/
Brown, N. & Janssen, R. (2019). Workshop materials for the preventing plagiarism workshop: https://open-education-repository.ucl.ac.uk//567/