About
Melanie Nind, Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences, is Professor of Education at the University of Southampton. She is also Director of the Centre for Research in Inclusion in the Southampton Education School. Melanie is Deputy Director of the South Coast Doctoral Training Partnership and one of the co-directors of the ESRC National Centre for Research Methods where she leads research on the pedagogy of research methods learning.
She has been conferred with gold membership of the Asian Qualitative Research Association, for support of qualitative research development, and with an honorary doctorate from VID, Norway, for her contribution to science. She editor-in-chief of the British Journal of Learning Disabilities, past editor of International Journal of Research & Method in Education and on the editorial boards of Teaching in Higher Education, European Journal of Special Needs Education and Disability and Society. Her recent research projects have focused on pedagogy and innovation in research methods, changing research practices in response to Covid-19, and on quality and belonging in inclusive research. Melanie edits the Bloomsbury Research Methods for Education book series.
Key roles:
Director, Centre for Research in Inclusion
Co-Director, ESRC National Centre for Research Methods
Former Faculty Director of Graduate School
Associations:
Fellow, Academy of Social Sciences
Gold member, Asian Qualitative Research Association
Editor-in-chief British Journal of Learning Disabilities
Member of British Institute of Learning Disabilities
Member of British Educational Research Association
Research
Research groups
Research interests
- inclusive research
- learning disability
- research methods education
Current research
Melanie’s particular areas of interest and expertise lie in qualitative/inclusive research methodology and in the fields of interactive and inclusive pedagogy, particularly pertaining to learning disability and autism within a broad social justice framework. Her recent research has focused on informal learning for adults with learning disabilities in a changing landscape of social care, teaching and learning of advanced social research methods, and quality and capacity-building in inclusive research. She is developing new research on belonging and inclusive spaces.
Research projects
Active projects
Completed projects
Publications
Supervision
Current PhD Students
Teaching
PhD - Research Training Provision (RTP)
MSc - Inclusive Practices in Education EDUC6485
BSc - Research Methods for Education & Psychology
External roles and responsibilities
Biography
Melanie began her teaching career in special schools as a teacher of students with severe and complex learning difficulties. It is here that she developed and evaluated the teaching approach of Intensive Interaction for which she is best known. She has also taught in further education colleges where she has coordinated support for students with learning difficulties and disabilities. In higher education she has worked as an associate research fellow in the Centre for Autism Studies at the University of Hertfordshire, as a senior lecturer in special education at Oxford Brookes University and at The Open University developing and teaching undergraduate and postgraduate distance learning courses in inclusive education. She joined University of Southampton as a Reader in 2004 and gained her personal chair in 2007.
Prizes
- Fellow of Academy of Social Sciences (2019)
- Honorary Doctorate, VID specialized university, Norway (2019)
- Gold membership (2020)