About
Dr Rinita Dam is based in the School of Psychology at the University of Southampton and currently works as a Research Fellow on the project “Engaging with Black Communities in Southampton: a co-creation understanding of living well with pain”, led by Professor Tamar Pincus (Principal Investigator).
From 2022 to 2025, Rinita worked as a Research Fellow at Warwick Applied Health within Warwick Medical School on the MELD Study (Mapping and Evaluating Services for Children with Learning Disabilities and Behaviours that Challenge), funded by the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR). Rinita was responsible for collecting and analysing qualitative data across two sets of case studies. The first set explored different service models through interviews with family carers of children with learning disabilities and behaviours that challenge, alongside a wide range of health and social care professionals. The second set examined co-production processes within services, again through interviews with carers and professionals. The project was led by Professor Richard Hastings.
During her time at Warwick Medical School, Rinita also provided project supervision and pastoral care to students on the Graduate Entry Medicine Programme and BSc Health and Medical Sciences courses. In February 2025, she was awarded the ‘Best Undergraduate Personal Tutor Award’, nominated by her personal tutees.
Prior to this, Rinita was based in the Department of Zoology (now Biology) at the University of Oxford, where she contributed to a study that developed a novel smartphone-based survey tool capable of detecting and identifying mosquito species through analysis of flight tones. As the lead mixed-methods researcher on a project funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, she investigated evidence-based strategies to encourage community members in rural Tanzania and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) to collect and upload mosquito sound data using the tool. She also designed a randomised controlled trial (RCT) protocol to assess community acceptance and support wider implementation of the tool, which was successfully deployed in rural Tanzania and the DRC. The project was led by Professor Baroness Kathy Willis, CBE.
Earlier, Rinita was based in the Radcliffe Department of Medicine at the University of Oxford, working on a project funded by the Horizon 2020 programme. This project supported structural change in research organisations to promote Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI). Her work focused on examining RRI within the NIHR Oxford Biomedical Research Centre, particularly the gender dimension of RRI. The project was led by Professor Alastair Buchan.
Rinita holds a BSc. (Hons) in Biomedical Sciences, including a one-year industrial placement at Pfizer, and an MSc. in Reproductive and Sexual Health Research from the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine. For her MSc. dissertation, she conducted quantitative analysis of primary data on risk factors associated with entering sex work, focusing on women living in poverty in Tanzania.
Rinita completed her PhD, funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC), at the University of Birmingham. Her doctoral research examined the impact of HIV on 59 women and men living in poverty in Kolkata, India, focusing on personal coping strategies and access to treatment and support services. Data were collected through in-depth semi-structured interviews.