SDS PhD Research Competition Judges
The PhD research competition invites SDS and non SDS students to select a part of their research whether it’s a key finding, methodology, or concept and create a creative, engaging poster.
It’s an opportunity to simplify and effectively communicate their research in a visually compelling way, to a non-specialist audience.
Find out more about this year's judges:
Dr Katherine Keenan, SGSSS & University of St. Andrews
Dr Katherine Keenan is a Senior Lecturer at the University of St Andrews in the School of Geography and Sustainable Development. From 2024 she has worked as the Deputy Director (training) for the Scottish Graduate School for Social Science, which works to develop core and specialist training for social science postgraduate students across Scottish universities.
She has a multidisciplinary background with degrees in anthropology, demography and epidemiology. Her research interests are in the complex determinants of population health, and she currently leads projects on the social dimensions of antimicrobial resistance (AMR) and multimorbidity, and social dimensions of miscarriage (funded by the ERC). These primarily use quantitative and mixed methods data. Her current projects involve international collaborations with research organisations in East Africa, Brazil, France and Norway. She is also Co-I of the ESRC-funded Connecting Generations centre, which explores intergenerational processes, family and inequality in the UK.
Claire Gillespie, Skills Development Scotland
Claire is Digital Economy Skills Manager at SDS and has worked in the skills sector for over 20 years and within technology skills since 2014 when SDS launched the first Skills Investment Plan for the Scottish technology sector.
She started her career studying Hospitality and fuelled by an ambition to start her own business progressed onto a Degree in Business and Entrepreneurship Studies at the University of West of Scotland. A pathway which took her into an early career of supporting individuals, and in particular females, to start their own business. And proving age is no limit, Claire later completed a part time Law Degree at the University of Strathclyde.
More recently Claire has worked with Government and industry to launch a Digital Economy Skills Action Plan which identifies that if we can equip individuals and businesses with the right skills, there is an unprecedented opportunity to harness the economic value of the digital economy.
Nicola McLelland, Skills Development Scotland
Nicola McLelland is an Evaluation Manager at Skills Development Scotland, leading evaluation and research across all SDS services and programmes. An economist with over 20 years’ experience across the Government Economic Service, the Scottish Parliament, private consultancy, and the skills sector, she leads a team delivering robust quantitative and qualitative insight to inform service development, and continuous improvement. Her areas of expertise include employer services, PACE redundancy support, and work- based learning including leading the Apprentice Voice project capturing feedback from apprentices at key stages during their training and on leaving.
Dr Jasmin Wertz, University of Edinburgh
Jasmin is a Lecturer in Psychology at the University of Edinburgh. Her research focuses on child behavioural and emotional problems, including the biosocial aetiology of these problems, and their implications for outcomes across the life-course, including educational and economic attainment and health. Her work integrates theory and methods from developmental science, psychopathology, behaviour genetics and family studies.
