Megan Wood

Dr Megan Wood

Post-doctoral Research Fellow
University of Leeds

Tell us about yourself

I am a post-doctoral research fellow at the University of Leeds, working in collaboration with the Bradford Institute for Health Research (BIHR) and Born in Bradford’s Centre for Applied Education Research.

My background is in Psychology, where my doctoral thesis explored the development of children’s sensorimotor development and the intersections with ethnicity and socioeconomics.

Since my PhD, my interests have broadened somewhat, spanning structural inequalities across health and education. I am interested in using population-level data to link public services such as administrative health records, education records and data from other services such as the criminal justice system and social services, to gain a more holistic picture of patterns leading to adverse outcomes (e.g., ill-health or unemployment). During my time working with BIHR, I have developed and built datasets for the Connected Bradford population linked database.

I currently supervise several projects based at Leeds Institute for Data Analytics, with a focus on using linked health and education data to address vulnerabilities in childhood.

Why did you want to become a Research Affiliate?

I was keen to join a network of like-minded researchers from a broad range of backgrounds and disciplines to learn from and strengthen my own skillset, but also hopefully contribute to others’ knowledge.

How does your research connect to the Centre’s mission and values?

My research has involved building the Connected Bradford population linked database which is often used by researchers within the Centre. My work is also grounded on taking a multifaceted approach to tackling societal issues such as inequalities and vulnerability.