Rachel Casiday
Tutor
Tel: (01570) 424 785
Fax: (01570) 422 990
r.casiday@lamp.ac.uk
Department of Voluntary Sector Studies
University of Wales,
Lampeter
Ceredigion
SA48 7ED
Rachel has a diverse background including chemistry, health, international studies and anthropology. After completing her BA at Washington University in St. Louis (USA) she worked developing on-line learning chemistry materials, and moved to the UK in 1999. After a break to start a family, she undertook post-graduate studies in medical anthropology at Durham University and completed her PhD in 2005. She has taught a variety of courses at undergraduate and Master’s level and been involved with the development of distance-learning materials.
Rachel has research interests, broadly speaking, in the social context of risk, children’s health, and the health impacts of poverty and inequality – all topics of relevance to many areas of the voluntary sector. Her PhD research examined concepts of risk and parental decision-making about the MMR vaccine. Rachel has also done work on infant feeding, including an NGO consultancy on child malnutrition in sub-Saharan Africa during the 2005-6 famine in the Sahel region. Rachel is currently working on a systematic review commissioned by Volunteering England, on the health impacts of volunteering.
Rachel joined VSS at Lampeter in September 2007. She is responsible for the delivery and development of courses, programmes and research at VSS. She has four young children, and enjoys cooking, walking, quilting and gardening.