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Ashleigh Blackwood on campus

Dr Ashleigh Blackwood

Lecturer in Business and Cultural Management

Email:

Ashleigh.Blackwood@sunderland.ac.uk

Pronouns:

she/her

About Dr Ashleigh Blackwood

I am Lecturer in Business and Cultural Management in the Department of Strategy and Operations and serve as part of the Programme Leadership team for our MBA suite of programmes, having run programmes both on campus and in those included in our transnational education offer.

My research and teaching practice are driven by questions of co-creation. My scholarship asks how we come to share common understandings of expert and authoritative knowledge within both professional and educational settings, and how the public accept, reject or respond to these ideas created within organisations and learned institutions. As a scholar who has worked in a range of academic disciplines and faculties, including Business, Law and Humanities, my work considers the role of both people and technological innovation in knowledge and culture creation, spanning from the development of the printing press to the role of AI in the workplace and educational life.

I teach at all levels ranging from offering undergraduate studies through to supervising, supporting and assessing postgraduate research. I am passionate about both student and public engagement and have worked with a wide range of organisations and communities on funded research projects. Prior to joining the Faculty of Business and Technology, I worked in learning development within higher education, developing educational provision for academic and broader professional skills development. I also possess a wealth of industry experience, having run departments in educational policy and advice provision, held numerous roles in health administration, and run my own business as a higher education consultant focusing on student engagement and transnational education provision.

I hold a PhD which explored women's professional and lay contributions to the formation of gynaecology, obstetrics and reproductive medicine as professionally recognised clinical specialisms, an MRes which employed content analysis, as well as close and contextual reading methods to explore print history within medical professions and industries (pre-NHS!), and a BA in English Literature and History. My focus on knowledge and practice generation has seen me working across Business Schools, Law Schools, Health and Social Work departments, and Humanities departments. I retain strong interests in creative and cultural industries and as well as imaginative approaches to collaboration with local, regional and national communities and stakeholders. I trained as a Creative Facilitator with Durham University (2022) and was also shortlisted for the BBC/AHRC New Generation Thinker workshops in the same year. Bringing this same skill set to Business and Technology disciplines, I have worked with communities in Sunderland examining the evolving economy from traditional hard to digital and creative industries.

I am keen to support prospective students, community organisations, and businesses of all sizes who seek out collaboration in the pursuit of new knowledge and practice. The future is something we are building together.