Joanne Atkinson is Head of Department for Social Work, Education and Community Wellbeing. Joanne has been in leadership roles within the Faculty of Health and Life Sciences since 2010. She is an expert in palliative and end of life care, following a career in this sphere of practice and she continues to work across these disciplines at a regional, national and international level. She has a wealth of external experience in multi-professional health and social care workforce development.

Building on her doctoral studies, her research in palliative and end of life care is varied, collaborative and interdisciplinary. Specifically, her work has sought to move from the biomedical dominated model to understanding death and dying in it’s broadest social, historical and cultural contexts. Particularly, the discourses of death and dying underpin Joanne’s approach to research. Joanne is focused on building research capacity in this sector and has therefore been engaged in consultancy with national charitable organisations.

She is also a Trustee for a national cancer charity called mynewhair, leading the charity from a small-scale not-for-profit organisation into an international registered charity. Joanne is recognised as an expert in chemotherapy-induced hair loss and regularly invited to speak internationally. She is also on the ethics committee at St Cuthbert’s hospice.