Dr Rachele Salvatelli is a Research Fellow at Insights North East, where she leads the Health & Wellbeing theme. She works with local stakeholders to identify policy priorities and relevant evidence from the academic community to develop research activities and produce outputs in order to inform local policies and improve the health and wellbeing of people living in the region. Prior to this, Rachele worked as a Research Associate in the Population Health Sciences Institute at Newcastle University on a project about the impact of Long Covid on the health, wellbeing, and employment prospects of adults living in the North East.  

Rachele is a qualitative sociologist with an interest in social determinants of health, sociology of health and illness, sociology of the body, narrative methodologies, and fat studies. In 2022, she completed a PhD in Sociology at the University of York on a project about the lived experiences of fat body positive individuals and the ways in which they narrate stories of their bodies. Alongside her research activities, Rachele has taught at undergraduate level, with teaching and module leadership expertise in research methods, as well as sociology, criminology and social psychology. In 2020, she was awarded the status of Associate Fellow of the Higher Education Academy.