Debbie has been at the University of Bristol since 2007 and is currently Professor in Child and Family Welfare. She is also the Director for the Brigstow Institute- which is one of five University research institutes. In this role she is responsible for academic leadership of the institute in enabling radical interdisciplinary research both within and beyond the University. Brigstow champions co-produced, creative research methodologies and approaches and supports the wider research community to engage across disciplines in playful and experimental ways. 

In her own research Debbie is currently a co-investigator in a large ESRC centre- the Centre for Sociodigital Futures. Here she heads up research on Caring Futures and is currently running a project exploring the use of predictive analytics in child welfare contexts. This comprises a number of activities: system analytics on risk models, creative workshops with young people on data harms and AI systems and community stakeholder research on impacts of such systems in everyday life. Debbie is also part of the leadership team for the Centre and leads on impact and engagement as well as contributing expertise to the Centre's work around collaboration.

Historically she has worked across disciplines on a number of projects which have usually been co-produced and had digital or arts-based elements. These include 'trove': researching and co-designing digital tools with care-experienced children to enable their participation in life story work; 'Difficult Conversations': using sandboxing to understand the barriers in care-experienced families to conversations about trauma; 'VR Dance': working with young people and hip hop artists and VR technologists to consider risk and resilience for at risk young people; 'What does nature mean to me?': which involved young children and artists engaging in art/nature excursions and 'Life Chances': co-writing a sociological work of fiction with parents on low-income about the impact of Universal Credit. Some of her research is more traditional -for example she worked with medical colleagaes on a systematic review exploring how to support families at high risk of sudden infant death.

Many of her projects have resulted in outputs beyond academic papers and books such as training resources for adults supporting care-experienced children in 'Difficult Conversations'; a prototype of a digital tool in 'trove' or a toolkit to support communities to reduce dog fouling in neighbourhoods in 'Poo Patrol'.

Theoretically Debbie is inspired by more-than-human or New Materialist theories and she is co-convenor of the New Materialisms strand of the British Sociological Association.

Research projects

Current

• Caring for futures (Centre for Sociodigital Futures)

Websites and links:
https://www.bristol.ac.uk/research/centres/sociodigital-futures/

https://www.bristol.ac.uk/brigstow/

https://difficultconversations.info/

https://stuartiaingray.com/portfolio/trove/

https://brigstowinstitute.blogs.bristol.ac.uk/project/what-does-nature-mean-to-me/

https://teampoopatrol.com/