Emma Randall

Biography

I graduated in 2019 from Keele University with 2.1 honours degree in Human Geography with International Business. I then went on to do an MRes at Keele University and received a Merit in Social Science Research Methods in 2020.

Working with documentary sources, structured interviews, questionnaires and observational research, my undergraduate dissertation explored to what extent the osprey (pandion haliaetus) could be used as a tool for human psychological resilience. Influenced by social, emotional, animal and health geography literature, my postgraduate research was an auto-ethnographic study, which explored personal encounters with wild ospreys and considered how these encounters affected my self-resilience. Narrative analysis of biographical nature writing was also compared and used to guide self-reflection of human experience.

Research and scholarship

PhD Project

The Nature Nurse: The practices of eco-therapy, wild interactions and wellbeing

I was awarded +3 studentship via NWSSDTP’s Health and Wellbeing Pathway in 2020. My research will develop critical geographical scholarship on nature to identify how being in nature is experienced through examining different practices of eco-therapy. This research will focus on encounters with birds in natural settings and how these non-human encounters can foster resilience and wellbeing in people.