Biography
Shanu Sadhwani is a Research Fellow of Behavioural Medicine, and a Graduate member of the British Psychological Society, and the Division of Health Psychology. She has been a researcher in the Division of Primary Care and Public Health at BSMS since 2015, specialising in elderly medicine, health inequities, and dementia.
She is currently working as a Local Clinical Trial Manager for PRODEMOS: a large scale EU funded project assessing whether a behaviour change m-Health intervention can help middle-aged and elderly populations reduce their risk of dementia.
Additionally, Shanu is in the final write-up stages of her doctoral thesis examining the diagnosis of dementia in the UK. Her research interests include elderly medicine, and doctor patient communication. She is particularly interested in health inequities, sustained lifestyle behaviour change, and qualitative methodologies.
Initially, Shanu trained in the performing arts, graduating from Goldsmiths, University of London with an MA in Performance and Culture: Interdisciplinary Perspectives. She began teaching in secondary schools, further education (FE) and Higher Education (HE) in the Performing Arts and English. Shanu worked extensively in the volunteer sector with abuse victims and homeless populations, which resulted in a shift in her career. Developing an interest in the illness experience, and narrative medicine, she worked in General Practice whilst retraining as a health psychologist. She completed an MSc in Health Psychology in 2012, and began teaching undergraduate and postgraduate psychology. She began her doctoral research at BSMS in 2015, and was appointed as a Research Fellow and Local Clinical Trial Manage at BSMS in 2018.
Shanu has held numerous committee responsibilities including: The Midlands Health Psychology Network (4 years) and the British Psychological Society’s (BPS) Division of Health Psychology (4 years). Currently, she sits on the BSMS Research and Governance Ethics Committee (RGEC) as a Primary Care and Qualitative Methodologies specialist.