Emma Sheppard

Emma is a Sociologist working in Critical Disability Studies. Her work explores disability and time alongside queer and crip theories. Her broader research interests encompass accessible teaching and research, and creative research methods. 

Emma gained her undergraduate degree in Geography from QMUL in 2010, and then her MA in Gender, Sexuality, and Society from Birkbeck. Her PhD, in Sociology, was awarded by Edge Hill University in 2017; between 2005 and 2018 she worked as an English as an Additional Language teacher. Having been a Teaching Fellow at City, University of London, and a Lecturer in Sociology at Coventry University, she joined DGES in 2023.  

Emma's research explores fatigue and pain through and alongside crip time and queer-crip joy. Her doctoral work, which was published as a monograph ("Chronic Pain, BDSM and Crip Time") in 2023 explored how embodied experiences of chronic pain were understood by people who engaged in BDSM play - and challenged normative expectations of what it means to live with pain.