Rachel Salzano and Katherine Stephen at Edinburgh Napier’s Merchiston campus

Welcome to Rachel Salzano and Katherine Stephen, who join us this week as new research students within the Centre for Social Informatics at Edinburgh Napier University.

Rachel comes to Napier with an undergraduate degree in Psychology from Colorado State University, and a Masters degree in Library and Information Science from San Jose State University. Rachel’s most recent employment was as a Product Analyst at the American Psychological Association (APA) in Washington DC. There she was responsible for third-party vendor relations and product releases to APA’s database products. For her doctoral study Rachel intends to explore the effect of culture on public library use by new-comer populations such as refugees.  I am the Director of Studies for Rachel, and her second supervisor is Dr Gemma Webster. For more information about Rachel’s PhD and her wider interests, please see her blog.

Having already been associated with our group for over a year during the +1 Masters component of her PhD at the University of Edinburgh, Katherine has now ‘officially’ joined us at Napier. Her doctoral study – entitled Meta-skills maturity for future workplaces – is supported by a collaborative ESRC-Skills Development Scotland studentship awarded by the Scottish Graduate School of Social Science. Katherine’s Masters degree adds to her qualifications in Music, and in Careers Guidance and Development. Katherine is a co-founder of the Abandoned Bookshop. She is also a member of the Staynimble team as a Career Guidance Practices Advisor and Content Writer. Dr Laura Muir is Katherine’s Director of Studies, and I am her second supervisor. For information about Katherine’s PhD and her wider interests, please see her blog.