Debbie and Jon both have a background in academia, and share an interest in research, particularly research methodology and interdisciplinarity.

Debbie has an academic background in art psychotherapy as a lecturer on the Sheffield MA in Art Psychotherapy Practice and has also recently completed a practice-based Ph.D. in the fine arts at Sheffield Hallam University. Her research interest lies with assembling ideas and practices from psychoanalysis, art psychotherapy, and the arts to explore the psychosocial role of reflexive art practice in honing sensitivity to the affective dimensions of human situations and experience. Through her research practice she draws attention to an ethics of responsibility, attention, and care where the ‘work’ of art may function as a site for reflexivity through which we may be pressed to notice and feel into relational complexities and ethical sensibilities more acutely.

Jon’s background is in academic vascular surgery, healthcare research, and clinical decision science. Since retiring from clinical practice, he has continued research at the School of Health and Related Research, University of Sheffield, and has completed an MA in Fine Art at Sheffield Hallam University. His current research interests include geographical, socioeconomic, and ethnic disparities in access to, and outcome of healthcare services, and the ethical and value-based aspects of individual and policy decisions. He is particularly interested in the way that subspecialisation has led to fragmentation of knowledge with increasing reliance on expertise and evidence. He believes that there is an important role for collaboration between scientific and creative subjects in elucidating the implicit and explicit value judgements that underpin, and frequently remain unacknowledged, in evidence-based decisions.

Further details of Debbie’s Ph.D. and other publications can be found on her Ph.D. website and details of Jon’s academic work and publications can be found on his university page.