editorial board member, Qualitative Research, and Chair, Trustees of the Foundation which owns the Sociology of Health and Illness journal After graduating with a first class degree in Geography from Manchester University, I worked for 4 years as a researcher in the department of Public Health Medicine in Gwent Health Authority. In 1995 I moved to the School of Social Sciences at Cardiff University where I started my academic career as a research assistant working on a Department of Health funded study to estimate the prevalence of injecting drug use in Wales using the 'contact-recontact' method. Between 1997 and 2003 I worked as a Research/Tutorial Fellow for the same department. In this role I was engaged in teaching medical sociology and research methods as well as employed on a number of projects including the disclosure of emotional problems in primary care and the construction of risk within cancer genetics. During this time I also completed a PhD which presented an ethnographic investigation of a scientific culture focussing on an emerging and potentially zoonotic virus called Borna Disease Virus. I have also recently completed a qualitative methods text book published by Sage (Bloor and Wood 2006). In 2003 I was appointed as a non-clinical lecturer in the Department of General Practice (now Department of Primary Care & Public Health). My teaching areas include communication skills, research methods and aspects of medical humanities such as literature and medicine and philosophy of medicine at undergraduate level. I have also taught research methods at post-graduate level. I am currently co-supervising two PhD students. Previous PhD students include Michelle Edwards who studied the practice of health literacy in patients with a long-term health condition through self-directed learning, patient education and social interaction. I have also served as a member of the Local Research Ethics Committee. Since my appointment to lecturer in 2003, my main areas of research have been in the areas of common infections and health care communication.