Rate My Professor Aimee Grant

Dr Aimee Grant is an Associate Professor in Public Health at Swansea University and Wellcome Trust Career Development Fellow. She earned her PhD in Social Policy from Cardiff University in 2011, MSc in Social Science Research Methods in 2007, and BSc (Econ) in Criminology and Social Policy in 2006 from the same university. Before entering academia as a mature student, she worked as a carer support worker and auxiliary nurse. Her career trajectory includes roles such as Research and Policy Officer at ASH Wales (2011-2012), Senior Health Promotion Practitioner at Public Health Wales NHS Trust (2012-2013), Research Fellow and Associate at Cardiff University (2013-2018), Lecturer in Business and Society at University of South Wales (2015-2016), and since joining Swansea University in 2021 as Senior Research Officer in Infant Feeding, she advanced to Senior Lecturer and now Associate Professor.

Grant's research specializations encompass marginalisation and stigma, Autistic lived experiences, inequalities in reproductive health and infant feeding, qualitative research methods, and documentary analysis. She is Principal Investigator on the Wellcome Trust Career Development Award-funded project 'Autism from menstruation to menopause' (2022-2030, £2.4 million), a participatory longitudinal study co-led with Autistic community members. Other key projects include realist evaluations of breastfeeding interventions funded by the Medical Research Council and ESRC/BBSRC, and studies on Autistic women's maternity care supported by Health and Care Research Wales. She has supervised PhD completions on Facebook communities for mothers and midwives (2023) and breastfed medically complex infants (2023), and currently supervises projects on social work with Autistic mothers and improving maternity care for Autistic birthing people. Notable publications include authored books 'Doing Your Research Project with Documents: A Step-by-Step Guide to Take You from Start to Finish' (Policy Press, 2022) and 'Doing Excellent Social Research with Documents' (Routledge, 2019, co-authored with Helen Kara); forthcoming 'The Autism-Friendly Guide to Pregnancy, Birth and the Fourth Trimester' (Jessica Kingsley Publishers, 2025); and edited volume 'Using Documents in Research' (Policy Press, 2026). She has contributed chapters to 'The Double Empathy Reader' (2025) and 'The Palgrave Handbook of Research Methods and Ethics in Neurodiversity Studies'. Awards include Sense Campaigner of the Year (2024), Autism CRC Best Inclusive Research Practice (2024), Disability Power 100 (ranked 3rd in STEM, 2023), and Health and Care Research Wales Rising Research Star Highly Commended (2021). Grant co-chairs the Autistic Health Research Network, serves on the Maternity and Autism Research Group steering committee, chairs the Autistic Women in Academia Support Network, and is Deputy Editor of Autism in Adulthood.