Susie Bamford

Susie joined IES as a Senior Research Fellow in October 2022. She is a quantitative researcher, statistician, and chartered psychologist. She has substantial research experience spanning the last 20 years, which extends across academia, independent research providers, and her own research consultancy.

Susie worked on internationally recognised trials at the Universities of Bangor and Southampton, where she completed several years of postdoctoral research in psychology laboratories running randomised controlled trials with behavioural and educational outcomes in schools, nurseries, and clinics. The highlights were working on Professor Fergus Lowe’s Food Dudes project promoting healthy eating in children at Bangor University, designing and running her own research strand into emotional responses and the brain behaviour link (at Bangor and Southampton Universities), working on the early years comparison of parenting programmes (COPPI) trial at University of Southampton, and running 3 double-blind placebo-controlled drug studies at the Department of Psychiatry in Southampton.

Following this, she gained 3 years of educational research experience at the National Foundation for Educational Research where she led several trials and was an active member of the NFER trials unit. Whilst at NFER Susie also produced high-impact work looking at teacher workforce issues using secondary datasets and conducted research looking at education-to-employment transitions.

In 2017 she left NFER and set up her own business providing consultancy on the design and delivery of research to various clients. During this time, she worked on several projects for IES as an IES associate.

Susie’s main interests are in the areas of education, health, and human behaviour. She is an expert in RCT design and delivery and is an experienced project leader. She is passionate about producing excellent quality research evidence and communicating the science in a clear and engaging way.