Dr Jenna Breckenridge

Jenna holds a joint, clinical academic role between the University of Dundee and NHS Tayside, where she is the Lead for Allied Health Professions Research. She is an HCPC registered occupational therapist, graduating with first class honours from Queen Margaret University in 2007. Since qualifying, Jenna has worked in the voluntary sector and higher education, and has spent the majority of her career in health and social science research. She completed her PhD at Queen Margaret University in 2010 and has held post-doctoral research positions at the University of Edinburgh, University of Dundee and Queen Margaret University. In addition to her research experience, Jenna also spent two years as a Lecturer in Occupational Therapy at Queen Margaret University, where she contributed to pre and post-registration degree programmes, and taught and supervised MSc and PhD level students across the health sciences. Jenna was appointed to her current role in 2018, which combines her experience in both education and research to build AHP research capacity and capability across NHS Tayside.

Jenna is an experienced qualitative researcher and methodologist. Her research focuses on three inter-related strands:

1. Mobilising ‘useful’ knowledge for maximum impact
2. Methodological innovation and creativity in research design
3. Enabling people to participate in activities and communities

She has expertise in knowledge mobilisation, theory-building qualitative research, qualitative evidence synthesis, creative methods, intervention development and evaluating complex interventions. She is experienced in leading stakeholder engagement and is committed to inter-disciplinary research approaches that learn from, and contribute to, practice. She is the co-founder of @AHP2mintalks, a global twitter community to support Allied Health Professionals in sharing and engaging with research.