Biography
Sarah is a lecture of Tourism, Events and Festival Management at both Undergraduate and Postgraduate levels, and the incoming programme leader for MSc International Festivals and Event Management. Having originally undertaken her Undergraduate, Masters and PhD at Edinburgh Napier Business School, she spent a number of years working at the University of Hertfordshire as a senior lecturer and programme leader for the Event Management and combination degree programmes, before returning to ENU in 2021.
Sarah is passionate about travel and events of all sizes and genres and her research looks in to the variety of consequences that events and tourism can have on host communities from a number of societal perspectives. She teaches on a range of modules across events and tourism at undergraduate and postgraduate levels, both in the UK and abroad.
Her PhD investigates the London 2012 Olympic Games and the citizen participation process involved in the planning of mega sporting events. Presented at international conferences, her PhD maps the level of citizen participation within the 2012 Olympics and the perceived impact that this has had on host community. This research is linked to academic debates on event impacts, sustainable communities, and participative planning and she continues to apply the findings of this to current and future editions of the Olympic Games.
Alongside this, Sarah also investigates the issue of Human Rights within event host destinations and the social and political issues that can occur around the staging of mega sporting events.
Sarah is dedicated to learning and teaching and was awarded Senor Fellowship of the Higher Education Academy (SFHEA) in 2020. She has undertaken funded studies into the benefits of fieldtrips for tourism students, and into the independent learner journey of Event Management students. Her work on Student fieldtrips has also lead to studies investigating the use of Visual methods (Volunteer Employed Photography) within undergraduate assessment in this context.