Colette is a Professor of Sociology (2005-) and the University’s Vice-President for Research. Her leadership role in the University and in appointments in the Higher Education Sector are summarised here.  

Colette is an elected Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences in recognition of her research and policy impact focussed on employment, working conditions and job quality; gender relations and inequalities in the workplace and in family life, working-time and time-use, and international comparative analysis.

Her research has been supported by major national and international funders, including the UK’s ESRC (Economic and Social Research Council) and the European Union’s research framework programes. Her record of knowledge exchange and impact formed one of the University’s REF2014 impact cases for sociology. She  has held visiting academic appointments at the Wissenshaftzentrum (WZB) Berlin; RMIT and The University of Sydney, Australia; and the University of Wisconsin-Madison, USA.

Her commitment to enabling interdisciplinary research includes co-auhorship of the British Academy’s 2016 report Crossing Paths: Interdisciplinary institutions, careers, education and applications.  

Based on her research she has an extensive record of advisory and consultancy roles with the European Commission (Directorate for employment, equalities and social affairs) and its Eurofound agency, the European Parliament,  the United Nations’ International Labour Office and the OECD; and various national government ministries and agencys, trade unions and employers’ associations in the EU, Australia, Japan and South Korea.

Colette joined the University as a sociology lecturer in 1998. Previously she worked as a lecturer at the University of Liverpool, a researcher at UMIST and a research officer at the UK’s Equal Opportunities Commission (now the Equality and Human Rights Commission). Her connection with the University started in 1990 when she registered as a part-time PhD student.

I currently supervise three postgraduate researchers, and the following have been awarded their doctorate under my supervision:

• Susanna Whawell (2019) Women who do not join Company Boards, 
• Claire Shepherd (2014) Gender role attitudes in Europe and the individualisation thesis
• Fatima Assuncao (2011) Gender and self-employment in Portugal, Portuguese government scholarship
• Abril Saldana (2011) Domestic service in Mexico, Mexican government scholarship
• Helen Norman (2010) Involved Fatherhood: an analysis of the conditions associated with pateranal involvement in childcare and housework, ESRC doctoral studentship
• Pierre Walthery (2011), Women returners on the labour market: attitudes and constraints
• Hayley Limmer (2010), Why do women from selected ethnic groups have different rates of self-employment? 
• Stefano Ba (2008) 'Post-Fordist Families: Class and Gender in the Flexible Economy' ESRC doctoral studentship, PhD submitted 2007
• Nina Robinson (2006) 'Fragmented Sisterhood? A critical investigation of social relationships between women managers/professionals within the Gendered Workplace' ESRC doctoral studentship, PhD submitted 2007
• Darren Nixon (2004) ‘Economic Restructuring, Feminisation and Men’s Employment Opportunities’ ESRC doctoral studentship, PhD awarded 2005

Additional information:

She is available for media interview on her specialist topics (working-time, gender inequalities in Europe), and has been interviewed on these topics by journalists in Britain, France, the Netherlands and Australia.