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Bakita Kasadha

BA (Hons), MA

NIHR Doctoral Research Fellow

  • DPhil investigating how academic health institutions integrate and govern lived expertise through peer and co-research roles
  • Advisory Board Member - QMUL Sexual Health All East Research Group (SHARE) Collaborative

Research interests: participatory research methods, arts-based methods and long-term health conditions.

Research summary

Bakita Kasadha is a multi-award-winning health researcher whose work examines how institutions structure expertise, participation and lived knowledge within health and research systems. Her research focuses on institutional design, knowledge politics and participatory practice, analysing how participatory ambitions are operationalised and constrained within organisational settings.

Her NIHR-funded doctoral research investigates how academic health institutions integrate and govern lived expertise through peer and co-research roles, exploring how authority, legitimacy and decision-making are negotiated in participatory research environments. She is supervised by Professor Cicely Marston, Professor Sue Ziebland and Dr Teresa Finlay. As well as the NIHR DRF, Bakita was awarded two scholarships and is a Medical Research Council DTP and Oxford-Reuben Black Academic Futures scholar. 

She joined the department as the lead researcher on an HIV and infant feeding study (NOURISH-UK, PI: Dr Tanvi Rai) work that examined how clinical guidance, lived experience and care practices were experienced by parents living with HIV. The study findings went on to inform national policy.

Bakita's broader research has since spanned health contexts including HIV, maternal health and long-term conditions, combining qualitative and arts-based methodologies to understand how experiential knowledge shapes research, policy and practice.

Teaching experience

  • Patients, Citizens & the Politics of Evidence module - TA and guest lecturer (2022/23, 2023/24 and 2024/25)
  • UCL Remote Research Methods - Creative Methods panellist (2022/23, 2023/24 and 2024/25)
  • Oxford Qualitative Research Methods tutor - Introduction to poetic inquiry (2021/22)

  • Brighton and Sussex Medical School guest lecturer - Community engagement in global health research (2019/20 and 2020/21)

  • Brighton and Sussex Medical School guest lecturer - Health service financing arrangements in example countries (2019/20 and 2020/21)

  • Brighton and Sussex Medical School guest lecturer - Community mobilisation and international advocacy for affecting global health (2019/20 and 2020/21)

  • PENTA-ID module co-coordinator -  Adolescents, Sexual Health and Living with HIV (2019/20 and 2021/22)

Qualifications

  • MA Applied Anthology & Community Development,  Department of Anthropology and Department of Social, Therapeutic and Community Studies, Goldsmiths, University of London, UK.
  • BA (Hons) English Literature with Creative Writing, School of Literature and Languages, University of Surrey, UK.

Special Collection on HIV and Women's Health: Where Are We Now?

Dr Shema Tariq (UCL) and Bakita Kasadha co-edited a special collection on HIV and Women's Health: Where Are We Now? This is a joint collection between the Women's Health journal and Therapeutic Advances in Infectious Disease journal. 

 

Awards

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