Medical Humanities in Practice: Celebrating the 2025–26 Fellows

We warmly invite you to join us at this celebratory event marking our flagship initiative: the Medical Humanities in Practice Research Fellowship on 19 June 2026, supporting practitioners in Community and Health sectors to lead research.

At the event we will hear from four fellows from the 2025–26 cohort, who will share  the health research projects they have developed, their experience of the scheme, and their on-going plans.

This will also be a chance to find out more about research in Voluntary, Community and Health sectors, how universities can support cross-sector collaboration in research, and to connect with represntatives from these sectors.

The four research projects you will hear about are:

• Shayla Sue Schlossenberg: ‘How do Drug User Activists Remember and Narrate their Role in the Harm Reduction Movements, from Drug Policy Advocacy to Local-Level Community Organizing, from the 1960s to the Present?’
• Estelle Verdi: Illuminating Grief: Mental Health Support for Muslim Women Experiencing Baby Loss.
• Judith Holliday: ‘Hidden Experiences And barriers To HEalth Research participation (HEATHER): Uncovering Hidden Experiences and Barriers to Health Research Participation Among Women from Deprived Areas’
• Phil Samba: ‘Barriers and Opportunities of Long-Acting Injectable PrEP for Black Queer Men and the Promise of New Methods for HIV Prevention Research’

Attendees are also welcome to join us for lunch following the Fellow’s presentations for further conversations with our Fellows and key cross-sector partners.

Friday 19 June

11:00 to 13:00: Hear from our Fellows

12:30 to 13:30: Lunch

Register for the event and optional lunch via this Microsoft Form by 15 June 2026. We would be very happy to provide any further information if helpful.

The 2025–2026 pilot cohort has brought together a diverse and inspiring group of fellows, whose work demonstrates the value and potential of cross-sector collaboration and knowledge exchange in health research. The initiative is already generating new collaborations between fellows and Durham researchers within the Institute.

We very much hope you can join us.

If you have any accessibility/dietary requirements, please get in touch with us at imh.events@durham.ac.uk.