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Dr Marion Walker

Formerly at Lancaster University

Research overview

Marion’s research interests are focussed around the geography of education, research with children and young people and working with innovative methodologies. She is currently a co-investigator on the European Project: Cultures of Disaster Resilience Among Children and Young People CUIDAR funded under Horizon 2020. This builds on her work in collaboration with Save the Children, UK as the lead researcher and co-investigator on the ESRC funded study: Children, Young People and Flooding: Recovery and Resilience

Research Interests

Marion Walker is a social scientist and a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society. Her PhD (Educational Research, Lancaster 2006) explored the issues of school choice in rural communities and the relationship between social class, lifestyle and locale in relation to the educational market place. After joining the Lancaster Environment Centre Marion continued to pursue her research interests in the geography of education, research with children and young people and working with innovative methodologies. The first project explored the school journey using mobile phone, GIS and GPS technology.  Building on this work Marion then spent a year working in Hull on the participatory project Children, Flood and Urban Resilience: Understanding children and young people's experience and agency in the flood recovery process. The project set out to document and understand the longer-term experience of flood impact and flood recovery including the health, educational and social aspects for children and young people and to assess the policy implications of children's perspectives.

Marion then developed her interest in flood risk and became the Facilitator for the NERC/ScienceWise funded Knowledge Exchange Catchment Change Management Hub - a repository and guide for planning catchment restoration and mitigation measures to achieve good ecological status for the benefit of catchment managers, advisors and local communities and designed as a place where people who are interested in the wellbeing of their local rivers can share understanding and make links across river catchments.  Prior to the formation of the CCM Hub Marion was the Facilitator for the NERC Knowledge Exchange Catchment Change Network (CCN). The network encouraged the exchange of best practice between stakeholders in terms of understanding and managing uncertainty related to change in river catchments across three key areas - water scarcity, flood risk and diffuse pollution. Her remit involved coordinating activities between the science and user communities, identifying new collaborative research opportunities and optimising professional development learning across a range of key science user groups.

Marion's research also includes work on an interdisciplinary project Exploring and Expanding the Student Experience with colleagues in the Lancaster Environment Centre and Educational Research. This project set out to help Lancaster University students and the institution itself to better understand the ways in which students can increase their 'employability' whilst broadening and expanding their student experience.

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