Heather Hamill becomes Professor of Sociology
Congratulations to Heather Hamill, who has been awarded full Professorship by the University.
Professor Hamill's research primarily centres on the various ways in which problems related to establishing trust and reputation are solved. These issues are particularly pertinent in the low-trust environments of high-crime neighbourhoods and illegal political and criminal organisations.
In the past, Heather has researched these issues in a number of different settings including: informal justice and policing in Northern Ireland; how taxi drivers develop trust with their customers; and how illegal political and criminal organisations recruit their members.
On these topics, she has published two books: 'The Hoods: Crime and Punishment in Belfast' (2011, Princeton University Press) and 'Streetwise: How taxi drivers establish their customer's trustworthiness' (2005, Russell Sage Foundation).
Heather's current research focuses on the problems of trust created by the proliferation of sub-standard and falsified medicines in sub-Saharan Africa and India.
Working as part of the multi-disciplinary Medicine Quality Research Group, Heather uses social networking theory to establish the sources and trade routes of fake medicines, aiming to work out the nature of the relationships between illegal traders, how trust is established within the network, and how regulatory scrutiny is avoided.
Heather's work will be combined with research from the fields of pharmacy, forensic genetics, chemistry, geography, criminology, microbiology and food safety to answer key gaps in the existing knowledge and inform global policymaking.
Huge congratulations to Professor Hamill on your well-deserved new title!
