Sonali Shah is Senior Research Fellow at Strathclyde Centre for Disability Research at Glasgow University. She was previously a Research Fellow at the Centre for Disability Studies, University of Leeds. Her research adopts different qualitative methodologies to examine the impact of public policy and practices on private lives of disabled persons over historical time and in a national and international context. This includes an interplay of biographical narratives and critical policy analysis, and also the use of more creative methods to transmit social-scientific disability research to non-academic audiences. Sonali Shah is the sole author of books Career Success of Disabled High-flyers and Young Disabled People: Aspirations, Choices and Constraints and co-author of Disability and Social Change: Private Lives and Public Policies. She teaches about disability issues across different university level programmes including social policy, education, psychology and medicine. Sonali Shah is the Principal Investigator (Manager) for the UK strand of the present Daphne III 2007-2013 project, working with Dr Sarah Woodin and Dr Lito Tsitsou.

Sarah Woodin is a Research Fellow at the University of Leeds and is Co-Investigator for the UK component of this Daphne lll project. Her research concerns disability and independent living in its broadest sense, including research into institutional abuse and hate crime as well as interpersonal and domestic violence. Most of her current research is carried out at the European level, including with the EU funded Academic Network of European Disability Experts (ANED). Before re-entering academia, Sarah worked to develop policy innovations and alternative services to institutional provision through supported employment and independent living, at local, national and international levels, especially in relation to people with intellectual disabilities. At Leeds she is involved in a wide range of research and teaching with the Centre for Disability Studies.