Dr Isabel Windeatt-Harrison

I received my PhD from the University of Sheffield in 2021. I analysed how people with aphasia and their companions use and understand silence within everyday conversations using the methodology of conversation analysis (CA).

Following this, I undertook a role as a Research Fellow at the University of Nottingham on the VOICE2 project. This project examined how to avoid, manage, and resolve episodes of distress in people living with dementia in UK acute hospital wards. In 2023, I returned to the University of Sheffield and began work on the NIHR HS&DR-funded project Improving triadic decision-making involving people with dementia. This is a cross-sectional and longitudinal conversation analytic study examining how healthcare professionals, patients and their companions/carers are involved in making decisions and how decision-making evolves as a person’s dementia progresses. 

I also hold an honorary position at the University of Nottingham, and I run the Dementia and Conversation Analysis Network (DemCAN), an international monthly online meeting of CA researchers. DemCAN serves as a platform for those undertaking dementia research to collaborate by sharing their data and gaining analytic insights from other researchers.