Dr Anastasia Karpunina (she/her)
School of Sociological Studies, Politics and International Relations
Postdoctoral research fellow
Full contact details
School of Sociological Studies, Politics and International Relations
The Wave
2 Whitham Road
Sheffield
S10 2AH
- Profile
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Anastasia joined the Department in May 2024. She holds a PhD in Social Work from the University of Ostrava, Czech Republic, where her doctoral research examined the intersection of disability and family risk through the lens of intersectionality and double stigma. Using the case of a disabled child in an at-risk family, she explored how unprepared social workers can be when handling complex, overlapping vulnerabilities. Her work argued for the use of immersive virtual environments to better equip students and practitioners for such challenging situations.
- Research interests
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Anastasia investigates how emerging technologies, particularly artificial intelligence and virtual reality, can enhance social work education and training. Her current research focuses on helping social workers prepare for complex and emotionally demanding situations where they may feel unsure, lack clear guidance, or face aggression, stress, fear, or even threats to their safety and wellbeing. It also includes the development of simulations to support decision-making and communication in highly intersectional cases.
She is creating a training toolkit for students, practitioners, and educators that uses conversational AI avatars to represent a wide range of service user experiences, health conditions, emotional reactions, and behavioural patterns. The scenarios include short scenes, such as an initial home visit where the service user is unwelcoming, or an interaction with a person with dementia who temporarily forgets the role of the social worker, as well as longer workshops incorporating simulations focused on complex issues, such as recognising and responding to coercive control.
- Research group
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Centre for International Research on Care, Labour and Equalities
Sheffield School for Social Care Research
Centre for Machine Intelligence
European Research Institute for Social Work (ERIS)
Yorkshire Consortium for Equity in Doctoral Education
Open Research Working Group
- Grants
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VR in social work education, 2024-2026, Cara, £80,000
British Academy / Cara / Leverhulme research support grant, 2025, £3,800
- Professional activities and memberships
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Anastasia is involved in the “Child Protection in Europe” project, led by the European Research Institute for Social Work, which explores cross-national approaches to child welfare. As part of this initiative, she has been developing a virtual exhibition that presents key aspects of child protection systems in England, France, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Finland, and Germany.
The exhibition includes country-specific data, legal frameworks, governance structures, innovations, and landmark research. It also features interactive elements, such as AI-powered researcher avatars that respond to questions about child protection in each country, as well as a short quiz for users. The virtual platform is freely accessible to social work educators and students worldwide. If you would like access to the exhibition, please feel free to contact Anastasia directly.
- Postgraduate supervision
Anastasia has supervised Master's students on a range of social work topics, with a particular focus on child protection and innovation in practice. She is particularly interested in supervising research on the use of AI and immersive technologies to simulate complex real-world scenarios in social work. Topics such as the potential and risks of AI in practice, and technology-enhanced learning (e.g. podcasts), are especially welcome.
She is also keen to support students whose research aims to have international relevance, for example, through cross-country comparisons conducted in collaboration with the European Research Institute for Social Work or the Eurasian Forum of Social Workers.