Professor Brendan Burchell

Dr Brendan Burchell's first degree was in Psychology from Birmingham University from 1977-80. From there he went to Warwick University to take a PhD in Social Psychology, researching person perception under laboratory conditions. He then took a one-year post at The City University teaching social psychology, statistics and computing. His career took a change of direction when, in 1985, he was appointed to the Department of Applied Economics at Cambridge as a Research Officer to assist in a project entitled the Social Change and Economic Life Initiative, working collaboratively with economists, social psychologists and sociologists on a variety of aspects of labour markets and their effects on individuals. In 1988 Dr Burchell transferred from the Department of Applied Economics to take a Lectureship in the Faculty of Social and Political Sciences (now PPSIS), specialising in the teaching of data analysis.

Recent projects and publications have included: the psychological consequences of unemployment, redundancy, work intensification and job insecurity; predictors and correlates of the transition into self-employment; managers' and employees' different perspectives on jobs, skills and opportunities; part-time work and gender differences in working conditions and careers; pay satisfaction; telework; geographically distributed work teams; new statistical methods for analysing work histories.