Rachel joined IDS in September 2020 as a postgraduate researcher working on the marketisation of nutrition. Her PhD investigates branded foods with nutrition claims in the UK, exploring how these everyday products are enabling and constraining positive nutrition choices, as well as shaping and mobilising aspirations and broader subjectivities. The research is based on an ethnography of family shopping and eating practices in Brighton and focuses on products targeting children under ten. The project is funded by SeNSS/ESRC and included completing a MSc in Social Research Methods at Sussex (Global Studies). Nicholas Nisbett and Dinah Rajak are supervisors for the PHD.

Prior to joining IDS, Rachel worked as a commercial market researcher and strategy consultant for nine years helping global and local brands – including food and drink – understand and connect with their audiences. She has a longstanding interest in market-based development and social change; during breaks from mainstream marketing, she pursued a number of social business models, including launching a catering social enterprise with unemployed women in East London, and facilitating market linkages between fruit farmers and buyers on a large value chain development programme in Eastern Uganda. Rachel holds a MProf in Leadership for Sustainable Development from Forum for the Future and Middlesex University and an MA in Geography from Cambridge University.