Samantha Evans

Samantha joined the HRMOS department in October 2021. Prior to Royal Holloway, she was a Research Fellow at UCL, Research Associate at Exeter University, and an Associate Lecturer at both Birkbeck, University of London and the Open University. Before this she worked for many years as a senior manager in the public and cultural sectors. Sam is a critical psychologist, and her work focusses on workplace inequality, career development, occupational cultures, and the construction of knowledge with a particular interest in discourse, narrative, visual and historical analysis. She has researched these issues within UK museum work, theatre directing, universities and the NHS.

Sam’s PhD entitled “Struggles for distinction: class and classed inequality in UK museum work” was awarded in November 2020 and won the Best Thesis prize in the School of Business, Economics and Informatics at Birkbeck. She is currently working on a funding proposal to examine how discourses of ‘career’, ‘upward mobility’ and ‘levelling up’ shape the experiences and meaning-making of people in what are often classed “low status” roles. She is also researching the careers of people from working-class backgrounds in non academic roles in UK universities (funded by CHRONOS).

Sam teaches on the Career Management in a Changing World, which she co-designed with Maria Simosi, and Diversity and Inclusion in the workplace. She is also the Course Director for the BSc in Business and Management with HRM, which she has helped update and re-design. She is committed to providing students with the confidence, critical thinking skills, and employability skills to develop their future and make positive contributions to society.

She is interested in supervising PhD students with an interest in:

• Workplace inequalities
• The creative and cultural sectors
• Career development
• Well-being at work
• Meaningful work