Rate My Professor Andrea Hollomotz

Andrea Hollomotz is an Associate Professor in Sociology and Social Policy in the School of Sociology and Social Policy at the University of Leeds, where she also holds the position of Deputy Director for Research and Innovation. She earned her PhD in Social Policy from the University of Leeds in 2010, with research centered on learning disabilities and sexual vulnerability. Drawing from her prior experience in social work and social care, she transitioned to academia, previously serving as Lecturer in Social Research Methods, Disability and Deviance.

Her academic interests encompass disability studies, learning disabilities, autism, social care, vulnerability, disabled victims, survivors and offenders, sexual violence, domestic violence, self-advocacy, and inclusive research methods. Hollomotz has led numerous funded research initiatives, including a Ministry of Justice project examining the formal support needs of disabled adult victim-survivors of sexual violence, culminating in a 2023 research report and an Easy Read version; a Home Office-funded investigation into disabled women’s experiences of reporting sexual violence to the police; an ESRC-funded study on individuals with learning disabilities who have sexually offended; and the MS Domestic Violence and Abuse Research Initiative exploring DVA in the context of multiple sclerosis. Additionally, from 2021 to 2022, she collaborated with Prof Mark Priestley and Disability Rights UK on a Cabinet Office review of evidence based on the lived experiences of disabled people in the UK. In 2014, she was awarded the ESRC Future Research Leaders fellowship for a realist evaluation of adapted sex offender treatment programs for men with intellectual disabilities.

Among her key publications are the monograph Learning Difficulties and Sexual Vulnerability: A Social Approach (Jessica Kingsley Publishers, 2011), 'Beyond vulnerability: An ecological model approach to conceptualizing risk of sexual violence against people with learning difficulties' (British Journal of Social Work, 2009), 'Disability, oppression and violence: Towards a sociological explanation' (Sociology, 2013), and 'Successful interviews with people with intellectual disability' (Qualitative Research, 2018). Her work, cited over 1,200 times, significantly impacts understandings of disability, violence, and support services in academic and policy domains.