Rate My Professor Kate Reed

Kate Reed is Professor of Sociology in the Department of Sociology at the University of Manchester, a position she assumed in September 2024. Prior to this appointment, she served as Director of the Sheffield Methods Institute at the University of Sheffield, where she had been a member of the Department of Sociological Studies since January 2004. She holds a BA, MA, and PhD. Reed's research specializations include the sociology of health and illness, death and dying, reproductive health, gender, technology, social theory, and creative qualitative research methods. Her teaching interests center on health, social theory, and research methods, with expertise in creative qualitative methods and research on sensitive topics. As Principal Investigator of the ESRC-funded project 'End of or Start of Life'? Visual Technology and the Transformation of Traditional Post-Mortem, her work has influenced health service delivery and bereavement support through collaborations with Hospice UK, the National Health Service, the Department for Work and Pensions, and the National Bereavement Service.

Reed is a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences and has received the ESRC Outstanding Societal Impact Prize in 2019 for the aforementioned project, as well as the BSA Foundation for Sociology of Health and Illness book prize in 2024 for Understanding Baby Loss: The Sociology of Life, Death and Postmortem (2023, Manchester University Press, co-authored with J. Ellis and E. Whitby). Key publications include 'Capital of Life in Death: How Bereaved Individuals Mobilise Cultural and Social Capital in UK Death Administration' (2025, with L. Towers, The British Journal of Sociology), 'Continuing personhood and the increasing bureaucratisation of death: “My dad doesn’t need electricity in heaven”' (2024, with A. Balazs, The Sociological Review), '“I was just left to get on with the job”: Understanding grief and work through a relational lens' (2024, Sociology), and 'Almost Confessional: Managing Emotions When Research Breaks Your Heart' (2023, with L. Towers, Sociological Research Online). She has published extensively on pregnancy screening, reproductive loss, gender, and visual health technologies.