Professor Elizabeth Peel

PhD (Loughborough), BA (Nottingham), MSc (Keele)

Pronouns: she/they
  • Professor of Communication and Social Interaction

Research groups and centres

Publications

Professor Elizabeth Peel has held a number of senior leadership roles at the University including Associate Pro Vice Chancellor for the Doctoral College (2018-2022) and Acting Dean for the School of Social Sciences and Humanities (2023-2024).

Following a joint honours degree in Psychology and Sociology and a Diploma in Applied Psychology (1997), Elizabeth completed a PhD in Social Psychology at Loughborough University (2002). Before rejoining Loughborough in April 2016, she was Professor of Psychology and Social Change at the University of Worcester (2013-2016) and has also held academic posts at University of Edinburgh (2002-2003) and Aston University (2003-2013).

She has received a number of awards, including the Feminism & Psychology undergraduate prize (1998), American Psychological Association distinguished book award (2007), and British Psychological Society (BPS) awards for outstanding research (2012) and textbook prize (2013). Elizabeth held an inaugural British Academy Mid-Career Fellowship for the Dementia Talking: Care, conversation and communication project, and was elected Fellow of the BPS in 2016. They Chaired the BPS Psychology of Sexualities Section (2014-2017), and she edits (with Elizabeth Stokoe) the Routledge Gender and Sexualities in Psychology book series. She is an executive committee member of International Society for Critical Health Psychology (ISCHP) and was co-I on the ESRC-funded Future of Legal Gender (FLaG) project (2018-2022).

Professor Peel has been awarded 21 research grants worth £2M from funders including the ESRC, the British Academy and the Alzheimer’s Society and has produced 9 books, nearly 200 journal articles, book chapters and knowledge exchange outputs, and over 120 conferences presentations.

As well being a Chartered Psychologist and Fellow of the British Psychological Society (BPS) she is a British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy (BACP) registered person-centred psychotherapist.

Elizabeth's research, in the field of critical social and health psychology, entails qualitative studies in LGBTIQ psychology and health and wellbeing. She has published widely in the areas of sexualities diversity training, same sex relationships/families, type 2 diabetes, and dementia care and communication. She is currently especially interested in studies of human-animal interaction.

She is an Editor of Feminism & Psychology and is on the Editorial Board of a number of journals including Qualitative Research in Psychology.

Professor Peel has taught undergraduate courses in sexualities and qualitative research methods at undergraduate and masters levels. She is a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (2018), and a UK Council for Graduate Education (UKCGE) Recognised Research Supervisor (2020).

Professor Peel is an experienced doctoral research supervisor and welcomes conversations with prospective PhD students interested in qualitative projects in critical health and social psychology – particularly with regard to human-animal companionship and wellbeing, person-centred counselling, dementia and LGBTIQ issues. She can be contacted on e.peel@lboro.ac.uk

Current postgraduate research students are examining palliative care interactions and Rogers’ interactions with clients.

She has supervised 15 postgraduate research students to successful completion, and has had a number of students funded through the ESRC Midlands Graduate School Doctoral Training Partnership.

She has examined over 30 PhD, DClin Psych, D Prof Prac, EdD, DMedSci theses nationally and internationally.

Her supervisory approach is outlined in: Peel, E., Knott-Fayle, G. & Witcomb, G.L. (2026) A person-centred and goal-oriented approach to supervision teams. In M. Polkinghorne, J. Taylor & F. Knight (Eds.) Innovative Approaches to Doctoral Supervision: Selected case studies. Edward Elgar.