Brendan Burchell

Dr Brendan Burchell is the Professor of the Social Sciences in the Department of Sociology at the University of Cambridge.  He is also President of Magdalene College, Cambridge.

Dr Burchell’s main research interests centre on the effects of labour market conditions on wellbeing.  Recent publications have focussed on reduced hours employment, unemployment, job insecurity, work intensity, part-time work, zero-hours contracts, debt, occupational gender segregation and self-employment. Most of his work concentrates on employment in Europe, but current projects also include an analysis of job quality, the future of work and youth self-employment in developing countries. He works in interdisciplinary environments with psychologists, sociologists, economists, geographers, lawyers and other social scientists.

He was recently Head of Institution for the Department of Sociology at the University of Cambridge.  He has supervised 28 PhD students and many more MPhil students.

Dr Burchell’s undergraduate degree was in Psychology, followed by a PhD in Social Psychology.  His first post in Cambridge was a joint appointment between the social sciences and economics in 1985, and he has been in a permanent teaching post in at Cambridge since 1990.