Philippa (Pippa) Simmonds: PhD student

Email address: philippasimmonds@connect.glos.ac.uk 
ORC ID: www.orcid.org/0000-0003-3929-4934
Research Gate: www.researchgate.net/profile/Philippa-Simmonds

MBChB, MSc (Global Health)

Pippa is an interdisciplinary food systems researcher interested in planetary health, equitable low-carbon transitions, and participatory methods. She joined the CCRI in October 2020, bringing prior experience in Medicine and Global Health. Her project is supervised by Professor Damian Maye and Professor Julie Ingram (both at the CCRI), and supported by the ESRC Doctoral Training Partnership for Wales (Wales DTP) in collaboration with Defra.

Philippa Simmonds

Pippa’s PhD research is exploring how the UK livestock sector is responding to public debates around cows, sheep, and climate change. This includes how farmers perceive interactions between livestock and climate, how these understandings impact their behaviour at the farm level, what structures constrain and enable different behaviours, and whether and how farmers are implementing specific solutions to address GHG emissions from livestock. Her approach includes a critical discourse analysis of news media articles, qualitative interviews with people working in the UK livestock sector, and a participatory photo project with a group of livestock farmers.

Pippa enjoys teaching at undergraduate and masters level, and has delivered guest lectures at the University of Copenhagen and the University of Salford. In 2021, she won UKRI’s Speak Up for Food Security storytelling competition, and her story was made into a short video. During spring 2022, Pippa worked on a British Academy funded project with CCRI colleagues; organising Climathons in two rural livestock-farming communities.

Outside academia, she has worked as a consultant for the WHO Regional Office for Europe on topics including physical activity policy and the social determinants of childhood obesity. She enjoys volunteering with GoodGym, an organisation that supports social initiatives in her local community.

Publications

  • Barbosa, Whiting, Simmonds et al (2020), Physical activity and academic achievement: An umbrella review. Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health, 17(16), 5972. DOI: https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph17165972
  • Braunerová, Kunešová, Heinen et al (2021), Waist circumference and waist to height ratio in 7-year old children – WHO Childhood Obesity Surveillance Initiative. Obes Rev. https://doi.org/10.1111/obr.13208
  • Buoncristiano, Williams, Simmonds et al (2021), Socio-economic inequalities in overweight and obesity among 6-9-year-old children in 24 countries from WHO European Region. Obes Rev. https://doi.org/10.1111/obr.13213
  • Simmonds and Vallgårda (2021), “It’s not as simple as something like sugar”: Values and conflict in the UK meat tax debate. Int. J. Health Gov. https://doi.org/10.1108/IJHG-03-2021-0026
  • Whiting, Mendes, Abu-Omar et al (2021), Physical inactivity in nine European and Central Asian countries: an analysis of national population-based survey results. Eur. J. Public Health. https://doi.org/10.1093/eurpub/ckab028

Reports

  • Maye, D., Simmonds, P., Gardner, A., Ingram, J. and Raseta, S. (2022), Co-designing sustainable food futures: Using Climathons to build shared agri-food visions for net zero, Countryside and Community Research Institute Report, University of Gloucestershire. Available from: https://eprints.glos.ac.uk/11444/
  • Simmonds, P., Maye, D., Gardner, A., Ingram, J. and Raseta, S. (2022), Towards local solutions for net zero: Using Climathons to vision food and farming futures, Countryside and Community Research Institute Report, University of Gloucestershire. Available from: https://eprints.glos.ac.uk/11446/
  • Simmonds, P., Maye, D., Gardner, A.S., Ingram, J. and Raseta, S. (2022) Rural Climathon Playbook. Project Report. University of Gloucestershire, Cheltenham, UK. Available from: https://eprints.glos.ac.uk/11445/
  • Staddon P, Urquhart J, Mills J, Goodenough A, Powell J, Vigani M, Simmonds P (2021). Woodland creation and tree planting, Report to Natural England. Countryside and Community Research Institute: Gloucester.

Conferences and workshops

  • Simmonds (2022), Cows, sheep, and climate: a critical discourse analysis of UK national and livestock sector media. Oral presentation at EurSafe 2022, University of Edinburgh, 9th September.
  • Simmonds, Maye, Ingram, Gardner and Raseta (2022), Deliberative approaches to the climate crisis: Adapting Climathons for rural livestock farming communities. Oral presentation at Royal Geographical Society Annual International Conference, Newcastle University, 1st September.
  • Simmonds and Vallgårda (2020), Stakeholder arguments in the UK meat tax debate: An interpretive policy analysis. Poster presentation at the Livestock, Environment and People (LEAP) Conference, University of Oxford (online), 8th December.
  • Simmonds (2021), Understanding livestock farmer behaviour in relation to climate change. Oral presentation at British Sociological Association Food Studies Group Conference, online, 23rd June.

Awards

Additional activities

  • Represents the CCRI on University of Gloucestershire’s Postgraduate Researcher Steering Group