After graduating with a first class degree in Geography from Manchester University, I worked for 4 years as a researcher in the department of Public Health Medicine in Gwent Health Authority. In 1995 I moved to the School of Social Sciences at Cardiff University where I started my academic career as a research assistant working on a Department of Health funded study to estimate the prevalence of injecting drug use in Wales using the contact-recontact method. Between 1997 and 2003 I worked as a Research/Tutorial Fellow for the same department. In this role I was engaged in teaching medical soci...