Dr Jessica Drakett

About Dr Jessica Drakett

Jessica is a senior lecturer in psychology at Leeds Beckett University. She completed her doctoral research here in 2017, with the thesis titled Constructions of Gender and Humour in Technology Work: A Feminist Poststructuralist Analysis, supervised by Dr Bridgette Rickett, Dr Katy Day and Dr Kate Milnes.

Jessica's research research explores the gender gap in technology from a feminist poststructuralist standpoint, with a specific focus on organisational and Internet humour (in particular, Internet memes). Prior to completing her PhD, Jessica achieved a BSc (Hons) in psychology at Sheffield Hallam University, before working as a software engineer for a company providing clinical software to the NHS and other organisations.

Jessica serves on the BPS Psychology of Women and Equalities Section (POWES) committee, having previously managed the social media and web presence of the section, and is currently working as conference lead for the annual POWES conference. Between 2013 and 2017, she worked as co-editor of the International Society for Critical Health Psychology (ISCHP) newsletter and blog.

Current Teaching

Jessica teaches on the undergraduate and postgraduate psychology courses at Leeds Beckett University, including both onsite and distance learning provisions. She covers a range of topics within psychology including:

• qualitative and quantitative research methods
• statistics
• social psychology
• critical and philosophical issues in psychology
• dissertation supervision

She has also worked as a distance learning tutor in psychology for the Open University.

Research Interests

Jessica's research interests broadly span the following areas:

• qualitative research methods
• critical feminist psychology
• organisational psychology
• cyberpsychology
• social psychology