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Dr Mary Chambers

Dr Mary Chambers

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Mary Chambers

Head of Public and Community Engagement

Public Engagement

Mary Chambers is Head of Public Engagement at OUCRU, with the aims of creating dialogue about science in local communities and integrating community perspectives into OUCRU research studies. She manages a team of PE staff in HCMC, Hanoi, Kathmandu and Jakarta.

Recent public engagement projects include science theatre shows with scripts about enteric disease, antibiotic resistance and dengue transmission – these have toured over 120 schools and been watched by over 100,000 children. The PE team runs a school engagement programme in local schools in HCMC and Hanoi, with science clubs, online science competitions and a weekly magazine page about science. Her team work to build communication capacity of local ‘front-line’ health workers and vets in Vietnam and Nepal.

Mary has a particular interest in using digital story telling techniques to understand perceptions of local research communities, and has coordinated photo-elicitation and film projects about risk in small-scale farming practices, patient’s experiences after discharge from hospital, health issues in vulnerable groups and the experiences of altitude sickness in religious pilgrims in Nepal.

Nepali Pilgrims to Gosainkunda

Every year pilgrims visit religious sites in the mountains of Nepal, often unaware of the dangers of altitude related illnesses. Mary Chambers and the OUCRU Public Engagement Team worked with the Himalayan Rescue Association and the pilgrim community to highlight the challenges of these journeys.