Carys Banks

Carys Banks is an NIHR Research Fellow in the School of Health Sciences at the University of Surrey. Her anthropological research examines formal care relationships for adults with learning disabilities, with particular focus on how policy shapes everyday support practices.

She leads an NIHR Advanced Fellowship project (2022-2028) developing co-designed interventions to address loneliness in learning disability social care settings. Her ethnographic approach reveals tensions between policy ideals of independence and the realities of dependence and vulnerability in care relationships.

Banks received the prestigious Radcliffe Brown/Sutasoma Award for doctoral research of outstanding anthropological significance. Her publications critically examine empowerment policies and methodological challenges in sensitive health research contexts.