David Carless

David Carless is a Senior Lecturer and Reader in the School of Health and Life Sciences at the University of the West of Scotland. He holds honorary and visiting roles at the University of Edinburgh and Queen’s University Belfast. His research focuses on mental health in sport and physical activity, trauma recovery, LGBTQ+ experiences in sport, and arts-based methodologies like filmmaking and songwriting. He emphasizes making research accessible through creative forms, disseminating work via journals, books, and multimedia platforms.

David’s work is supported by grants from the Economic and Social Research Council, UK Sport, and other organizations. He is a founding member of the International Association of Qualitative Inquiry and co-director of the Sofia Centre for Creative Research. His teaching spans qualitative research methods and sport/health topics, with extensive PhD supervision experience using narrative and autoethnographic approaches.

Research interests include interdisciplinary collaborations on physical activity/mental health, arts-based research development, and methodologies like autoethnography. His recent work examines long-COVID impacts and innovative research dissemination through performance and digital media. David actively contributes to editorial boards of key journals and organizes international conferences on qualitative inquiry and public engagement.