Spotlight on Ana Morales-Gomez

Dr Ana Morales-Gomez works as a Research Fellow in Criminology, within the School of Law at the University of Edinburgh. Ana commenced working with Professor Susan McVie in 2020, leaving briefly to take up a lecturing post at another University in 2023, but we were delighted to welcome her back to research in August 2024, when she and her family decided to settle in Edinburgh. Ana is part of the “Community safety, equality and wellbeing” research strand. Her research interests include prison research, re-offending, and demystifying statistics for social sciences.

We asked Ana some questions to get an insight into her career and her role as a research fellow:

Why did you decide on a career in data? Did you stumble into it or was it your aim? 

I always loved Maths from a young age, but I also was a humanist. I wanted to make an impact on society and at the young age of 17 I didn’t think that was possible with a degree in pure maths. So for my degree, I chose Sociology and abandoned any hopes of using maths in my career.  However, when I came to the UK, heard about Social Statistics which was mind-blowing! I didn’t know I could pursue both of my passions and the PhD gave me that option.  

In a way, I always wanted a career in data but I didn’t know it was possible for me, so it was a nice gift from life! 

What research projects are you involved in? 

Our group is currently focusing on two main research areas. The first one looks at the association between violence, deprivation and alcohol outlets’ location in Scottish communities. This project used data from A&E, hospital admissions and ambulance call-outs.  As with our previous work that was centred around violence-related incidents and underlying vulnerability, we try to understand the links between violence and different types of health and social vulnerability.

The second project involves analysing the association between repeat violent victimisation and underlying vulnerabilities in Scottish communities. This project used data from A&E, hospital admissions and ambulance call-outs.  

Something I really enjoy about our projects is the need to consistently demonstrate the public benefit of our research. I think this keeps us grounded and focused on the bigger picture. It challenges us to consider how our work contributes to making things better. 

Can you please tell us a bit more about yourself?

I’m Chilean, but for the past 16 years, I’ve lived in four different countries. I’m originally from Temuco, a city in the south of Chile surrounded by active volcanoes and millennial Monkey Puzzle trees (Araucaria Araucana). Fun fact: these trees share their name with my home region, Araucanía. 

I love Japanese movies and TV shows. One of my all-time favourite movies is Whisper of the Heart, a lesser-known Studio Ghibli gem that shares the top spot with my other favourites. I’m proud to say this love for anime has been passed down to my two kids—it’s become a tradition in our family!.

We recently had a new addition to our family, a little kitten called Okarin, named after the main character in the anime series Steins;Gate. 

Please share your favourite work memory or an accomplishment you are proud of.

There are a lot of examples of sharing success with colleagues, but one memory that I’m proud of is being invited by the Chilean Prison Service to give a talk about my work and provide training. It was also fabulous to find out that one of our SCADR papers was cited in the Stata manual for Generalized Structural Equation Modeling (GSEM). 

I've included an open-access link to the paper: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/1536867X221106416.

Can you give a top tip to young researchers starting their careers?

One thing I've learned from my current experience is the magic of staying organised and having a system in place. Keeping your folders and files tidy with clear labels, and writing clean, well-documented code, saves so much time (and sanity!) later on.

As ever, there is always room for improvement, but I’m trying to get better at this!