Dr Aled Singleton

(he/him)

BSc, MSc, PhD, FHEA

Publication

• Date
• Type

Research

2025-ongoing: Visualising Energy Supply Futures. Participatory mapping workshops with stakeholders in Pakistan and Wales to explore energy systems. Cardiff Business School Public Value Engagement Fellowship: £1,872

2025-ongoing: Lead for Participatory Walking Methods Workshop for 2025 RGS-IBG conference

2024-ongoing: Tidal Lagoon Challenge. Five-package Welsh Government programme exploring the barriers and opportunities for tidal power in Wales across dimensions of funding, regulation, and ownership.

2022-24: Co-Investigator, Swansea University. OPTIC Intergenerational climate change conversations. This project included a series of outdoor and online workshops in fve locations near to Swansea. We created the Climate Comic through a collaboration between communities, an advisory group and illustrator Laura Sorvala. Grant: £99,637 through UKRI Healthy Ageing Social, Behavioural & Design Research Programme. 

2021-24: Co-investigator "Urban public spaces as a mobile, democratic and dynamic clinic". Research with NHS mental health trust in England to support recovery from early psychosis. Forthcoming paper in Cities & Health that revisits Kevin Lynch’s Image of the City and applies it to urban space and early recovery from psychosis. 

2021-22: Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Swansea University. "The Post-war Dream and its Afterlives" uses a focus on the environment in which the UK's ageing population grew up, and spaces including semidetached houses, cul-de-sacs, and shopping centres to examine how these spaces still influence contemporary life and maintain an affective appeal. Case study in Newport using online interviews, public participation with site-specific performance, and film. Grant: £104,972 ESRC funded.

2018-21: PhD Researcher at Swansea University. “Pursuing the Post-war Dream” offers methods to uncover the ‘rhizome’ (Thrift, 2000) which lies below the surface: offering ways to understand the role of the past in the present day. This inquiry sits between human geogrpahy and gerontology to develop a methodology which explores how the everyday – such as stories about houses, streets and neighbourhoods – allows people from different generations to build empathy in research relationships. ESRC funded.

2020: Research Analyst for Department for Work & Pensions (secondment through UKRI)

Teaching

I am a Fellow of the HEA and specialise in geographical methods and approaches.

Geography Department, Swansea University

2022-24: Geographical Skills; Sustainable Development & Climate Emergency; Globalisation; Geographical Methods and Data Analysis; Dissertation Preparation Skills; Berlin Fieldtrip; Tourism, Heritage and Leisure; Qualitative Research Methods.

2022: Guest lecturer MArch Sustainable Architecture - Centre for Alternative Technology

2021: Webinar facilitator for Society Dataset Digimap, University of Edinburgh

2020-2023: Lecturing and assessment for MA Creative Writing Non-Fiction – Swansea University

Biography

I am an inter-disciplinary researcher and teacher whose work is driven by empowering citizens and policy makers in decisions around public services and infrastructure. 

I have 20 years' experience from local government and the third sector building teams, applying for funding, managing complex budgets, and procuring consultants and suppliers of services. I am experienced in working within politicised environments where strategies sometimes change quickly. As an academic this gives me a deeper insight into how initiatives may work on the ground in everyday life, and how local stakeholders could be involved.

After three years post-PhD employment at Swansea University, including an ESRC Postdoctoral Fellow and teaching, I joined the Welsh Economy Research Unit at Cardiff University’s Business School. In September 2025 I will move to Geography and Planning as a Lecturer in Human Geography.

I contribute to the arts. I was a trustee at Chapter Arts Centre Cardiff and continue to write reviews for Nation Cymru. I worked as a freelancer to establish the Full Colour Maindee street art festival in Newport. In 2024 I was a key organiser for the Heritage and Hiraeth weekend conference in Canterbury. I am a Royal Geographical Society fellow and treasurer of the Participatory Geography Research Group.

In 2025 I gained a place on the Welsh Crucible professional development programme. From this experience I have a strong network across different research disciplines. The Crucible has opened me to self-reflection and challenge; building on my experience of community coaching.

Honours and awards

• 2025: Welsh Crucible
• 2025: Cardiff Business School Public Value Engagement Fellowship: £1,872  
• 2024: Co-I Co-creating the Climate Comic Intergenerational Activity Pack - ESRC Impact Accelerator: £14,238
• 2022: Co-I OPTIC Intergenerational Climate Change: UKRI Healthy Ageing Challenge: £99,637
• 2021: Member of first cohort ESRC Postdoctoral Development Programme
• 2021: ESRC Postdoctoral Research Fellowship: £104,972
• 2019: ESRC Festival of Social Science Award: £980
• 2017: ESRC Inter and Cross-disciplinary Small Grant: £1,460.50.
• 2017: British Society of Gerontology Small Grant: £400

Professional memberships

• Royal Geographical Society (with IBG) Fellow
  • Executive Committee Participatory Geography Research Group
• Advance HE Fellow

Academic positions

Cardiff University

Welsh Economy Research Unit, Cardiff University

Research Associate (Sept 2024 - ongoing)
Tidal Lagoon Challenge. Five-package Welsh Government programme exploring the barriers and opportunities for tidal power in Wales across dimensions of funding, regulation, and ownership. 

Geography Department, Swansea University

Research Officer (2022-24)
OPTIC Intergenerational climate change conversations and the Climate Comic Grant: £99,637 through UKRI Healthy Ageing Social, Behavioural & Design Research Programme.

Geography Tutor (2022-24)
Teaching Sustainable Development and the Climate Emergency; Globalisation; Human Geography Methods; Berlin Fieldtrip; Qualitative Methods; and Creative Writing Non-Fiction

ESRC Postdoctoral Fellow (2021-22)
Exploring long-term impact of UK socio-economic change from late-1950s through to the early-1970s. Case study in Newport to explore long-term spatial relationships using online interviews, public participation with site-specific performance, and film. Grant: £104,972 (2021-22).

Speaking engagements

2024: Speaker Publications and Communications Mini Crucible: Sealey Associates

2023: Walkshop Leader: Forming deeper connections with the university - CELT Bangor University

2022. Urbanism workshops with M.Arch Sustainable Architecture students at Centre for Alternative Technology

2022: Co-designer Connecting Through Culture as We Age with Watershed and Bristol University

Committees and reviewing

• 2023: Editor for first edition of Agoriad: Journal of Spatial Theory