Dr Suryia Nayak

School of Health & Society

Photo of Dr Suryia Nayak

Contact Details

School of Health & Society
Social Work and integrated practice
Allerton Building
Frederick Rd
Salford
M6 6PU
UK

Current positions

Senior Lecturer

Biography

Dr. Suryia Nayak is a Senior Lecturer in Social Work and Head of Equality, Diversity and Inclusion in the School of Health and Society, University of Salford. She is a qualified social worker and psychoanalytic psychotherapist, and group analyst. Suryia has over 40 years of international, national and local anti-racist feminist activism in ending VAWG services for Black and racially minoritized women and girls and forced migration, including the trauma of seeking asylum. Suryia has expertise in participatory research and community-led knowledge production that challenge extractive colonial practices. Suryia sits on 5 editorial boards and is a member of 4 professional registration bodies, and 9 community networks. Suryia has led multiple award winning innovations for widening participation based on education as a practice of freedom. Suryia set up and runs the largest global majority student collective of any UK HEI. Suryia applies models of liberation based on intersectionality to the psychological and political impact of oppression. Suryia has extensive experience as a clinical supervisor, with expertise in attachment, trauma, and loss.

Areas of Research

Intersectionality
Participatory community-led research
Violence against women and girls
Forced migration
Decolonial sociology
Decolonial Pedagogy
Education as a practice of freedom
Black feminism
Public sociology
Queer theory
Decolonization
Psychoanalysis
Textual analysis
Critical psychology
Group Analysis

Areas of Supervision

Intersectionality
Participatory community-led research
Situated knowledge production
Knowldge/power relationships
Violence against women and girls
Forced migration
Decolonial sociology
Eliminating Award Gaps
Breaking racist glass ceilings
Decolonial Pedagogy
Education as a practice of freedom
Black feminism
Public sociology
Queer theory
Decolonization
Psychoanalysis
Textual analysis
Critical psychology
Group Analysis

Teaching

Intersectionality
Participatory community-led research
Qualitative research methods (including intersectionality as methodology)
Violence against women and girls
Forced migration
Decolonial sociology
Decolonial Pedagogy
Education as a practice of freedom
Black feminism
Public sociology
Queer theory
Decolonization
Psychoanalysis
Textual analysis
Critical psychology
Group Analysis
Qualitative research methods (including intersectionality as methodology)
Equity, Diversity and Inclusion

Qualifications and Recognitions

Qualifications
  • Clinical Group supervision with Institute of Group Analysis

    2025 - 2025
  • Group Analyst with Institute of Group Analysis

    2018 - 2023
  • PhD

    2008 - 2013
  • Advanced Dip Counselling and Psychotherapy

    1994 - 1996
  • PG CQSW (Social Work)

    1989 - 1992
  • History

    1986 - 1989