Simon Dyson

Professor Simon Dyson is a sociologist currently working at De Montfort University in the United Kingdom. There he runs a small research unit (Unit for the Social Study of Thalassaemia and Sickle Cell www.sicklecelleducation.com) undertaking social research into sickle cell and thalassaemia (serious inherited chronic illnesses). His work reflects the belief that whilst many advances have been made in the medical treatment of sickle cell, it is by challenging discriminatory arrangements in the education system, in employment practices and in other areas of life such as housing and insurance, that the greatest advances can be made.

His most recent work includes a study of the experiences of young people with sickle cell at school, and a book Sickle Cell and Deaths in Custody, a study of the misuse of the genetic carrier state, sickle cell trait, to explain away sudden deaths of black men in custody.