The BAMSA team is made up of core staff, a steering group, research associates, volunteers and members of the wider bridge community.
All the core staff work part-time for BAMSA, and there is a large number of people whose contributions have assisted the project. Currently there are opportunities to participate in the project either as a researcher or as a volunteer.
Staff
Samantha is Professor of Sociology in the Faculty of Social Sciences at the University of Stirling. Since 2013 she has been developing the sociology of mindsport as an academic discipline with a focus on the social interactions and dynamics of the card game bridge. Sam is an international bridge player, representing Scotland on the women’s team (qualifying for the Venice Cup in 2019 & 2022), the mixed team (2019 & 2022) and the open team (Camrose 2013, 2016-18, 2020-23; Europeans 2021). In November 2017 with Marek Malysa she founded the Bridge and Science Committee of the World Bridge Federation (WBF). She currently sits on the Development Committees of the WBF and the Scottish Bridge Union. She launched Bridge: A MindSport for All in 2019 and currently leads and supervises various BAMSA projects. Her previous research interests include youth, childhood and the family which inform the sociology of bridge in relation to intergenerational participation in the mindsport.
Miriam is a BAMSA Honorary Research Fellow in the Faculty of Social Sciences at the University of Stirling. She completed her PhD at the University of Edinburgh in 2013 and then worked in teaching and research at Bristol University and the University of Stirling. Miriam’s sociological fields of study are everyday life and the familiar, time and qualitative research methods. Miriam is not a bridge a player and brings her ‘outsider’ knowledge to the sociology of bridge. For BAMSA, she has been working on the elite player interview data for Bridging Minds including papers on strategic interaction, bridging time and gender. Miriam led on Bridging Covid and will be part of the advisory group for the Bridging Schools project.
Michael is a BAMSA