Profile

Tamara Schwertel pursued studies in Sociology, Political Science, and Philosophy across Frankfurt, Paris, and Lyon. Following her academic training, she was a research assistant at the Chair of Empirical Social Research at the University of Siegen. Tamara has teaching experience in various fields, including Sociology, Education, Medicine, Midwifery, and Health Services Research. Her teaching activities have spanned several cities, including Frankfurt, Mainz, Munich, Vienna, and Innsbruck.

For her PhD, Tamara focused on the procedure of Deep Brain Stimulation, exploring the organization of care from historical, collective, and individual perspectives. She was involved in the interdisciplinary Graduate School Life Sciences – Life Writing at the University Medical Center Mainz and was an associate member of the Graduate School Doing Transitions in Tübingen. In 2022, she was a visiting researcher at the Center for Science, Technology, Medicine, & Society at the University of California.

Since July 2023, Tamara has been a research associate at IMVR, where she heads the Q&Q Lab for qualitative and quantitative methods at the Chair of Medical Sociology. Her expertise is particularly strong in qualitative methods, with a special interest in interpretive and reconstructive approaches such as Situational Analysis (inspired by Adele E. Clarke), Ethnography, Objective Hermeneutics, Documentary Method, and Grounded Theory. In addition to her work in method development and consulting, she is also deeply engaged in coordinating and teaching Medical Sociology at the medical faculty.

For collaboration opportunities in qualitative and mixed-methods projects, you can reach her at tamara.schwertel@uk-koeln.de.