Lecturer
Qualifications
Research Interests
Biography
San-Marié Nel is an emerging researcher whose work sits at the intersection of psychology, education, and community development. With qualifications in dramatic arts, teaching, and psychology, she brings an interdisciplinary and human-centred approach to her research. Her primary focus is on homelessness and how policies, shelter practices, and community-based interventions can support sustainable pathways out of homelessness. She is enthusiastic about promoting more humanised approaches to policy design and about elevating the voices of people who are frequently ignored by using action and participatory research, along with other qualitative methods.
Drawing on her experience in higher education, San-Marié also explores how community engagement can enrich preservice teacher training. To better prepare preservice teachers to work with low-resourced communities, her recent study examined how experiential learning at a homeless shelter can shape their meaning-making perspectives and inform teacher-training programs. She is particularly interested in integrating approaches from ‘theatre for development’ and psychological theories into participatory methodologies, and in finding creative venues for community discussion, reflection, and transformation. Her work aims to inform sustainable development initiatives while fostering dignified, practical, and socially responsive solutions for marginalised communities.
Lecturer
Qualifications
Research Interests
Biography
San-Marié Nel is an emerging researcher whose work sits at the intersection of psychology, education, and community development. With qualifications in dramatic arts, teaching, and psychology, she brings an interdisciplinary and human-centred approach to her research. Her primary focus is on homelessness and how policies, shelter practices, and community-based interventions can support sustainable pathways out of homelessness. She is enthusiastic about promoting more humanised approaches to policy design and about elevating the voices of people who are frequently ignored by using action and participatory research, along with other qualitative methods.
Drawing on her experience in higher education, San-Marié also explores how community engagement can enrich preservice teacher training. To better prepare preservice teachers to work with low-resourced communities, her recent study examined how experiential learning at a homeless shelter can shape their meaning-making perspectives and inform teacher-training programs. She is particularly interested in integrating approaches from ‘theatre for development’ and psychological theories into participatory methodologies, and in finding creative venues for community discussion, reflection, and transformation. Her work aims to inform sustainable development initiatives while fostering dignified, practical, and socially responsive solutions for marginalised communities.
An educational brand of The Independent Institute of Education
Formed by the strategic evolution of The IIE's Varsity College, IIE MSA, Vega and
the School of Hospitality and Service Management, uniting under the Emeris name.
Emeris is an educational brand of The Independent Institute of Education (Pty) Ltd which is registered with the Department of Higher Education and Training as a private higher education institution under the Higher Education Act, 1997 (reg. no. 2007/HE07/002). Company registration number: 1987/004754/07. View certificate here.
Back
