Sally is Emerita Professor of Human Resource Development, and former Deputy Head at Bangor Business School.  She also held senior posts as Director of Postgraduate Studies (Business and Management) and Director of the Centre for Business Research.  As Professor of Human Resource Develpment (HRD), Sally has been recognised as the 5th top overall and top female HRD scholar in the world (Pham-Duc 2022) based on bibliometrics. Sally is a founding member of the University Forum for HRD, an international association, and served on the Board of the American Academy of HRD.  Before entering academia, she worked in various large and small firms, qualified as a nurse and became involved in nurse education, training and personnel management.  Sally has always been fascinated by people at work, how they are managed and what motivates them to learn and develop. Sally employs a critical and autoethnographic approach to HRD research, particularly management learning.  She has published widely on HRD, health management, research methods and doctoral supervision, won numerous awards and held various editorial roles on HRD journals. Since taking early retirement and becoming a freelance academic, Sally has continued to research and publish.  She has also been involved in supporting several PhD programmes in UK universities and engages in online doctoral supervision of DBA students and is an Honorary Supervisor at Liverpool University Management School.

Sally has received numerous awards for her teaching and research.  Most recently, she won the prestigious 2022 Monica M. Lee Research Excellence Award for her article 'Management Education through Autoethnography' published in Human Resource Development International

Her other academic qualifications include:

ILM Level 7 Executive Coaching & Leadership Mentoring, Bangor University (passed at 90%) 2012

Postgraduate Certificate Teaching in Higher Education, Distinction level (University of Wales) 2001

Post-graduate Diploma in Training Management, Distinction, (Nottingham Business School) 1997

Post-graduate Certificate in Social Science Research Methods, (Nottingham Business School) 1996 

BA (Hons) Business Studies, First Class, (Nottingham Business School) 1994

2015 - Co-Principal Investigator on a UFHRD £1,000 grant to investigate how HRD performed in the 2014 REF  

Link: Stewart, J & Sambrook, S. (2019) Analysing HRD research in the UK Research Excellence Framework.  Human  Resource Development International, 22 (2), 140-157 DOI: 10.1080/13678868.2019.1567209 

2010-15 – Principal Investigator, £1.2 million, WEFO, delivering and evaluating the LEAD programme for SME managers, developed at Lancaster University, in collaboration with Swansea University (part of £5m grant) 

Link: Jones K, Sambrook S, Pittaway L, Henley A (2014) Action Learning: How Learning Transfers from Entrepreneurs to Small Firms, Action Learning: Research and Practice, 11 (2), 131-166 https://doi.org/10.1080/14767333.2014.896249

2011 – Principal Investigator on a £2,500 Higher Education Academy (HEA) project exploring knowledge sharing and allocation to groups amongst undergraduate and postgraduate students (additional £2,500 match funded by Bangor Business School)

2010 – ESF KESS PhD student scholarship, in collaboration with NHS, awarded to Charlotte Hillier, £118,000

2008 – Co-Principal Investigator on a £1,000 UFHRD/Higher Education Academy (HEA BMAF) project exploring PhD Supervisory relationships (with Dr Clair Doloriert, and Professor Jim Stewart)

2007 – Principal Investigator on a £10,000 joint Local Health Board/County Council project evaluating health and social care practice based budgets with a view to joint budgeting (with Professor John Goddard)

2007 - Co-Principal Investigator on a £3,500 Higher Education Academy (HEA BMAF) project exploring the role of lectures in teaching and learning, and particularly the affects of posting lecture notes on the Blackboard VLE on student attendance at lectures (with Professor Jenny Rowley)

2006 - Co-Principal Investigator on a UFHRD £1,000 grant to investigate students’ perceptions of DBA doctoral supervision (with Professor Jim Stewart, Nottingham Business School)

2006 – Co-Principal Investigator on a £10,000 UFHRD/Higher Education Academy (HEA BMAF) project exploring Teaching, Learning and Assessing in HRD, (with Professor Jim Stewart, Leeds Business School)

2001 - Principal Investigator on a UFHRD £1000 grant to extend my doctoral research to explore how HRD is managed in two North Wales NHS Trusts and develop a local workforce development research agenda.