Natasha Vall is a Professor of urban and cultural history and the Associate Dean for Research and Innovation in the School of Social Sciences, Humanities and Law at Teesside University. She leads all aspects of research in the School including REF, Research Centre and Research Group Management. Natasha also performs a number of University research leadership roles including Chair, Research Culture Sub Committee, Deputy Chair, Research and Innovation Committee, Teesside University Programme Lead for the University Alliance DTA3 Cofund https://unialliance.ac.uk/dta/cofund/ and the Teesside University Director for the Northern Bridge Consortium www.northernbridge.ac.uk.  

Natasha's research interests are in comparative urban (especially industrial and postindustrial) history. She published her second monograph 'Cultural Region' (Manchester University Press) in 2011, which is the first historical assessment of English regional cultural policy. Through the lens of North East England, this study reveals how the discourse of history and industrial heritage was deployed to shape the boundaries of the contemporary cultural region.

Forthcoming work will extend her expertise on North-East regional cultural policy to historical investigations of the popularity of waterfront commercial and residential developments as exemplars of cultural and urban regeneration. Natasha also sustains a strong profile of research in comparative Nordic history, with special emphasis on late modern urban history. She welcomes inquiries from prospective PhD students in the field of modern urban history, cultural policy and post-industrial heritage.

• Towards a Greener Tees Valley-Community Renewal Fund with Thirteen Housing Group (2021-2022)
• TV Lab-UKRI (2019-2021)
• GreatPlace- Greater Tees. HLF/ACE, CI (2017)
• HLF- Steel Stories, CI (2017)
• Creative Fuse North East AHRC, (2015), project management team

PhD Supervisions

I am interested in hearing from potential students who wish to carry out a PhD around the topic areas above.

PhD students – Teesside:

• James Beighton (2014): Reasoning the need: questioning the value and role of the visual arts in the life of an industrial town. AHRC funded full-time
• Jacquline Hayes (2014): The emergence of open-air education in industrial and de-industrialising society during the first half of the twentieth century, with particular reference to the concept of the ‘delicate’ child. Part time student. Part-time Heritage Consortium (completed 2020)
• Tracey Jones (2016): Gender and identity: The relationship between femininity and dress in Victorian mining districts in England and Wales. AHRC funded, full-time (completed 2022)
• Judith Philips (2013): National identity, gender, social class and cultural aspiration in mid-nineteenth century England and France: Josephine Bowes (1825-1874), collector and museum curator. Part-time (completed 2020)
• Rob Burton, (2018) trace, memory and post-memory through making, meaning and materiality (completed 2020)
• Rosemary Stubbs (2017) 'All workers are exploited, some are more exploited than others' AHRC Heritage Consortium

Leeds Becket University:

Taras Nakonecznyj (2014) Theatres of Memory: The foundation of identity in the historic city, AHRC funded. Full time

Sheffield Hallam University:

Alex Wilson (2016): Pretend You’ll Survive: Archiving Independent Film and Video in Yorkshire, 1970-1990, AHRC funded. Full time

• Fellow of the Royal Historical Society
• Strategic Reviewer for the AHRC and Member of AHRC peer Review College (2011-2019)
• ESF peer reviewer

• University of Tubingen
• University of Malmo
• UCL
• University of Nottingham
• University of Glasgow
• University of Hull
• Newcastle University
• Durham University
• Queens University, Belfast
• Tees Valley Combined Authority

Natasha's research involves the critical appraisal of the process of culture-led regeneration in post-industrial conurbations and she has advised commercial property companies, business partners as well as cultural policy makers on the historical context for the regeneration of the urban landscape.

Research led teaching, doctoral training, students as researchers.