Rachel Taparjan

Dr Rachel Taparjan (BA, MA, MA, PGdip, PhD) is a British Romanian film maker and social work academic. Rachel is a senior lecturer in social work at Teesside University.

Research & Practice:

Rachel completed her Ph.D. in social work with University of Central Lancashire in 2025; her doctoral research explored adoption of trauma informed approaches to domestic abuse service provision.

Before becoming a senior lecturer at Teesside University, Rachel worked in a range of statutory and therapeutic settings with children and families and developed and delivered specialist training packages on child sexual exploitation, trauma informed practice and attachement.

Rachel is a British Psychological Society accredited clinical supervisor and has completed a range of therapeutic training including dyadic developmental psychotherapy, Transaction Analysis (foundation) and Systemic family practice (PGdip).

Film Work:

Rachel has directed documentary short films selected for Sheffield Doc/Fest, East End Film Festival, and SEE documentary festival. She is a member of the Documentary Association of Europe. Her debut feature length documentary SOMETHING FAMILIAR has received development funding from the British Film Institute, the Romanian National Film Fund and Creative Media Europe. Rachel was selected for the CIRCLE Women Doc Accelerator programme 2022 and subsequently awarded the Cineuropa Marketing award.

Something Familiar was also selected as one of the five finalists for Whickers 2024 and Presented at Cannes Docs 2025 as part of the CIRCLE Showcase of Docs-in-Progress where is won the Chicken & Egg Vision Award. Something Familiar will celebrate its world premiere World Premiere in the International Main Competition at CPH:DOX – the Copenhagen International Documentary Film Festival in 2026.