Sharlene Janice Nagy Hesse-Biber is Professor of Sociology and the Director of the Women’s Studies Program at Boston College in Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts. She has published widely on the impact of sociocultural factors on women’s body image, including her book Am I Thin Enough Yet? The Cult of Thinness and the Commercialization of Identity (Oxford, 1996), which was selected as one of Choice Magazine’s best academic books for 1996. She recently published The Cult of Thinness (Oxford, 2007). She is the co-author of Working Women in America: Split Dreams (Oxford, 2000; 2005). She is co-editor of Feminist Approaches to Theory and Methodology: An Interdisciplinary Reader (Oxford, 1999), Approaches to Qualitative Research: A Reader on Theory and Practice (Oxford, 2004), and Emergent Methods in Social Research (Sage, 2006). She is co-author of The Practice of Qualitative Research (Sage, 2006; second edition, 2010). She is editor of the Handbook of Feminist Research: Theory and Praxis (Sage, 2007; 2012), which was selected as one of the Critics’ Choice Award winners by the American Education Studies Association, and was also chosen as one of Choice Magazine’s Outstanding Academic titles for 2007. She is editor of Feminist Research Practice: A Primer (Sage, 2014). She is co-editor of the Handbook of Emergent Methods (Guilford, 2008). She is editor of She is a contributor to the Handbook of Grounded Theory (Sage, 2008) as well the Handbook of Mixed Methods Research (Sage 2nd edition, 2010). She is author of Mixed Methods Research: Merging Theory with Practice (Guilford Publications, 2010). She is a co-editor of the forthcoming Oxford Handbook of Mixed and Multimethod Research Inquiry (Oxford, 2015). She has recently published a monograph, Waiting for Cancer to Come: Genetic Testing and Women's Medical Decision Making for Breast and Ovarian Cancer (University of Michigan Press, 2014). Her new monograph on men and breast cancer, "Take Those Bitches Off:" Men with Breast Cancer and a Medical Establishment that Abandons Them " (forthcoming, 2015 ). She is co-developer of the software program HyperRESEARCH, a computer-assisted program for analyzing qualitative data, and the new transcription tool HyperTRANSCRIBE. A fully functional free demo of these programs is available at www.researchware.com. This website provides links to a free teaching edition for both programs.

Deborah Rodriguez is a Doctoral Candidate in Psychology at Middlesex University. Deborah Rodriguez started her part-time doctoral studies within the Psychology Department at Middlesex University in October 2012. Her research explores changes in attachment behaviours across the transition to second-time parenthood in both partners of heterosexual couples, and to examine the meaning that this experience has on the couples in understanding changes to their sense of self, to their relationship, and to their relationship networks in relation to their respective attachment behaviours. This longitudinal and prospective study uses multiple methods of data collection (psychosocial interview method, visual methods and participant diaries), generating multidimensional material, and the data will be analysed using pluralistic qualitative mixed methods. Deborah's doctoral research draws and builds upon her undergraduate qualitative retrospective exploration of the transition to second-time motherhood, where the second child has a disability. This study employed a qualitative multimethod design. Deborah has an avid interest in mixed methods research, particularly qualitatively-driven mixed methods designs, and is currently in the process of writing up several papers for publication in relation to this particular field. Deborah is also currently involved in various projects as a Research Assistant, and also teaches on some of the Psychology modules at Middlesex University. Prior to this, Deborah graduated with a BSc (Hons) Psychology with Counselling Skills with a First class in 2012, also from Middlesex University. She currently volunteers as a Bereavement Counsellor with a charity organisation to maintain and develop her counselling skills.

Nollaig A. Frost's interests in qualitative and pluralistic methodology have led to the development of the Pluralism in Qualitative Research (PQR) project which she has led since its inception in 2008. The project explores the benefits and tensions of combining qualitative methods and PQR team members have written one of the first books on the topic: Frost, N.A. (Ed) (2011). Qualitative Research in Psychology: Combining Core Approaches, Open University Press. Nollaig co-founded the Network for Pluralism in Qualitative Research (NPQR) which provides online information, support and resources for researchers from around the world: http://wordpress.npqr.com, and an accompanying Twitter feed: @n_pqr to keep researchers informed of new developments and opportunities for those interested in pluralistic approaches to qualitative research. She has co-edited a Special Issue of Qualitative Research in Psychology on Pluralism (with S-M Nolas) (2011) and is co-editor (with R. Shaw) of a Special Issue of the QMiP Bulletin on Qualitative Methods in Mixed Methods Research (2014) Nollaig is a member of the Qualitative Methods in Psychology Section Committee of the British Psychological Society, and of the Teaching Qualitative Psychology Special Interest Group of the Higher Education Academy. Nollaig’s interests in pluralistic research approaches underpin her research in motherhood, mental illness and migration, to which she also seeks to bring feminist perspectives. She has contributed to books in this field that include Hesse-Biber, S. (Ed) (2013) Feminist Research Practice: A Primer, Sage Publications and Bueskens, P (Ed), (2014) Mothering and Psychoanalysis: Clinical, Sociological and Feminist Perspectives, Demeter Press.