Daisy Bao is an interdisciplinary researcher whose work focuses on pedagogy, student–staff relationships, and the emotional and social dynamics of higher education. She completed her PhD at the University of Edinburgh, examining how power, agency, belonging, and emotional–cognitive processes shape student–staff research partnerships. Her research combines qualitative, participatory, and intensive longitudinal methods to investigate student engagement, inclusive pedagogies, and interpersonal interactions in learning environments.
Her future research aims to develop a relational neuroscience approach to higher education, exploring how student–staff interactions shape emotion regulation, wellbeing, and learning. By integrating behavioural observation, experience sampling, physiological and neuroimaging methods, and computational modelling, she seeks to understand how individual differences and institutional inequalities influence these relational processes and to translate this evidence intomore equitable, emotionally supportive, and effective pedagogical practices.