Bryn Ludlow, Ph.D. is a woman of colour with ancestral roots from apartheid South Africa. She is an esteemed academic and educator with 16 years of experience at the graduate and undergraduate university levels. Dr. Ludlow specializes in qualitative research methods and their application with vulnerable populations, including youth in foster care, Black adults working in the arts, and older adults receiving haemodialysis. An award-winning educator, Dr. Ludlow has been recognized at OCAD University for blending creativity with rigorous scholarship, integrating both digital and traditional media to enhance learning and research outcomes. As a pivotal contributor to the field of body mapping, Dr. Ludlow has explored the method’s capacity to visualize lived experiences and engage participants in co-creation of knowledge.

 

Her 2012 MA thesis at McMaster University involved a qualitative study of geriatric inpatients undergoing daily (6d/wk) haemodialysis at Toronto Rehabilitation Institute. By guiding participants to create and share body maps in the dialysis unit, she uncovered rich insights into how haemodialysis impacted patient’s physical sensations, emotional well being, and identity. This study also demonstrated how body maps can function in educational contexts: healthcare professionals present during the mapping process gained a greater, more nuanced understanding of patient experience.

Building on this work, Dr. Ludlow authored “Witnessing: Creating visual research memos about patient experiences of body mapping in a dialysis unit,” published in the American Journal of Kidney Diseases in 2014. This piece emphasizes the reflexive and communicative potentials of visual research memos designed to deepen the clinician’s understanding of patient perspectives and inform empathetic care practices.

 

Dr. Ludlow further co‑authored a landmark 2016 systematic review, Embodied Ways of Storying the Self: A Systematic Review of Body‑Mapping, published in Forum Qualitative Sozialforschung/Forum: Qualitative Social Research. The review synthesizes global body mapping research, highlighting its use across therapeutic, educational, community, and health settings. Notably, it underscores how body mapping facilitates empowerment, collaborative interpretation, and public dissemination of sensitive lived experiences.

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Dr. Ludlow also pioneered digital adaptations of the method. In 2011, she developed a prototype tablet-based application and later refined this into a more robust, web-based body mapping application. This tool—presented as a chapter titled “Development of a web-based body mapping application” (2020) in Applying Body Mapping in Research: An Arts‑Based Method—marks a significant innovation, enabling participants with Internet access to create body maps via digital platforms, either independently or within facilitated workshops.

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At the present time, Bryn is on a career break and recovering from a MVA. She is hopeful for a gradual return to work in the fall. She can be reached at brynludlow at outlook dot com.