• PhD (The University of Sheffield) 1989
• MA in Occupational Psychology, The University of Sheffield
• BSc (Hons) in Social Psychology, The London School of Economics and Political Science

Before joining Birmingham Business School in September 2017, Catherine held a number of other academic leadership roles. She was Deputy Dean at Deputy Dean at Leeds University Business School (2014-2017). Previously she worked at Manchester Business School being Head of doctoral programmes; Head of People, Management and Organisations Division; and Deputy Director (Teaching and Learning). Before beginning her time at Leeds, she worked at the Management School at the University of Sheffield where she was Director of Research for a number of years.

Catherine has also had a number of roles within the British Academy of Management. She was Dean of the Fellows College in 2015 and Chair and Convenor of the British Academy of Management Special Interest Group in Research Methodology (2005 - 2011). Professor Cassell was also a founding member of the steering committee of the European Academy of Management’s Special Interest Group in Research Methods and Research Practice. Together with Gillian Symon she was inaugural co-Editor of 'Qualitative Research in Organizations and Management: an international journal', and also served as Associate Editor of the British journal of Management for nine years. She is on the Editorial Advisory Boards of five other journals.

Catherine has research interests in the areas of change, learning and diversity at work. Moreover, she has a longstanding interest in research methodology and the use of qualitative methods in the business, organization and management field. This underpins all her research interests and outputs. Together with Professor Gillian Symon from Royal Holloway University of London, she has edited four books for Sage about the use of qualitative methods in organizational research and published numerous papers about the uses of qualitative research in the organizational psychology and management field more generally. Current projects focus upon the use of photographic methods to understand work-life conflict, diversity and change in the retail sector, and translation as a methodological issue. She published a solo authored text: Conducting interviews in business and management research published by Sage in 2015, and her most recent edited collection is the Sage Handbook of Qualitative Business and Management Research Methods, edited together with Ann Cunliffe and Gina Grandy.

Catherine has received over £1.6 million research income during her career including funding from the ESRC, EPSRC, British Academy and European Regional Development Fund.