Nienke Alberts is a mixed methods researcher with an interest in educational inequality, access to higher education, and student support.

From 2019-2025 Nienke worked on the on the Personal Tutoring Project, a project funded by the Tuixen Foundation to investigate personal tutoring at the University of Bristol and more widely across the sector, with the aim of informing policy.

Nienke Is currently working with the Sutton Trust on their flagship Elitist Britain 2025 report.

In previous research she has looked at the barriers particular disadvantaged groups face accessing Higher Education, and how universities can support those students. She has published reports on the underrepresentation of ethnically minoritised students in the arts and the barriers unaccompanied asylum seekers face getting to university.

Nienke has worked as a researcher in evolutionary anthropology, and has conducted fieldwork with chimpanzees, baboons, and zebra.

Nienke has experience in using a wide range of qualitative and quantitative methods, including focus groups, interviews, behavioural observations, participant observation, thematic analysis, statistical analysis, and social network analysis.