2026-27 Doctoral Researcher Cohort
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Health Wellbeing and Social Care
Main supervisor: Prof Joni Holmes
Second supervisor: Dr Elizabeth Byrne
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Research project title: Learning Beyond the Label: Enhancing Classroom Identification and Support for Children’s Wellbeing
Research description: Children’s socio-emotional functioning, including emotion regulation, anxiety, mood and peer relationships, is closely linked to educational engagement and outcomes. Yet access to support often depends on formal diagnoses or Education, Health and Care Plans, which may not adequately reflect children’s individual needs in the classroom. This PhD will extend the Learning Beyond the Label approach to socio-emotional functioning by developing and validating a classroom-ready Socio-Emotional Classroom Mapping Tool (SEF-CMT) for teachers of children aged 8-11. A mixed-methods programme will synthesise existing evidence, identify classroom-relevant indicators using existing data, and co-produce the tool with teachers and clinical practitioners. The tool will then be validated against established measures using data from approximately 300 children. An evidence-informed strategy bank will also link socio-emotional profiles to individual and whole-class supports. The project aims to provide a practical, needs-led approach to identifying and supporting children’s socio-emotional needs within everyday classroom practice.
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Justice, Institutions and Social Change
Main supervisor: Dr Ian Roper
Second supervisor: Dr Beatrice Piccoli
LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/attia-usman-ansari
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Research project title: The Changing Landscape of Workplace Rights for Workers with Caring Responsibilities
Research description: This project is an exciting opportunity to conduct research on an important and very contemporary subject with the support of a high-profile NGO seeking to make a material difference to working people’s lives.
With introduction of the Employment Rights Bill, there is much attention on how it ‘will ensure more people stay in work, make work more family-friendly and improve living standards’ (p3). This adds to the history of measures associated with the ‘work-life interface’ and in particular the organisational practices used to make working lives more equitable between men and women and/or as working parents. However, the variety of ‘flexible working practices’ available are wide and less is known about how the variety of practices available compare to what is needed and there is longstanding recognition that there can be gaps between organisational policy and actual practice, where line managers can vary in their willingness to grant such requests from staff. There are also wider forms of inequity among workers seeking such measures and the need to accommodate ‘caring responsibility’ is now widely accepted as extending beyond childcare. In the post Covid workplace, a notable shift has occurred in the increased demand for hybrid work. Yet this has also been countered by resistance among some policy makers, commentators and businesses to match-up to this increased demand. This PhD project will examine the variety of flexible working practices offered to workers with caring responsibilities against the backdrop of these changes in expectations and regulatory context.
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Health, Wellbeing and Social Care
Main supervisor: Prof Kevin Daniels
Second supervisor: Prof Ana Sanz Vergel
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Research project title: Non-Visible Disabilities and Job Resources: Improving Recovery and Wellbeing
Research description: Record sickness absence and unemployment rates, coupled with a growing disability employment gap, are increasing welfare spending and NHS pressure. Current legislation and government initiatives attempting to support employees with disabilities lack evidence on outcomes, leaving those with disabilities struggling to sustain employment and a lack of support. The Equality Act states that employers must make reasonable adjustments if employees disclose. This is problematic as those with non-visible disabilities (NVDs) face greater barriers to disclosure than those with visible disabilities. Using semi structured interviews and a longitudinal survey, the research explores whether disclosing a NVD increases the level of social support at work; how different forms of social support influence wellbeing and work-related experiences; and which strategies are helpful to access support irrespective of disclosure. This research informs guidance on how employers can facilitate informal supports at work, giving workers with NVDs better work experiences whilst reducing workplace absence and unemployment.
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Sustainability and Climate Emergency
Main supervisor: Dr Martin Mahony
Second supervisor: Prof Jason Chilvers
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jake-champion-75aba271/
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Research project title: Net Zero at the Crossroads: Technocracy, Democracy, or Co-Production as the Future of UK Climate Governance
Research description: The UK’s transition to net zero is not only a technical challenge but a democratic one. This project examines how climate policy can deliver rapid decarbonisation while maintaining legitimacy, trust and public consent. It compares three approaches to climate governance: technocratic models centred on expert authority; deliberative models based on public participation and dialogue; and co-productive models in which institutions, experts and publics work together to shape policy. Using UK net-zero governance as its focus, the research combines policy analysis, interviews, observation and embedded research with local government. It will also design and test a small-scale democratic innovation, such as a participatory futures workshop or co-produced policy exercise. The research will identify how different governance approaches shape legitimacy, accountability, fairness and effectiveness, developing practical insights into how ambitious climate action can be both effective and democratically robust.
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Justice, Institutions and Social Change
Main supervisor: Dr Joshua Skoczylis
Second supervisor: Dr Carina O'Reilly
LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/colin-clarkson-b34045135
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Research project title: Understanding change of risk in offending and victimisation behaviour by analysing large policing and external datasets using crime harm indices.
Research description: This research aims to understand which factors best predict whether someone will commit further crimes and whether those crimes will become more harmful. The study will analyse a large police crime dataset, alongside information about offenders, victims, deprivation and public health. It will explore how criminal history, personal circumstances and police investigations influence future offending. Using statistical analysis and machine learning, the research will identify patterns of offending, groups of offenders with similar behaviours, and factors linked to increasing harm. Findings will be compared with existing academic research to improve our understanding of criminal behaviour. The research aims to develop practical tools that help police identify risks earlier, prevent serious harm and make better decisions about where to focus resources. Ultimately, the study seeks to demonstrate how better use of existing police data can improve public safety and influence national policing policy.
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Main supervisor: Dr Tamara Tomic-Vajagic
Second supervisor: Dr Yuwei Lin
Instagram: @izzyclough
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Research project title: Dancing in cultures of silence: internet memes as a form of collective voice for UK-based female corps de ballet
Research description: Female corps de ballet dancers in UK repertory companies often experience constrained opportunities for voice within hierarchical environments shaped by gendered power imbalances and precarious employment. This project examines how internet memes may provide an alternative form of expression for dancers navigating workplace cultures in which raising concerns can feel risky. Focusing on ballet-related meme culture, the research explores whether engaging with memes can foster collective recognition, solidarity and empowerment, and how memes articulate professional pressures and inequality. Using a qualitative, multi-method design, the study combines reflexive-thematic analysis of selected ballet memes with photo-elicitation interviews with female corps de ballet dancers and an anonymous online survey. Bringing together feminist theory and digital cultural studies, the research considers how online humour and collective meaning-making enable experiences to be voiced that might otherwise remain unspoken, and whether these forms of digital participation can contribute to collective voice and understandings of workplace change.
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Main supervisor: Dr Harry Dyer
Second supervisor: Dr Kate Stewart
LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/fynn-colby-87200b29a
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Research project title: Synthetic Companionship: Loneliness, Exploitation, and the Commodification of Intimacy in the Age of AI
Research description: This study will explore the lived experiences of individuals engaged in romantic human-AI relationships through a phenomenological approach. As loneliness attracts increasing international concern and conversational AI technologies develop, it will investigate how users construct emotional meaning, negotiate authenticity, and experience intimacy with systems designed to simulate empathy and care. Semi-structured interviews will examine how these relationships shape users' desires for, experiences of, and capacity to sustain human connections. Analysis of policy documents, industry reports, and commercial materials will situate AI companionship within contemporary responses to loneliness and mental health. Drawing on emotional capitalism and affective labour, the project will investigate the commodification of intimacy and the potential transfer of responsibility for care from public institutions to private platforms. It will consider how commercial interests monetise emotional need, contributing to sociological understandings of authenticity, dependence, and exploitation, and of the changing moral and relational boundaries of care in contemporary technologically mediated life.
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Justice, Institutions and Social Change
(City St George's, University of London)
Main supervisor: Dr Jennifer Fleetwood
Second supervisor: Dr Katrin Hohl
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Research project title: Changing Narratives about Violence Against Women: Tracing the impact of the creation of the Ministry of Women on Crime Reporting in Chile
Research description: Societal perceptions of what constitutes intrafamilial violence and what is considered reportable are evolving. However prevalent, violence is polysemic and constructed through narratives that circulate within everyday life and institutions, including women’s testimonies, legal frameworks, policy documents, and administrative categories used to register. This project aims to investigate how state reforms from 2017 onwards in Chile reshape the narratives and categories that render intrafamilial violence reportable and actionable by examining how these standards shift, understanding when violence becomes a report, and redefining the boundaries through which violence is delineated, recorded, and addressed. Methods include socio-legal analysis, advanced quantitative analysis of administrative data on reports and case outcomes, and ethnographic research to observe how reports are received, negotiated, and recorded. This research contributes by integrating narrative analysis with socio-legal category analysis and quantitative evidence from administrative data, generating actionable evidence to enhance reporting and protection pathways.
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Main supervisor: Dr Elizabeth Byrne
Second supervisor: Dr Harry Dyer
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/holly-cuff
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Research project title: Digital Play in Primary School-Aged Children and Cognitive and Social-Emotional Functioning
Research description: Play has a core role in childhood, providing children with an opportunity to explore and understand their environment. Traditionally understood forms of play, such as pretend play, have been shown to benefit children's emotional, social, cognitive and physical development (Ginsburg et al, 2007). But increasingly, children are engaging in play in digital spaces (digital play). with 89% of all children aged 3-17 some form of playing video (Ofcom, 2025). As technology rapidly evolves, it is important to understand the potential benefits and risks digital play may provide, especially for younger children. Despite this, previous research on the impact digital play has on cognitive and social-emotional functioning has been primarily focused on adolescents and young adults (e.g. Chaarani et al, 2022). This PhD project will first run a systematic literature review to clarify the findings of previous research on digital play. The project will then aim to explore how primary-school-aged children engage in digital play and parental attitudes to this. The project will then assess the short- and long-term benefits and risks of digital play on cognitive and social-emotional functioning. Knowledge gained from the previous studies and PPI work will be used to inform the development of a set of guidelines for parents on young children's use of digital play. This project will build on current literature and address the research gap on digital play in younger children, a crucial task as technology continues evolving and children's access to the digital world expands.
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Justice, Institutions and Social Change
Main supervisor: Dr Yuwei Lin
Second supervisor: Prof Philippa Velija
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Research project title: The impact of Generative AI on Gender Pay Gap in the Creative Media Industries
Research description: Efficiency and decreased workload have been rationalised as the motivation for hasty implementation of Generative AI (hereafter GenAI) in workplaces. Consequently workers are often alienated from GenAI implementation processes, and lack ethical use training opportunities. Whilst research is increasingly questioning GenAI’s altruism, its impacts are rarely disaggregated by gender, race or class. This project therefore focuses on how the gender pay gap in the creative media industry is altered by worker use and literacy of GenAI. To achieve this, secondary quantitative data will be analysed to contextualise the relationship between the gendered disparity of pay and GenAI. Furthermore, primary interviews will provide a person-focused exploration of how GenAI usage impacts employee’s creativity and livelihoods. Findings from this project will help to inform AI policy on a national scale, ensuring worker’s concerns are not only represented but operationalised.
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Justice, Institutions and Social Change
Main supervisor: Prof Hannah Gibson
Second supervisor: Dr Ella Jeffries
LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/nathan-d-91a505187
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Research project title: Pronoun Panic: How English Shapes Non-binary Gender Identity in German and Japanese
Research description: My research examines how native German and Japanese speakers who are bilingual in English perceive and understand gender, and whether these perceptions differ from those of German and Japanese monolingual speakers. I am particularly interested in how moving between languages can influence the way people conceptualise and express gender, and how differences in linguistic structure and cultural context may shape these experiences. Using a mixed-methods approach of online surveys, individual interviews and group discussions, my research explores how multilingual speakers navigate gender across English, German and Japanese. I am especially interested in the experiences of trans and non-binary participants, and in whether language can create opportunities for, or limitations on, how gender can be understood and expressed. Ultimately, my research aims to better understand the relationship between language, identity and gender, and how our linguistic environments can influence the ways we understand ourselves and others.
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Health, Wellbeing and Social Care
Main supervisor: Prof Teodora Gliga
Second supervisor: Dr Faith Orchard
LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/dey-ipsita
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Research project title: Understanding how familial sensory environments shape sleep-dependent learning in dimensional autism
Research description: This project examines how everyday sensory environments and family sensory profiles shape sleep and sleep-dependent learning in children with dimensional autism and how shared genetic and phenotypic factors contribute to these patterns. Many autistic children, and those with a family history of autism, show elevated sensory reactivity and sleep difficulties, including atypical sleep EEG features. But evidence linking atypical sleep to learning rarely considers everyday sensory contexts or gene x environment interactions, limiting our ability to provide personalised support to families. To address these issues, this project uses an interdisciplinary approach, with 3 aims: 1) to characterise how child and parent sensory profiles and everyday sensory environments relate to sleep architecture and sleep-dependent functioning in a dimensional autism; 2) to define sleep phenotypes, based on measuring sleep EEG and sleep-dependent learning, that indicate vulnerability or resilience to sensory interference, 3) to test how polygenic liability for insomnia & autism contributes to sensory and sleep phenotypes, and whether sensory traits mediate links between genetic risk and sleep disturbance. Study 1 will combine in-home actigraphy, bedroom noise recordings, and sensory questionnaires in children aged 2-5 years and their parents on a waiting list for autism/sleep support to test how family sensory profiles shape nocturnal auditory environments and sleep quality. Study 2 will invite a subset of these participants to a daytime nap EEG study to examine how mild auditory stimulation alters sleep EEG as a function of sensory profiles, autistic traits, and home noise levels. Study 3 will utilise existing genetic data to investigate the links between polygenic risk scores & sensory & sleep outcomes. Together, these studies will provide a mechanistic account of how sensory & genetic factors jointly shape sleep-dependent learning in dimensional autism and identify targets for stratification and intervention.
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Justice, Institutions and Social Change
Main supervisor: Dr Amrish Patel
Second supervisor: Dr Maria Isabel Santana
LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/ritika-divekar
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Research project title: Youth, Trust, and Transformation: The Long-Term Impact of Police-Led Support for NEET Young People in Barbados
Research description: This research will evaluate the effectiveness of a youth employment program for Not in Education, Employment or Training (NEET) youth in Barbados. The evaluation will primarily focus on three outcomes - employment, health (mental and physical), and involvement in criminal activity. First, a short term evaluation of the current cohort will be conducted using a Randomized Controlled Trial where feasible, to estimate the causal effects of program participation. Second, a long-term evaluation will study program outcomes over the past ten years using administrative and program data. Propensity Score Matching (PSM) and other causal inference methods will be used to estimate longer-term treatment effects.
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Resolving Uncertainty and Addressing Crises
(Goldsmiths, University of London)
Main supervisor: Prof Natalie Fenton
Second supervisor: Prof Catherine Rottenberg
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Research project title: Care as communicative practice: Social repair, relational justice, and worker-led renewal in labour movements
Research description: This project examines care and repair as communicative practices central to sustaining collective action and democratic renewal within labour movements. It investigates how practices of listening, mutual support and trust-building operate as communicative infrastructures that enable workers to become and remain politically engaged under conditions of uncertainty and crisis. Amid declining participation and intensifying precarity, trade unions increasingly struggle to maintain engagement and rebuild collective capacity, particularly within migrant-heavy and feminised sectors of work. By analysing care as a communicative and organisational response to conditions of prolonged inequality, it contributes new empirical and theoretical insights into how collective actors are able to foster and sustain the connective practices needed for solidarity and democratic renewal. Contributing interdisciplinary theoretical frameworks to labour studies, communication and political theory, and generating co-produced outputs such as reflective workshop materials and care-based organising tools, the project supports more resilient and democratically accountable forms of worker-led organising.
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Resolving Uncertainty and Addressing Crises
(Goldsmiths, University of London)
Main supervisor: Prof Vikki Bell
Second supervisor: Dr Lucy Finchett-Maddock
Instagram: @siobhan_forshaw
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Research project title: Between Autonomy and Recognition: Women-Led Memory Work and the 'Officialisation of Memory' in Colombia
Research description: This research explores women-led collectives in Colombia as they navigate what I term the 'officialisation of memory': the integration of community testimony and memorial practices into state/para-state institutions. While institutional recognition brings visibility, resource and legal standing, it also introduces new forms of control, professionalisation and narrative stabilisation that may undermine autonomy. This interdisciplinary study produces a written thesis, audiovisual materials and a practical toolkit for cultural workers and community groups. Its contributions extend beyond academia, offering insights relevant to policy strategies.
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Health, Wellbeing and Social Care
(Goldsmiths, University of London)
Main supervisor: Dr Maria Herrojo Ruiz
Second supervisor: Dr Hilary Norman
LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/emma-fry-21a4b816b
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Research project title: Motor Learning Variability as a Predictor of Mood Changes in Mood Instability and Bipolar Disorder
Research description: Characterised by episodes of extreme low and high mood, Bipolar Disorder (BD) is associated with reduced life expectancy and increased risk of suicide and impulsive behaviours. Mood instability, a risk factor for BD, is associated with poorer outcomes in psychiatric and non-clinical populations. Motor activity, particularly moment-to-moment variability, has emerged as a promising predictor of mood states. It has been proposed that BD and mood instability arise from dysregulated reward processing, where recent reward disproportionately biases expectations of future reward, shaping subsequent mood states. Fluctuations in motor activity across mood states may reflect how movements are adjusted in response to reward signals in the environment. Using a reward-based motor learning task in a gamified setting, alongside longitudinal monitoring of motor activity and mood, complemented by EEG, my project aims to examine how reward-driven motor variability relates to mood states in individuals experiencing mood instability and those with a BD diagnosis.
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Justice, Institutions and Social Change
(Goldsmiths, University of London)
Main supervisor: Dr Adrian Scott
Second supervisor: Prof Fiona Gabbert
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Research project title: When behaviour ‘crosses the line’: Building the psychological evidence base to inform a multi-perspective approach to stalking education.
Research description: Stalking is a complex crime affecting over a million people annually in England and Wales, with low conviction rates partly due to misperceptions of its repeated, pattern-based behaviours. Existing research relies on retrospective, single-perspective methods, overlooking real-time decision-making and digital behaviour. Although stalking now features in secondary school RSHE curriculum, delivery lacks a psychological evidence base. This PhD comprises three phases. Phase 1 is a systematic review identifying factors shaping stalking perceptions, producing a searchable literature map. Phase 2 uses a modified "where to draw the line" paradigm in focus groups with KS4 pupils, exploring perpetrator, victim and bystander perspectives on scenarios incorporating offline and online behaviour. Findings will inform evidence-based RSHE resource packs, which Phase 3 will evaluate for feasibility, acceptability and impact via pre-post surveys. The project will generate the first psychologically-informed guidance for RSHE delivery on stalking, supporting early intervention, digital safety and gender-based violence prevention.
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Health, Wellbeing and Social Care
Main supervisor: Dr Catherine Jere
Second supervisor: Dr Maria Isabel Santana
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Research project title: Against the Odds: Education, Agency and Mental Health among Girls Married as Children in Ethiopia and India
Research description: Child marriage affects millions of girls worldwide, with serious consequences for their agency, mental health and wellbeing. Yet, little is known about how to support girls after marriage. This study investigates whether and how continued formal schooling can support the agency and mental health of girls married in childhood. Moving beyond research focused on barriers to education, the study examines the positive deviants: girls who remain in or return to school after marriage. It explores what enables these girls to access education and how schooling shapes their experiences and outcomes. Using a mixed-methods approach, it combines quantitative analysis of Young Lives data with in-depth interviews to connect broader patterns with girls' lived experiences. A comparative study of India and Ethiopia will generate evidence across South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa, two regions heavily affected by child marriage. The findings will inform policies and programs seeking to expand educational opportunities and improve support for married girls.
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Health, Wellbeing and Social Care
Main supervisor: Prof Lauren Stewart
Second supervisor: Dr Katie Rose Sanfilippo
LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/ninahh
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Research project title: Music as a Social Context: Quantifying Embodied Mechanisms of Group Participation
Research description: Participatory music-making is associated with enhanced social connection and wellbeing, yet the mechanisms through which these benefits arise remain poorly characterised. This research examines interpersonal movement synchrony, the temporal coordination of individuals’ movements during social interaction, as a candidate embodied mechanism linking shared musical experience to social bonding. Using wearable inertial sensors, the project will compare synchrony during music-making with that during matched non-musical group activities, and test whether synchrony predicts short-term changes in trust, cohesion, affect and social connection, alongside longer-term outcomes including loneliness, perceived social support and wellbeing. Integrating experimental and longitudinal designs with social network analysis and qualitative methods, it will trace how synchrony and social relationships emerge and develop within real-world groups. In doing so, it addresses what, if anything, is distinctive about music as a context for social connection, and develops novel methods for quantifying the processes through which group experiences bring people together.
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Health, Wellbeing and Social Care
Main supervisor: Dr Kamila Irvine
Second supervisor: Dr Kirsten Mckenzie
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/hannahhickinbotham/
Instagram: @_wearefullofbeans
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Research project title: Using Lived Experience to Map the ADHD-Anorexia Interconnection to Determine Trait Pathways and Produce Co-Designed Treatment Adaptations
Research description: This PhD explores how ADHD and anorexia nervosa (AN) overlap. Research has covered AN alongside autism, and ADHD alongside binge eating or bulimia, but less is known about ADHD and AN together. This means many people with both conditions get treatment that doesn't meet their needs. We think they may share causes, such as difficulty reading body signals, managing emotions and controlling impulses, and differences in how the brain responds to rewards like food, exercise and appearance, especially in women with inattentive ADHD. The PhD has four stages: reviewing existing research; interviewing people with lived experience about how the conditions interact; statistically testing what links ADHD traits to AN outcomes; and working with patients, clinicians and charities to adapt treatment and create resources. Drawing on partnerships from the Full of Beans podcast, findings will be shared through open-access publications, policy briefings and training to improve diagnosis, treatment and outcomes and deliver an empirically grounded, clinically actionable framework to improve identification, treatment, and outcomes for individuals with ADHD and AN.
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Justice, Institutions and Social Change
Main supervisor: Prof Adam Ockelford
Second supervisor: Dr Carolina Gaona
LinkedIn: uk.linkedin.com/in/rosie-hood-a41a288a
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/RosieHoodFolk
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/rosiehoodfolk/
Website: www.rosiehood.co.uk
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Research project title: Exploring the notion of musical creativity in children with profound and multiple learning disabilities (PMLD)
Research description: Musical creativity is widely recognised as a fundamental aspect of human musical engagement; however, its definition and expression remain unexplored in children with profound and multiple learning disabilities (PMLD). Prevailing definitions of musical creativity often rely on external recognition or exceptional cognitive skill, which do not adequately reflect the diverse ways creativity is experienced and expressed by children with PMLD. This research investigates how musical creativity can be conceptualised, recognised, and supported within this population. Adopting a qualitative, participatory approach informed by constructivist and interpretivist perspectives, the project draws on sustained observations of musical interactions involving children with PMLD and their communication partners. Through video-based analysis and collaborative interpretation, the study explores how creative musical expressions emerge within relational, embodied, and multisensory contexts. The findings aim to develop a more inclusive understanding of musical creativity, challenging deficit-based perceptions and informing practice, research, and policy in music education.
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Sustainability and Climate Emergency
Main supervisor: Dr Patrick Elf
Second supervisor: Prof Fergus Lyon
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alice-iturbe-calder%C3%B3n-990b3916a/
Instagram: @iturbealice
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Research project title: Repairing Futures: Everyday Objects, Household Practices, and the Negotiation of Circular Living
Research description: This PhD project explores how UK households care for, repair, reuse, and replace everyday objects, and what shapes these practices in daily life. While the circular economy seeks to reduce waste and extend product lifetimes, everyday routines, personal circumstances, and practical constraints can make sustainable living challenging. The research examines how people's relationships with household objects, alongside wider social and material conditions, influence decisions about whether to keep, repair, or replace them. Using qualitative methods, including object-centred interviews, participant-generated visual activities, and collaborative workshops, the study aims to understand these everyday experiences and identify opportunities to support more sustainable practices. By exploring how circular living fits into the realities of domestic life, the project seeks to generate insights that can help households extend the life of their belongings and inform businesses and other organisations in developing more practical and accessible circular initiatives.
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Health, Wellbeing and Social Care
Main supervisor: Dr Carina De Klerk
Second supervisor: Dr Sinead Rocha
LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/karenleow
Research Gate: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Karen-Leow
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Research project title: Healthy Learning in a Digital Age: The Role of Educational Media in Early Development
Research description: From the earliest months of life, children are surrounded by screens, raising widespread concern about their impact on development. However, not all screen time is created equal. Educational programmes such as Ms Rachel and The Baby Club are designed to support early learning by speaking directly to the viewer, repeating words, and using a sing-song voice. This project will take an interdisciplinary approach, combining developmental psychology with neuroscience, to understand whether infants learn from this type of media in the same way they learn from a real person. Across three studies with infants aged 6 to 24 months, the research will use functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) and electroencephalography (EEG) to measure brain activity, alongside measures of facial expressions, word learning, imitation, and helping behaviour. In collaboration with educational technology company Early Ideas Limited (Tandem), the findings will be used to inform practical guidance for parents and designers of children's media.
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Health, Wellbeing and Social Care
Main supervisor: Dr Birgit Larsson
Second supervisor: Dr John Turnpenny
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/suzannah-lindley-07a6172a9/?isSelfProfile=true
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Research project title: Heat and violence against girls and women in the UK: potential impacts of climate change and critical analysis of adaptation
Research description: Climate change poses an existential threat, with its impacts set to deepen pre-existing social inequalities and disproportionally harm the most marginalised. An increasing body of literature demonstrates that violence against women is already being impacted by extreme-weather and climate disaster, including heatwaves. Emerging research from low, middle, and high income countries globally, suggests that domestic violence in particular increases as much as 4.5% with every 1 degree rise in temperature. This project uses mixed-method analysis to investigate the relationship between heat and gendered-based violence, responding to a UK specific gap in the literature, alongside a need for qualitative research with women survivors of violence. By collaborating with Feathers Futures, a community-led women’s organisation specialising in supporting survivors of domestic abuse, and the Office of the Police and Crime Commissioner for Norfolk, it aims to generate gender-sensitive recommendations from the lived experience of women and frontline professionals for UK climate resilience and adaption policy.
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Sustainability and Climate Emergency
Main supervisor: Dr Heather Smith
Second supervisor: Dr Marc Pidou
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Research project title: Governing Mine Water as Strategic Infrastructure in the UK
Research description: Historic mining has left the United Kingdom with extensive mine water systems that increasingly intersect with national priorities for climate adaptation, low-carbon energy, water security and flood resilience. While mine water is now being explored for reuse, geothermal heat and strategic flood management, governance arrangements remain fragmented, reactive and poorly aligned with its emerging role as critical infrastructure. This PhD examines how legacy subsurface infrastructure is governed through technical and informational artefacts, and why governance systems that are technically competent often struggle to act strategically over long temporal horizons. Drawing on boundary object theory and multi-level governance theory, the research analyses how shared representations, such as models, datasets, maps, regulatory instruments and policy frameworks, mediate coordination, authority and decision-making across institutional and spatial scales, and how they function as de facto governance mechanisms rather than neutral technical tools.
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Justice, Institutions and Social Change
(Goldsmiths, University of London)
Main supervisor: Dr Naomi Thompson
Second supervisor: Dr Chris Millora
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/hanbomillar
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Research project title: Youth work and youth voice: exploring the changing conditions of young people’s participation and capacity to influence change.
Research description: Young people’s participation is increasingly being mediated through youth voice and action groups, youth advisory boards, councils and panels, as well as peer research collectives - the emerging youth voice sector - which lays claim to be influencing change at service, local and national levels. There is a lack of critical engagement with the systems and structures that not only affect the issues that young people are often recruited to advise on, but also the way in which they operate, which is arguably leading to young people being utilised to legitimise existing, oppressive agendas, rather than challenge them. Framed by critical pedagogy and critical constructivism, a collaborative and creative approach with a youth organisation aims to (re)situate universal and open-access youth work in the wider youth participation discourse, recognising it as a form of informal education, with capacity for transformative change.
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Resolving Uncertainty and Addressing Crises
Main supervisor: Prof Franco Mariuzzo
Second supervisor: Prof Mustafa Dogan and Prof Sean Ennis
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Research project title: Unravelling the Complexities in Digital Markets Competition Assessments: An Ecosystem Approach to Artificial Intelligence (AI)
Research description: The research tackles a central political economic problem: how a handful of powerful technology companies can entrench their control over key parts of the UK’s digital infrastructure. Competition regulators, who have the most power to examine this currently look at one market at a time, even though the same firms sit astride chips, cloud infrastructure, data, and AI models. This siloed approach obscures how dominance in one part of the system can be used to squeeze workers, users, and domestic rivals. The research develops network-based methods that trace how control over essential inputs translates into leverage across markets. It builds directly on concerns raised by the UK Competition and Markets Authority, US Federal Trade Commission and European Commission that access to chips, compute and data is highly concentrated. The research offers public agencies concrete tools to characterise ecosystem-wide harms for market definition, merger control, and antitrust investigations in digital sectors.
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Sustainability and Climate Emergency
Main supervisor: Prof Nazmiye Ozkan
Second supervisor: Dr Mennan Guder
LinkedIn: Emmanuel Owusu Afriyie
Instagram: @ayim_baffour
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Research project title: Actor-Level Decision Making in Low-Carbon Fuel Transitions: An Integrated System Dynamics and Agent-Based Modelling Framework for UK Airports
Research description: Aviation accounts for approximately 2.5-3% of global CO2 emissions and is projected to become an increasingly dominant source of transport emissions as other sectors decarbonise. UK airports face significant strategic uncertainty in selecting, sequencing, and governing low-carbon fuel pathways, including sustainable aviation fuels (SAF), hydrogen, and hybrid-electric systems, within tightly regulated, safety-critical, and commercially driven environments. Existing studies predominantly rely on engineering feasibility and optimisation approaches that assume linear transitions and stable institutional conditions, offering limited insight into how governance processes, stakeholder behaviours and feedback structures shape real-world infrastructure decisions. This research develops an integrated System Dynamics (SD) and Agent-Based Modelling (ABM) framework to analyse airport fuel transitions as governance-driven processes within complex socio-technical systems. SD will represent macro-level feedbacks between regulatory pressure, infrastructure investment, fuel availability, emissions trajectories and operational constraints, while ABM will simulate heterogeneous actors, including airport operators, regulators, airlines, fuel suppliers and infrastructure providers, using empirically derived decision rules. Their interaction will enable exploration of non-linear dynamics, coordination failures, competing transition pathways and path-dependent lock-ins that conventional optimisation models cannot capture. The empirical core of the project is a case study of London Luton Airport, supported by a partnership with Cranfield University, which provides access to operational and planning data. Qualitative data from 25-35 semi-structured interviews and documentary analysis will be translated into SD variables and ABM behavioural rules, grounding the model in the formal and informal ‘rules of the game’ governing airport decarbonisation. Scenario testing will examine how alternative governance arrangements and actor behaviours influence infrastructure investment pathways and energy-demand trajectories under uncertainty. By embedding complexity-informed transition theory within an operational modelling framework, this research will generate an operational decision framework for regulators, airport authorities and investors to assess realistic low-carbon fuel transition strategies, contributing new empirical and methodological insights into the governance of airport decarbonisation in the UK. Keywords: aviation decarbonization, governance, system dynamics, agent-based Modelling, energy transitions, airport governance, UK airports.
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Sustainability and Climate Emergency
Main supervisor: Prof Victoria Bird
Second supervisor: Dr Emily Murray
LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/kasia-posen-002020
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Research project title: Understanding the impact of place-based interventions to mitigate climate change on the mental health and wellbeing of young people in two deprived coastal communities in the UK and Brazil
Research description: This collaborative, international project between the University of Essex (UK), People’s Palace Projects and Redes da Maria (Rio de Janeiro, Brazil) explores the relationship between climate change and young people’s mental health and wellbeing. It focuses on the potential for community-led, place-based environmental initiatives to strengthen resilience and mental health among young people in deprived coastal communities in the UK and Brazil. This interdisciplinary project builds on a growing body of evidence that:
1. Climate anxiety has become a significant mental health challenge for young people worldwide, disproportionately affecting those in coastal regions.
2. The most effective mental health support is embedded in local communities.
3. Arts-based, participatory approaches build resilience, connection, and a sense of belonging.
Using quantitative and qualitative approaches, arts-based and participatory methods, the project aims to co-develop an evidence-based framework to enable NGOs and policymakers to design and implement future interventions with integrated mental health outcomes.
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(Goldsmiths, University of London)
Main supervisor: Prof Catherine Rottenberg
Second supervisor: Dr Aleena Chia
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Research project title: Tracing Sociotechnical Negotiations in FemTech Menopausal Care
Research description: Menopause is receiving growing public attention in the UK, yet public health services often struggle to address its diverse, chronic, and uneven experiences. In this context, menopause-focused FemTech has expanded, offering symptom tracking, online consultations, AI-powered assessments and personalised recommendations. This research examines how such technologies are developed, regulated, and used. Drawing on feminist STS and critical AI studies, it explores how developers, entrepreneurs, healthcare professionals, regulators, and users negotiate technical constraints, commercial priorities, clinical evidence and lived experience. Rather than presuming FemTech to be either a solution or a problem, it asks how these negotiations translate menopausal experiences into data, evidence, product features and care pathways, shaping what becomes visible, actionable or overlooked, and how responsibilities for care are distributed. Using ethnographic observation, interviews, group discussions and document analysis, the study aims to inform more reflective digital health innovation and more equitable, responsive menopausal care.
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Sustainability and Climate Emergency
(Goldsmiths, University of London)
Main supervisor: Dr David Martin
Second supervisor: Dr Francisco Carballo
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Research project title: Artistic Activism as a Tool for Community-Led Co-Design in Sustainable Housing Regeneration: London and Liverpool
Research description: Since 2010, global protest movements have erupted in response to the climate crisis, international conflict and social injustice. These protests increasingly adopt strategies from art as emergency tools to amplify injustice when formal political channels fail. Building on global trends, UK housing activists adapt these tactics to resist carbon-intensive redevelopment and eviction. Despite its impact, artistic activism is under-researched. This project addresses this gap via a comparative study of two active cases: the Lesnes Estate evictions in London, where activists transformed empty flats into art exhibitions promoting low-carbon refurbishment, gaining support to appeal against demolition to the United Nations; and Granby Four Streets in Liverpool, where activist-led mural painting blocked the demolition of four streets of derelict houses and collaborative refurbishment with artists created a globally recognised model for sustainable regeneration. This project asks: (1) How do housing activists in London and Liverpool adapt artistic tactics from global movements to challenge displacement and carbon-intensive housing redevelopment? (2) How are artistic protest strategies shaped by each site’s unique contexts of deprivation, demography and ecology? (3) How does artistic activism amplify environmental and social sustainability demands and how can its housing regeneration impacts be measured? (4) How can artistic activism be translated into a scalable consultation framework that supports climate-resilient, socially sustainable housing policy co design? A mixed-methods approach comparing qualitative fieldwork with quantitative analysis of local secondary data, will inform a new scalable co-design and consultation framework that converts artistic activism into evidence of community need. Designed for UK-wide use, this strengthens institutional reactivity, supports climate-resilient and regenerative urban development and embeds grassroots activism into policy design.
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Resolving Uncertainty and Addressing Crises
Main supervisor: Prof Paul B. Stretesky
Second supervisor: Dr James Wagstaffe
LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/zoe-rumsby-1708a816
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Research project title: Nourishing Cities: Enhancing Urban Food Resilience through Local Community Supported Agriculture and Urban Planning (UK & Aotearoa/New Zealand)
Research description: The COVID-19 pandemic increased urban food insecurity worldwide, exposing the fragility of supermarket-based food systems’ ability to respond to food shocks (OECD 2020). This study will provide a cross-national, interdisciplinary analysis of Community Supported Agriculture’s (CSA) ability to reach urban food insecure groups. It bridges the fields of social policy, agri-food technology and urban planning. It addresses two questions: (RQ1) How do CSA programmes in different types of communities engage and support food-insecure populations? (RQ2) What agri-food technologies do CSAs use, and how do they help reduce local food insecurity? The study focuses on Lincoln, UK, and PÅneke/Wellington, Aotearoa/New Zealand, similarly sized cities in countries with major differences in their food systems, yet both have food insecure populations, and both rely on emergency food aid (UNFAO 2024).The co-creative methodology includes stakeholder mapping, semi-structured interviews, warm data labs (Bateson 2012), and a food ladders model (Blake 2020).
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Resolving Uncertainty and Addressing Crises
Main supervisor: Dr Mark Tebboth
Second supervisor: Prof Nitya Rao
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/arjun-sengupta-59002675
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Research project title: At Sea in Sagar: Immobilities Amid Overlapping Climate and Development Challenges on an Island in the Indian Sundarban Delta
Research description: The climate crisis has engendered uncertainties in populations globally. These uncertainties can lead to diverse mobility outcomes including immobility. Yet, till very recently, climate mobilities research has critically overlooked how climate change may affect people’s capacities and willingness to move while simultaneously making their immobile lives more uncertain. This mixed-methods study aims to explore the interconnections between human immobility and climate adaptation - or maladaptation - amid overlapping environmental and development challenges in Sagar, an island in the climatically-vulnerable Indian Sundarban Delta. Embedded ethnographic research in two coastal villages will be complemented by spatial analysis of environmental risk and data on household finances, the labour market, and time-use. This research seeks to make theoretical, empirical and methodological contributions to the fields of mobility studies, climate adaptation studies, and livelihood studies, with the view of enabling more inclusive and just climate futures for Sagar and other eroding coastlines in the Global South.
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Advanced Methods for Social and Economic Research
Main supervisor: Dr Carina de Klerk
Second supervisor: Dr Sebastian Korb
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Research project title: The Role of Facial Mimicry in the Development of Emotion Recognition in Infants: Insights from Pacifier Use
Research description: Facial mimicry is thought to support emotion recognition, yet little is known about how this process develops during infancy. Previous research has suggested a relationship between pacifier use and later socioemotional development, but the underlying mechanisms remain unclear. This project takes a multimethod developmental approach, combining behavioural, physiological and neural measures to directly investigate how pacifier use relates to facial mimicry and emotion processing during infancy. The findings will advance our understanding of how early sensorimotor experience contributes to socioemotional development.
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Health, Wellbeing and Social Care
Main supervisor: Prof Mariachiara Di Cesare
Second supervisor: Prof Meena Kumari
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Research project title: Unpacking the Double Burden of Malnutrition: A Sociogenomic Study of Obesity, Micronutrient Deficiency, and Cardiovascular Risk
Research description: Obesity and micronutrient deficiency often coexist, creating a double burden of malnutrition that drives cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk and exacerbates health inequalities. While genetic predisposition to obesity is known to interact with environmental factors such as diet and socioeconomic conditions, it remains unclear whether micronutrient deficiencies mediate or modify this relationship. This project will use UK-based, population-representative longitudinal cohorts, including ELSA, NCDS, Next Steps, MCS, and UKHLS. Genetic liability to obesity will be quantified using polygenic scores, and cardiovascular outcomes will include blood pressure, lipid profiles, inflammatory markers, glucose regulation, and clinically recorded CVD. Analyses will combine regression modelling, causal mediation analysis, and Mendelian randomisation to disentangle direct and indirect pathways linking obesity, micronutrient status, and cardiovascular risk. By integrating genetic, nutritional, and social determinants of health, this interdisciplinary research will enhance understanding of mechanisms driving cardiometabolic inequalities and inform strategies to reduce chronic disease disparities in the UK.
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Sustainability and Climate Emergency
Main supervisor: Dr Rosalind Bark
Second supervisor: Dr Silvia Ferrini
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Research project title: From Catch to Kitchen: Learning from Recreational Anglers to Diversify UK Seafood Choices
Research description: The UK imports many of the fish species it consumes despite its fisheries landing a diverse range of locally available species. This project investigates how social, cultural, economic and regional factors shape seafood consumption preferences, and how these insights can support more diverse and sustainable fish choices. Using an interdisciplinary approach combining fisheries science and social science, the research will analyse consumer and recreational angling datasets alongside regional fisheries and demographic data. Statistical and spatial analysis will identify patterns in species preferences and their socio-demographic drivers. Surveys, interviews and focus groups will then explore how ocean literacy and connectedness to the marine environment influence seafood choices. Findings will inform the design and testing of targeted interventions, including science communication, to encourage consumption of a wider diversity of nutritious and locally available fish. The research aims to contribute evidence for more resilient UK seafood systems, fisheries policy and sustainable consumer behaviour.
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Sustainability and Climate Emergency
Main supervisor: Prof Jason Chilvers
Second supervisor: Dr Helen Pallett
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/esmee-wilcox-socially-adept/
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Research project title: Temporalities of participation in future-making: developing a citizen-centred approach to sustainability for institutions with rural communities ‘at the sharp end of climate change’
Research description: Despite the mainstreaming of citizen participation in sustainability future-making and policy-making, narrow institutional framings dominate how issues form and are attended to. This closes down multiple ways of knowing and being that are given conditions of engaging with deeply-formed contestations. As this continues, it becomes harder to convene participatory processes that open up possibilities for collective, just and ethical future-making instead of reproducing existing patterns of power and assumptions about preferred futures, particularly in communities far from institutional power. This research attends to the ways in which engaging with multiple temporalities in practices of participatory future-making can open up possibilities for sustainability. It is grounded in science and technology studies (STS) and combines perspectives from geography, sociology, political science and futures studies towards ethical institutional and citizen capabilities for collective future-making in a rural ‘time-scape’.
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Health, Wellbeing and Social Care
Main supervisor: Dr Hong-Viet V. Ngo-Dehning
Second supervisor: Dr Tom Foulsham
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/megan-wilson-423195202
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Research project: More Than Sleeps the Eye - The Role of REM-Sleep and Eye Movements on the Trajectory of Distressing Memories
Research description: Distressing memories typically fade over time, but for some individuals they can manifest into trauma and anxiety-related disorders. Sleep, or rather lack thereof, particularly rapid eye movement (REM) sleep - named after its characteristic eye movements - may drive this trajectory considering its role in emotional regulation. However, existing evidence is largely correlational, and the contribution of eye movements remains unclear. This project will investigate whether eye movements during REM sleep and utilised in a therapeutic approach called eye movement desensitisation and reprocessing (EMDR) share mechanisms that influence the fate of distressing memories. In collaboration with SOMNOmedics, we will combine psychological assessments with physiological measures, a manipulation of eye movements, and longitudinal home-based sleep monitoring to unravel the causal contribution of eye movements to a maladaptive emotional processing predicting individual vulnerability to distress. The findings will inform new approaches to preventing and treating trauma and anxiety-related disorders.
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Sustainability and Climate Emergency
Main supervisor: Prof Maren Duvendack
Second supervisor: Prof Arjan Verschoor
Twitter: @SsentongoDaudi1
TikTok: @daudissentongo
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Research project: Sharing knowledge for building climate resilience among farmers in sub-Saharan Africa: A case of M-Omulimisa Platform in Northern Uganda
Research description: Smallholder farmers in sub-Saharan Africa face growing climate risks, while traditional extension systems remain handicapped. This PhD investigates the impact of M-Omulimisa, an SMS, mobile apps and village agent network based knowledge sharing platform on climate resilience among farmers in Northern Uganda. The study evaluates the platform’s contribution to climate knowledge, behaviour change and household adaptive capacity. Specifically, it examines farmer’s demographic characteristics, identifies determinants of platform adoption and knowledge sharing, assesses changes in knowledge, attitude and practises related to climate smart agriculture and evaluates effects on household adaptive capacity. Guided by Diffusion of Innovation, Theory of Planned Behaviour and Resilience Theory, the study employs a mixed methods design within a contribution analysis framework with quantitative data collected from 500 farmers ( 250 users, 250 non users), focus groups, key informant interviews, performance stories and platform analytics, analysed using propensity score matching, difference in differences and NVivo thematic analysis
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Advanced Methods for Social and Economic Research
Main supervisor: Prof Jayant Ganguli
Second supervisor: Dr Ahrash Dianat and Dr David Zentler-Munro
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/hannah-zeng-3bb4711ba/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/han_nah.one?psln=MXY2MG9yY3IxOHk4Nw%3D%3D&utm_source=qr
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Research project: Behavioural Dynamics of Job Search and Decision-Making Under Uncertainty
Research description: Labour market uncertainty requires individuals to make complex job search decisions. While traditional economic models assume expected utility maximisation, behavioural economics highlights the roles of reference-dependence and loss aversion. This research investigates how these behavioural factors influence job search decisions and occupational mobility, and their implications for labour market policies. First, laboratory experiments will examine how reference-dependence and loss aversion shape job search behaviour across multiple occupations, building on existing empirical literature. Second, data from the UK Understanding Society survey will be analysed to investigate whether job seekers exhibit excessive reference-dependence by disproportionately targeting previous occupations or industries rather than expanding sectors. Combining experimental and survey evidence will strengthen the external validity and policy relevance of the findings. Finally, through collaboration with Essex County Council and the Department for Work and Pensions, this research aims to inform unemployment benefits, job-matching services and active labour market policies.