Psychology PhD

Matt supervises PhD students addressing a range of topics including human-animal relations, more-than-human and multispecies methods, Anthropocene studies, the posthumanities, psychology and the climate crisis, climate activism, mental health and distress, social and cultural identity.

He is especially interested in supervising students adopting qualitative and creative methods. Interdisciplinary projects are especially welcome. 

I welcome applications from postgraduate students interested in research projects that are rooted in the disciplines of critical social and community psychology. Particular areas of interest are: critical approaches to health and citizenship, critical discursive psychology, creative methodologies, the role of media in everyday life, and post-feminist sensibilities.

I would be very interested in supervising postgraduate students conducting projects on:

• Vulnerability and forensic investigative interviewing;
• Evidence-based child forensic interviewing techniques;
• Working with police (nationally and internationally) to overcome barriers to prosecuting cases involving children and adolescents;
• Understanding factors that promote decisions to disclose and designing strategies to promote honesty.

I am interested in supervising people with an interest in social psychology, crowd behaviour, or collective action. For example I am currently researching the protests calling for a ceasefire in the Middle East conflict & would welcome PG research projects into these and other topical collective action protests. I am also interested in public intervention in emergencies/mass casualty incidents (a concept known as 'zero-responders') and public behaviour during the COVID-19 pandemic, and its implications for emergency planning and response. Therefore, I would be especially interested in supervising emergency responders and other public health professionals who wish to do PG research. 

I am also interested in Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS) and the broader area of collective resilience in response to general adversity. I would be keen to work with health professionals interested in postgraduate research in any of these areas.  

I'm happy to supervise PhD students on a range of topics broadly relating to Forensic Psychology and Cyberpsychology. I am especially interested in supervising students adopting an Eye Tracking methodology. Current PhD projects I am supervising address the following:

• Terror Management Theory approaches to climate change communication (Joe Rennie-Taylor)

Helen supervises PhD and MD students with an interest in arts-based interventions in healthcare, education and wellbeing, and/or the use of creative, arts-based research methods.  She is interested in talking to doctoral applicants who are interested in researching creativity and the arts, with foci including: art therapy; arts interventions for health and wellbeing, including invisible chronic and contested conditions; social prescribing; creativity and the lived experience of dementia; arts education; spoken word and poetry slam; art worlds/communities; arts inclusivity; everyday creativity; and the artistic process.   She is also interested in supervising students who wish to work with creative, arts-based and/or participatory methods, including: poetic inquiry; autoethnography; photo voice; photo elicitation; collaborative poetics; and participatory action research.  Helen currently supervises four doctoral candidates, who are researching: the lived experiences of women with borderline personality disorder (including creative coping strategies); neurologic music therapy with young people with juvenile dementia; black people's experiences of intimacy and psychosis; and decolonial praxis in museum learning.  She has previously supervised and examined work covering topics that include: perceptions of frailty in the undergraduate medical curriculum; the impact of austerity policies on homeless people; spoken word with young offenders in a Macedonian prison; the performance and perception of authenticity in contemporary UK spoken word poetry; and NHS staff experiences of work. 

I would be interested in supervising doctoral students in areas of Positive psychology, specifically how people think about life satisfaction; the cognitive processes underpinning life satisfaction and happiness; the importance of money to life satisfaction; improvisation and how it relates to wellbeing. More broadly, this encompasses: well being; life satisfaction; happiness; hedonic wellbeing; eudaimonic well being; flow. I would also consider some aspects of Social psychology, specifically the relationship between friendship and coping behaviours.

I supervise PhD students on a variety of topics that focus on the psychological side of migration. I welcome proposals from students who want to investigate well-being or mental health of migrants, refugees, or international students. Within that topic, I am particularly interested in the role of social relationships and/or the role of digital technology in wellbeing and mental health. I also accept projects looking into British people's attitudes towards migration: i.e., what are predictors of negative and positive attitudes and behaviours towards migration, and what can we do to improve these attitudes and/or support for migrants?

Examples of PhD projects under my supervision:

• Exploring resilience of international students from a social policy perspective (Isaac Thornton).
• Exploring the role of digital and print resources in English language and literacy acquisition in relation to wellbeing of refugee children (Liliane Broschart).
• The impact of digitalisation on public and third sector services supporting people for whom English is an additional language (Sidney Lupupa Mushinge).

Liam is interested in supervising students in the following areas: kink/BDSM identities/practices/behaviours (especially in relation to non-heterosexual populations); sexual health and well-being; sexual identities/behvaiours/subcultures and cross-overs with the internet.

I am interested in supervising a number of topics rooted in the disciplines of Critical Social Psychology, Critical Community Psychology, and Discursive Psychology, with a transdisciplinary ethos. Broad areas are: non-normative sexualities, religious and ideological discourses, nature and sustainability. For example:

- Non-normative sexualities, LGBTI+ issues

- Sex work, sex workers, and intersectionalities

- Religious and ideological discourses on sexuality

- Transdisciplinary approaches to sexuality and gender

- Permaculture, Transition Towns, group dynamics, grass-root social movements

- Transdisciplinary approaches to environmental crisis, peak oil, and climate change

- Non-clinical approaches to mental health

- Values of space in shaping people’s social identities

- Critical Community Psychology

- Critical Social Psychology, and Discursive Psychology