South Coast Doctoral Training Partnership (ESRC)

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. 

My supervisory interests encompass a range of topics within primary mathematics pedagogy and the application of policy in the primary classroom. I have a particular interest in social factors influencing the learning of mathematics and issues of equity in mathematics learning particularly relating to the learning experiences of those identified as lower attaining. I am also interested in reserach focusing on school governance and school improvement and research from a critical realist perspective. I am interested in supervision of research which utilises  qualitative and mixed methods approaches as well as that utilisting large quantitative data sets.

Current and recent supervision at Masters and Doctoral level includes collaborative teacher learning in primary schools, the development of fluency in calculation in primary school mathematics, mathematics anxiety in high school students, primary school leadership in response to inspection, values in secondary mathematics education.

Alison’s supervisory interests include learning, teaching and professional development in schools and higher education, mathematics education pedagogy and learning, including the role of affect and emotions, and intervention approaches to research. She is interested in supervising students with interests related to these areas.

Alison is Course Leader of the Education MA. She supervises students on the PhD, EdD and MA programmes in the UK and the Mauritius Institute of Education.

Doctoral completions:

Stefanie Edwards: Promoting and sustaining Lesson Study as a form of effective professional learning: an investigation of the practices enacted by teacher, school and system leaders

Shalini Jagambal Ramasawmy: Teacher and learner experiences of translanguaging as pedagogy in a Mauritian grade 7 English language class 

I am interested in supervising doctoral students in all areas related to my research interests in sociological, cultural and geographical analyses of race, ethnicity and popular culture.

PhD students currently working with me are undertaking research on: conflict, protest and resistance around the Hamburg Olympic Games referendum; identities and experiences of mixed-race university students; tourism in post-Communist Romania; Black British contemporary intellectual thought; and women’s cricket and sport policy in India.

I am open to various subjects, approaches, and methods.  I am especially interested in projects emerging out of and develop the Anthropology of Sport and that use ethnography as a principle research methodology. Specific areas of interest include the Sport for Development and Peace sector. Projects could have fieldwork anywhere in the world but I am particularly interested in projects in Latin America and the Global South. Other topics of interest and expertise include global labor and transnational migration in sport, the politics of spectacle and performance, and the sensory ecologies of embodiment, being, and becoming through physical activity.

My research interests and supervisory interests include: Science education, formative assessment, classroom assessment, teacher assessment literacy. Science teaching and learning: including the nervous system, learning about the brain, microscopes in the classroom and moss.  organisms. Science teachers, teacher well-being, teacher recruitment and retention, emotional needs of teachers.

I am able to supervise doctoral research across the fields of sociology, cultural studies, and politics as they pertain to sport, physical education, fitness, and related fields. However, I am particularly interested in sociological studies of the following specialist topics:

• Martial arts and combat sports
• Sport-related violence
• Risk, injury and medical care in sport
• Consent in sport

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 am interested in supervising Post Graduate Researchers in events, public space, and identities. I am also keen to support students researching diversity in all its forms, as well as those looking at accessible and sustainable events.

The doctoral project I most recently supervised, examined the application of the circular economy in waste management for toursim beach sites in Ghana.  

An experienced PhD supervisor, Anne welcomes PhD applications in the field of Human Resource Management, welfare reform and active labour market policies, social security, social rights, decent work and economic growth (Sustainable Development Goal 8). She is particularly interested in interdisciplinary approaches that combine public policy analysis with a socio-legal perspective. She is also keen to supervise PhDs that analyse policy reforms in the Global South (especially Latin America and Sub-Saharan Africa). 

I have supervisory interests in digital health, coproduction of health and social care services, community and social innovation, complex evaluation and social value, fuel poverty and energy justice. 

I have supervised five PhD students to completion, and I am currently supervising another five PhD students. I have also been looking after the wider community of PhD students for four years (2017-21) when I was the ‘Postgraduate Research Coordinator’ for my school. I therefore understand very well PhD processes, the main milestones of a PhD journey, and the specific professional and personal development needs PhD students have. I offer strong support to my students and love working with them. Students joining the Fatigue and Exercise research lab benefit from peer support with regular meetings to discuss science, bespoke research projects, or recent publications in our field, in addition to the entitled PhD supervision support.

If you are interested in the following areas, do not hesitate to contact me:

• Exercise intensity domains, anaerobic capacity, and neuromuscular fatigue
• Perceptions (particularly fatigue and effort) and exercise tolerance / behaviour
• The interaction between physical training and both perceptual and neuromuscular fatigue
• Multiple sclerosis, long-covid, myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS)

Professor Doyle has supervised doctoral work on creative and visual climate change communication and engagement, media discourses of environment, gender and popular culture, branding and consumption. She would be happy to supervise work on any aspect of:

* climate and environmental communication 

* creative climate communication and engagement

* media, popular culture and environment

* climate activism and social movements

* visual climate and environmental communication

* veganism, popular culture/media and ethics

* intersectional feminist ecological ethics

Completed students, awarded the degree of PhD:

Dr Viktoria Erlacher-Downing (2024). 'Climate change and mental health: a co-produced, transformative study with young people in Blackpool'. University of Brighton                                                                   

Dr Kate Monson (2024). ‘Staying with the muddle: learning to live well on anthropocene island’. University of Brighton.

Dr Shai Kassirer (2020). ‘Media Analysis of Hydro-Policies for Climate-Resilience in Israel: Depoliticisation of Desalination Discourse (2001-2018)’. University of Brighton.

Dr Lucy O’Brien (2018). ‘Express Yourself: Reframing women’s participation, agency and power in popular music’. PhD by Publication. University of Brighton.

Dr Antigoni Themistokleous (2018). ‘Self regulation by the press in Cyprus’. University of Brighton.

Dr Chloe Peacock (2013). ‘Double Distinction’: An analysis of consumer participation in Apple branding’. University of Brighton.

Dr Joanna Boehnert (2012). ‘The Visual Communication of Ecological Literacy’. University of Brighton.

I am currently supervising four PhD students, two of whom are part of a H2020 Marie Curie Sklodowska Innovative Training Network. I am interested in supervising MRes and doctoral projects relating to (feminist) political ecology, and in particular, projects that relate to social and environmental justice, climate and agrarian resource extractivism, decolonial thinking and critical approaches to sustainable development. 

Francisca will be delighted to supervise students in Corporate Social Responsibility, Corporate Social Responsibility Communication, Sustainability, Marketing Responsibility, Green Marketing, Inclusive Marketing and Diversity.

Francisca is currently supervising 5 Phd research projects.

I am interested in supervising postgraduate research students (PhDs and MRes) in the following areas: community led water resource governance; sustainable water futures; elder environmental activism; nature-based solutions for climate change adaptation, degrowth theory in relation to environmental citizenship.

I would be interested in supervising postgraduate students in the following areas:

- Geographies of sport and leisure- Playful cities and urban everyday life- Community-supported agriculture / community gardening

I also welcome discussions on other potential topics.

Urban/ Regional Regeneration, (Critical) Event Studies, Qualitative/ Ethnographic Research Methods. 

Andy is interested to work with applicants seeking to conduct research relating to the professional learning, development and/or well-being of teachers, leaders and other professionals. Specific foci may include but are not restricted to studies of:

• Mentoring and/or coaching for early career teachers / professionals
• Mentoring and/or coaching across professions
• Judgementoring
• ONSIDE Mentoring
• Co-mentoring (collaborative, compassionate mentoring and coaching)

I am happy to supervise projects within my range of expertise which includes health psychology and applied health, medical and health care research in the widest sense. Given my background I tend to focus on quantitative and experimental or interventionist methods. Increasingly i am involved in mixed methods projects with a strong qualitative method. In the past i have supervised projects in the field of diabetes and also forensic mental health. 

My current interests are very much about applying a relationship approach to e.g. long term conditions and the way people live with and adjust to long term conditions or other health challenges. Resilience and stigma in long term conditions is of interest to me, extending my current work on diabetes and HIV/AIDS. Exploring links around adjustment, stigma and the additional challenges due to social and health inequalities is a priority to me. Finally, development of interventions in these fields would be of considerable interest to me. 

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. 

• Sustainablity in Hospitality, Tourism and Events
• Marketing Hospitality, Tourism and Events
• Service quality and development in Hospitality, Tourism and Events

I am interested in supervising PhD students interested in sustainability related to tourism, marketing, and corporate social responsibility. I am also interested in those wanting to research behaviour change, especially related to the environmental crisis. Recently completed research and publications include those concerning behaviour change and travel demand management, destination planning and management and information overload on the internet. I specifically welcome projects that adopt innovative qualitative methodological approaches to creating new knowledge.

I am supervising students researching tourism and the circular economy, monitoring and evaluation of tourism development, art and the tourism economy and behaviour change as a result of environmental exposure 

I am not in a position to take on any new doctoral students at the moment.  I currently supervise in areas including the following:

• Addressing disadvantage in education
• (Post)digital technologies & education.
• Vulnerability and wellbeing
• Leadership and school improvement
• Learner voice and dialogic learning
• Challenging school readiness.

I welcome the opportunity to supervise PhD students with an interest in the areas of tourism and wellbeing, place and wellbeing, sustainability, nature-based tourism, coastal tourism, blue spaces, water and wellbeing, rural tourism, cultural/heritage tourism, national parks and biospheres.

My research and supervisory interests cover Sport and Exercise Psychology, with particular focus on cultural sport psychology (immigrated athletes and coaches, culturally diverse sport teams, acculturation and adaptation in a new environment), as well as athletes' well-being (safeguarding, coach-athlete relationship). I currently lead an international research project on behalf of FEPSAC, which investigates career trajectories of sport psychology graduates in Europe.

I am interested in supervising doctoral students in classed inequalities, urban sociology, social housing and ethnographic methodologies.

I am currently supervising the following projects:

Social and cultural exclusion through seaside gentrification on the south coast Bethan Prosser

Precarious practices and policies in the divided ‘smart city’ Matthew Smith

Within the broad context of space, place and culture I am fascinated by the embodied and performative dynamics of human experience and behaviour.  Underpinned by a longstanding interest and intellectual engagement with the materiality of space, my focus encompasses the material, virtual and simulated spaces associated with everyday life. For example, the sea and the coast, cruise ships, popular film, photography, art, tourism and leisure.  I am interested in how people engage with, imagine and experience such landscapes and spaces.  

My interest in cruise ships as bounded and transient spaces for work and leisure, framed by a maritime heritage encompassing film, dress, rituals of the sea, architecture of the ship, dates back to my time living and working at sea. My intellectual and practical experience of cruise ships directly influenced my PhD research exploring the constructed discourses of cruise travel through an analysis of popular film (Ship of Fools, Carry on Cruising, Titanic).   Research that uncovered the multisensory nature of film and how the liminal realm of film space is experienced in and through the imagination, memory and emotion.

My interest in maritime heritage and histories of the sea / coastal cultures also encompasses how the visual and material world create new narratives of meaning. Narratives that work to shape individual and collective identities alongside particular experiences and encounters with the ocean and liminal environments where land and water meet. I continue to be fascinated by the power of discourse generally, and specifically the critical discourse highlighting the consequential socio-cultural impacts of cruise ships and their associated activities on coastal regions and destinations.

Supervisory interests

I welcome enquiries for research underpinned by qualitative approaches and methods generally and specifically those associated with visual methodologies and methods. I am keen to encourage applications focusing on projects that align with me areas of interest, broadly focused in relation to: 

The visual and visuality

Space, place and materiality

The coast / sea / seascapes

Embodiment and the senses

Heritage / Maritime heritage

Cruise ships and cruise liners

I am interested in supervising PhD students in the following areas: critical race theory, de/post-colonial studies, feminist activism, sexualities, trans studies, political philosophy, history of ontology.

I welcome students' research projects in the following areas: Consumer psychology and behaviour; Customer relationship marketing; Marketing for families; Gender and sexuality in marketing

I'm interested in supervising postgrad projects in (but not limited to) the following areas: sexual politics outside the metropolis; social and cultural geographies of fat men; Participatory Action Research with LGBTQ communities; and Bear subcultures and spaces.

I am interested in supervising doctoral students on a range of topics including transport and mobilities, urban sociology, visual sociology and gender and generation. In addition, I welcome proposals from students seeking to adopt creative and inventive methodologies and methods. I am currently supervising projects on: lived experiences of the anthropocene; urban place-attachment across generations; sequential art in architectural practice; urban pocket parks; generation and automobility futures; and the wellbeing of refugee children.

I am interested in supervising doctoral research in the areas of outer space studies, environmental sociology, human-animal studies, and social movement studies, as well as work more broadly situated within psychosocial studies.

I am working with PhD and EdD students within the field of Early Years and I welcome enquiries from prospective candidates who are interested in my specific areas of specialism which include:

• 'Professional Love'
• Infants, toddlers & children under 3 years of age
• Attachment based relationships -  Love, Care and Intimacy
• Theory, policy and practices with infants and toddlers
• Quality and learning/ policy, practice and pedagogy
• The Rights of babies and young children
• Professional adult roles – e.g primary caregiving/key person approach
• Parent roles

I have supervised ten students to successful completion of their doctorates and examined 17 full doctoral theses.

Raphael is interested in receiving proposals for doctoral studies across politics, sociology and criminology. His areas of expertise include critical approaches to protest and social movements; criminal justice and social policy; migration and citizenship; policing and security; nationalism and the far right; critical and democratic theory; and public inquiries.

For current funding opportunities see: http://www.southcoastdtp.ac.uk/apply/

I am interested in supervising PhD candidates in a number of public health and health promotion areas. My current research (see profile) includes a global project on health services during CV-19, European research on syphilis, substance (mis)use, and LGBTI inequalities taking an international perspective. PhD candidates are welcome to contact me to develop PhD projects around these areas, but also any of the below:

• Sexual health (including HIV and other STIs) and sexual orientation
• Access to health and social care services for ‘vulnerable’ populations
• Healthy public policy and health inequalities
• Mental health
• Parenthood (including fathers supporting breastfeeding)
• Young people
• LGBT lives
• Tackling stigma and discrimination
• Gender identities (masculinities and femininities)
• Peer group cultures
• Sexual assault/gender based violence/intimate partner violence

I also supervise candidates for PhD by publication and welcome applications/enquiries

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).

I am interested in supervising PhDs in social policy, and health policy in particular. A possible PhD project concerns attitudes towards NHS privatisation. Further areas I am interested in supervising include: inequalities in health, local government public health policy, empowerment and public control over the determinants of health, public access to information, public health leadership, policy on climate change and workplace health.

Jane is supervising PhD researchers, including:

practitioners' conceptions of 'holism' and midwifes' attitudes and practice concerning contraceptive advice. 

My research interests lie in the history of Town Planning, particularly the impetus for establishment of the Garden City movement, National Parks, the emergence of community engagement in the planning of places.  Other interests are the theoretical and political influences on the planning process, including regional government (and its demise).  The historical development of urban areas, their design; history of architecture and urban form.

Happy to supervise field, questionnaire, and desk-based projects. Passionate about avian ecology and conservation science, human-nature interactions, urban ecology, and patterns and drivers of extinction risk. 

I am currently supervising two doctoral candidates. One project focuses on Soft Power and the 2022 FIFA World Cup in Qatar. The other examines resistance to the hosting of Mega Events such as the Olympics. I am interested in supervising doctoral students in areas relating to sociological, cultural, and political aspects of international festivals, events, and spectacles. My particular focus is arts and cultural events for example Burning Man, Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival, and global touring productions, such as U2's 360 tour. I am also interested in supervising PhD projects in the following areas relating to leisure events:

• fandom and fan communities
• community and cultural identity
• space and place
• production, consumption, and co-creation of leisure spectacles.

I supervise research students exploring human-computer interaction and applied artificial intelligence topics in education, cultural heritage and public engagement.

I am particularly interested in research-through-design [1] projects generating new knowledge through the iterative, user-centred development and evaluation of design prototypes.

For past work and specific research interests please refer to my project pages. 

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[1] Stappers, P. J., & Giaccardi, E. (2017). Research through design. In The encyclopedia of human-computer interaction (pp. 1-94). The Interaction Design Foundation. 

I currently supervise in the areas of radical democratic theory; the ethics and politics of care; populism; the politics of property; post-Marxism; poststructuralist thought; queer theory and sexualities; and social policy (housing, welfare, wellbeing, work), but will consider applications across any area of my work. Successful applicants join CAPPE's thriving Critical Theory research community and benefit from our international exchange programme and research network with Johns Hopkins; Berkeley, UoC; NUI Galway; PoliTesse/Arendt Centre, Verona; University of Buenos Aires; University of Recife; and UNAM. Current competitive funding opportunities are available through University of Brighton; AHRC ; ESRC  and Future Societies.

Supervision support can be provided to PhD students who are interested in queer theory, poststructuralism, the application of critical social theory, new materialism, intersectionality and feminist theory in health-related research. Focus areas include LGBTQ+ health and healthcare, health inequalities, resilience, trans health and mental health promotion with the aim to achieve greater health equity. PhD students she has supervised to completion have worked on studies employing critical social theories, new materialism and qualitative creative methods. She has examined PhD/Professional Doctorate studies at universities in the UK and further afield.  

Current PhD students 

• Sacha Mead, Aile Trumm; Sebastian Beaumont, Elisavet Anastasiadi and Mike Phillips. 

Former PhD students (PhD completions)

• Esther Omotola Ayoola, Amy Middleton, H Howitt, Kim Brown, Tracey Harding, Adam Kincel, Jens Schneider.