PhD Museum Studies, UK | Doctoral museum, heritage and archival studies

Nicola Ashmore's supervisory interests focus on creative interventions and curatorial practice, notably the means through which this can leverage change and collaborative activism. 

Nicola would welcome makers and practitioners and those working with collections and archives in their doctoral projects. She brings a wealth of experience in her supervision in communicating research findings through a wide range of platforms from documentary film, exhibition practice, to online and offline publications. Nicola has taken an interdisciplinary approach to her investigations into museum practices and community based collaborative practices and would encourage enquiries from those who push at the boundaries of their chosen disciplines. 

I am particularly interested in supervising PhDs on: government or 'official' uses of art and design; design and dress for propaganda and protest; design, diplomacy and soft power; and exhibition and display histories.

All successful applicants join the Centre for Design History's vibrant research community.

If you are planning a project that is connected to my research but not listed here feel free to contact me to discuss it further at h.atkinson2@brighton.ac.uk. 

My current and former PhD students have focused on themes including political poster design; protest dress; Cold War photobooks; conscientious objector art practises; clothing production and consumption during World War Two; and museum exhibition design. I have examined five PhDs to date: at University of Antwerp, University of Oslo, University of Southampton, Kingston University and University of Brighton.

Sue is based at the University of Brighton Design Archives and supervises research using archives in art and design history and practice; and on twentieth century British art and design and their contexts, with a particular focus on the mid-century. She supervises Masters and Doctorate projects, and is happy to hear from potential students with complementary interests.

Verity is interested in supervising PhDs in the following areas: Cold War cultural exchanges and cultural diplomacy; histories of exhibitions and arts institutions; mid to late 20th century histories of design, fashion, craft and material culture; uses of the past in the present-day (vintage, retro, second hand consumption). If you have an idea for a project that is related to her research expertise, but not listed above, please get in touch to discuss it further. 

My research interest includes the documentation and visualisation of collections, embedding intelligence as well as the (re)use to support innovative approaches, for instance, to support the exhibition and conservation of heritage artefacts and creative applications. Research topics for supervising include:

i) data analytics for complex, diverse and linked data resources,

ii) 3D digitisation/imaging and 3D digital collections,

iii) discoverability technologies, including AI-based analysis, large scale visualisation novel modalities for search and browse, 

iv) community involvement with heritage,

v) design and engineering of objects by digital fabrication technologies.

vi) Sustainability and business aspects, including metaverse, blockchain technologies and NFT

Veronica welcomes enquiries for doctoral research relating to dress, costume and textile history. She is particularly interested in supervising projects connected with: costume for performance; the history of collecting; the relationship between clothing and the body; the material culture of dress, textiles and costume and interrogating the role dress can play as an expression of individual or shared identity. 

I welcome PhD supervision in areas that align with my expertise and research interests, particularly at the intersections of education, practice, and research in interior design. These include:

• Interior Design Education: curriculum development, partnerships, pedagogy, and the role of inclusivity, decolonisation, and widening participation in shaping the future of the discipline.

• Commercial Interior Design: with a focus on retail design, brandscapes, and hospitality environments, especially as sites of cultural dialogue, identity-making, and social responsibility.

• Global-Local Exchange: including cross-cultural knowledge transfer, diasporic perspectives, and the negotiation of global and local values within interior and spatial design practice, research, and education.

I am particularly interested in supervising projects that critically examine how interior spaces and interiors education can foster belonging, inclusion, and ethical engagement while addressing the challenges of globalisation.

Current PhD Students

Esther Martins (University of Pretoria). Thesis Title: Epistemic access and transformation: crafting decolonial pedagogies for the benefit of  interior design studio praxis.

Yunah is keen to supervise research projects on trans/national identities and networks of design and visual/material culture and repressentations of design and visual/material culture in magazines and exhibitions. She especially welcomes enquires about projects on craft, design and visual/material culture in and from the East Aisan region including China, Korea, and Japan. 

Professor Newbury is interested in supervising PhD projects related to his main areas of interest in photography, history, politics and memory, especially but not exclusively those with a focus on Africa. He also welcomes enquiries from applicants interested in researching any aspect of the history or practice of documentary and community photography and photographic education in Britain and elsewhere, and is open to proposals that encompass a range of historical, archival, theoretical and practice-led approaches to photography and visual culture.

He has supervised 25 PhD students to completion across photography history, theory and practice, as well as projects related to art education, public art and visual culture, and several Collaborative Doctoral Awards, including with Birmingham City Council, Belfast Exposed gallery and the Imperial War Museum. He has examined more than 30 PhDs, including at University of the Arts London, University of Cape Town, Edith Cowan University, Goldsmiths College, University of Greenwich, Tshwane University of Technology and University of the Western Cape.

Charlotte has supervised one PhD student to completion and has two current PhD students. She is eager to supervise PhD projects on 19th- and 20th-century dress, fashion, and textile history topics and welcomes enquiries.

Dr Ceren Özpınar has supervised two PhDs to completion, and currently supervises three PhD students at Brighton, who work on subjects in lesser-known women artists in the 20th century, feminism in the museum, representation of lesbian lives in collections, and transnational art and design practices. She has examined one PhD to date.

Ceren would be interested in supervising PhD projects on feminist and queer approaches to art; transnational art histories; narratives of difference; memory and materiality. She would also welcome proposals interested in researching any aspect of the project of decolonising the history of art and exhibitions, particularly but not exclusively, in the Mediterranean, Middle Eastern and North African geographies.

Ceren also hosts visiting doctoral researchers on a regular basis. If you are working on a PhD project at another institution related to her research expertise and would like to be supervised by her at Brighton for a short period (up to a year), feel free to contact her.

I would like to encourage proposals from candidates who would like to undertake research using feminist, queer and decolonial approaches to museums, galleries or archives. I am also happy to receive inquiries from those who would like to undertake projects on art and visual culture in the UK from a global perspective. I have experience supervising and examining students whose work is undertaken by curatorial practice, visual art practice and by prior publication as well as more conventional phd programmes. 

My supervisory interests cover a breadth of subject areas within textiles, fashion, design and craft. I am interested in research that explores embodied experience in both making and interacting with material culture in contemporary contexts. I have a particular interest in work that considers the politics of making and creating in postcolonial contexts. Please feel free to get in touch to discuss any doctoral project ideas.

Annebella supervises PhDs in visual and material culture; photographic history, theory and practice; Mass Observation; museum cultures; modern British art and design history; non-elite design and dress history; everyday / vernacular / folk cultural practices and countercultures. She has supervised thirteen doctoral students to completion, including PhDs by publication, practice and in partnership with museums. She has examined over twenty-five PhD theses internationally. She welcomes new students.

I would be delighted to supervise research projects that focus on the politics of modernisation through design in postcolonial contexts, the histories of design and craft in South Asia, art, design and politics in India and modernisms beyond the west.

I am currently supervising PhD research projects on Australian aboriginal textile production (Design Star funded); technology and the experience of art in contemporary museums, and museum engagement with South Asian communities in the UK (CDP with British Museum). 

I am interested in supervising doctoral projects broadly relating to the design, manufacture and consumption of fashion and textiles, and the collection and display of dress and textiles in museums. The application of creative research methodologies, including dress reconstruction and storytelling would be welcome. 

I welcome projects concerned with the impact of material and sociopolitical transformations on artistic developments in East and Southeast Asia; which query relationships between art and globalisation; the representation of memory and construction of diasporic subjectivities in post-colonial, post-conflict contexts; feminist interventions and strategies of resistance; artists and the archive; performance and the aesthetics of protest.

I have experience of supervising undergraduate, masters and PhD students. The projects these students have undertaken have been very varied, and have included topics such as: the importance of good food and nutrition to people in prison; parental strategies to reduce the risk of online bullying; narrative construction of political speeches about gun crime in America; reasons for abolition of the death penalty in specific US states; the Scandinavian prison system; the experience of offenders families and the Old Police Cells Museum in Brighton. The majority of my students have used qualitative methods which have included focus groups, interviews (both in-person and online) and ethnographic observation. In addition, many of my students have undertaken analyses of cultural products such as films, documentaries, news reports and exhibitions.

With regards to future projects, I would be happy to consider any application or idea although my own research interests include punishment and prison; narrative; the death penalty; museums and exhibitions; cultural memories and cultural forgetting and cultural comparisons.  

Julia Winckler's interdisciplinary research focuses on working with visual archives and collections. Memory and migration narratives, contested topographies, exile studies, co-production of knowledge and photography & activism are particular areas of interest. 

For PhD applicants:

Winckler currently co-supervises six Phd students at the University of Brighton and one Phd student at the University of Salzburg. Two of these Phd projects are practice-based; one is Techne funded, a second is an AHRC CPD studentship. 

Winckler welcomes Phd inquiries that interact with any of the following: 

Working with Archives and Collections: Photographic archives, Community archives, Museums, Private Collections

Memory Studies: Postmemory, transnational memory, cultural memory, communicative memory, personal memory

Art practice as research: visual, creative and ethnographic research methods/photo voice/photo elicitation/digital media technologies, site-specific interventions

Co-production of knowledge: popular education methodology, participatory methods, oral history, histoire croisée/regards croisés methodologies

Photography and activism: community art practice (global, historical & contemporary) and critical pedagogy

Photographers in Exile in Britain: contributions made by emigrés to the field of Applied Arts

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

I am particularly interested in research 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 at https://edgee.org/rumble/ 

Dr Wintle welcomes enquiries about projects on museums, exhibition design, collecting, cultural forms of imperialism, nationalism and decolonisation, especially in Britain, and the material and visual culture of South Asia.

Claire has supervised six PhDs to completion and currently supervises seven AHRC-funded PhD students. She has examined postgraduate theses at SOAS, Leicester University, Royal Holloway, Sheffield Hallam University, the University of Southampton and a further eight PhDs at the University of Brighton. Her students focus on themes ranging from British South Asian community engagement with museums to the professional experiences of museum staff working to decolonise practice. She works with colleagues at the British Museum, Royal Botanic Gardens Kew, the Horniman Museum and the V&A to supervise Collaborative Doctoral Projects on subjects including the British Museum's relationships with museums in West Africa, South Asian donors to the British Museum, exhibition design at the British Museum and Korean collections at the V&A. She also works with colleagues at Shiv Nagar University in India to supervise a PhD project on Bihar Museum.