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PhD year by year

After receiving your application, we try to establish if we have the necessary expertise to supervise your project and we begin to form a supervisory team for you. This will normally consist of a Director of Studies (DoS), who will be your lead supervisor, and at least one other supervisor, who will offer you additional support and guidance throughout your studies. If, following a successful interview, you are offered a place as a full-time student, your programme of study will look something like this:

Part time students follow the same structure as full-time students but normally complete the PhD over a period of five to six years. Part-time students take two modules in each of their first two years, and will normally Transfer to PhD in their fourth year.

Benefit from a professional and challenging relationship with your supervisory team, drawn from experienced academics working at the forefront of their disciplines.

Supervisors

Please click on the name of the supervisor to follow a link to their webpage and find out more about their research interests and potential areas of PhD supervision. We recommend contacting a potential supervisor with your research outline before submitting a formal application, please read our first.  Please only contact one supervisor. If another supervisor is better suited to your project, we will redirect your query.

Some supervisors have put forward ideas for potential PhD projects that they would be interested to supervise. These are listed below the name of the relevant supervisor. We also welcome original research proposals.

Professor Eleanor Bradley 
Research specialisms: adult mental health; medicines conversations (information-exchange, concordance); family input and support (shared decision making, coproduction); non-medical prescribing; qualitative research. The application of health psychology theory to mental healthcare. Current projects include the input of families to shared decision making within adult mental healthcare, an exploration of the role of motivational interviewing as a resource for prescribing professionals to enhance communication within adult mental healthcare, and defining recovery within and between adult mental healthcare services. 
Research methodologies: predominantly qualitative, with a particular interest in constructivist grounded theory.

Dr Sarah Davis
Research specialisms: Individual differences; emotional intelligence; child and adolescent development; personality; mental health; stress and coping; resilience; social cognition; attentional bias 
Research methodologies: Longitudinal; experimental and cross-sectional research designs; psychometric validation; quantitative statistical methods including structural equation modelling and conditional process modelling (Mediation and moderation).

Self-funded project: Emotional intelligence in bipolar disorder

Dr Derek Farrell 
Research specialisms: psychological trauma; Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE’s); child sexual abuse; clergy sexual abuse; gender-based violence; trauma capacity building; psychological first aid; EMDR Therapy; cognitive behavioural psychotherapies, mental health & severe mental illness; performance enhancement in sport; psychological interventions within humanitarian assistance programmes; clinical supervision; positive psychology.
Research methodologies: interpretative phenomenological analysis; Q Methodology; Delphi Technique; mixed methodology; psychometric evaluation and validation including statistical analysis.

Dr Daniel Farrelly
Research specialisms: evolutionary perspectives on human behaviour, in particular social and cognitive psychology. 
Research methodologies: quantitative, experimental.

Dr Kath Gordon-Smith
Research specialisms: comorbidities (physical and psychiatric) of major mood disorders 
Research methodologies: quantitative, longitudinal mood measures in bipolar disorder.

Self-funded project: Emotional intelligence in bipolar disorder
Self-funded project: Atopic diseases in bipolar disorder

Dr Gillian Harrop
Research specialisms: violence and sexual violence; false allegations; domestic abuse; police investigation.

Self-funded project: Bystander Intervention

Matthew Jellis
Research specialisms: occupational/business psychology; personnel selection, assessment and training; organisational change and development. 
Research methodologies: quantitative studies in applied settings, including the analysis of archive data; qualitative; mixed and multi-methods

Self-funded project:Physical Activity, Sedentary Behaviour and Health & Wellbeing

Professor Lisa Jones
Research specialisms: aetiology of major mood disorders (including bipolar disorder and postpartum psychosis). 
Research methodologies: quantitative, longitudinal measures in major mood disorders.

Self-funded project: Emotional intelligence in bipolar disorder
Self-funded project: Atopic diseases in bipolar disorder

Dr Béré Mahoney
Research specialisms: victimisation; the social and psychological costs of crime; sexuality and gender identity; eating behaviour; ageing and appearance concerns and beliefs about aging; individual differences. 
Research methodologies: quantitative, including the analysis of ‘Big Data’; qualitative; mixed and multi-methods

Self-funded project: ‘Positive Higher Education’: The Role of Universities in Developing Character Strengths and Wellbeing
Self-funded project: Supporting the psychological needs of parents of newborn infants diagnosed with complex congenital heart disease, using a storytelling based intervention.

Dr Gabriela Misca
Research specialisms: developmental psychology and family diversity across the life-span; military and veterans psychology; military and veteran families: parenting, couple relationships, military trauma, mental health and PTSD; child and adolescent development and mental health in the context of diverse families and child-care settings: adoption, foster care, intercountry adoption, global surrogacy, same-sex parenting. Adverse early experiences, parenting, attachment and the intergenerational transmission of risk. 
Research methodologies: quantitative (including longitudinal approaches to cohort data), qualitative (including narrative approaches) and mixed methods; participatory research methods with children and adults; systematic review approaches, and intervention evaluation.

Dr Blaire Morgan
Research specialisms: psycholinguistics, education, positive psychology, social psychology, moral education and virtue ethics. 
Research methodologies: quantitative, mixed methods.

Self-funded project: ‘Positive Higher Education’: The Role of Universities in Developing Character Strengths and Wellbeing

Dr Helen Scott
Research specialisms: occupational psychology; empathy and emotional intelligence; resilience; training and development interventions to support employee psychological wellbeing.
Research methodologies: quantitative, mixed methods.

Self-funded project: Universal Design for Learning in Higher Education

All students engage with our Researcher Development Programme (RDP). The RDP aims to develop and enhance the skills, both generic and specific, that you will need to complete your research degree but also to become an effective researcher. The RDP is organised around thematic clusters, consisting of modules, and workshops, delivered face-to-face by subject specialists from across the University and the dedicated Researcher Development Team, or online through our virtual learning environment.

As part of the RDP, you will complete a Postgraduate Certificate in Research Methods (PG Cert). All students must complete the PG Cert in order to progress on their MPhil/PhD Programme. The PG Cert is strongly focused on developing your programme of research, starting from establishing your development needs, and preparing you for the planning and subsequent delivery of your programme of research.

Full-time students will complete the PG Cert in 12 months and part-time students in 24 months.