Steve has 25yrs research and evaluation experience in the field of men, gender and health with particular emphasis on health promotion/public health and men's mental wellbeing. More recently, he has been developing an additional portfolio of nursing research relating to safe and effective staffing, nursing education, nursing leadership and developing nursing roles (particularly Nursing Associates and Advanced Nursing Practice). He is primarily a qualitative researcher with expertise in Thematic Analysis, data integration and critical realism.

Research interests

My interests include the application of research to policy and practice, service evaluation, process and outcomes of psychotherapy in health service settings and psychotherapeutic competence.

Recent research includes an evaluation of the new model of psychological service delivery "Improving Access to Psychological Therapies" and an investigation into research-based methods of improving the quality and effectiveness of psychological services for people with long term depression.

Research Interests

My research interests are in child and adolescent mental health and interventions that focus on the relationship between child and caregiver. In 2009 I was awarded an NIHR Clinical Doctoral Research Fellowship. I used a mixed methods design to create an online manual of dyadic art therapy.

Research Methods I can Supervise

• Mixed Methods
• Manual Development

Specific Areas of Interest

• Child and adolescent mental health
• Parent-child interventions
• Parenting interventions
• Early years 
• Art therapy

Research Interests

As well as having an interest and clinical background in substance misuse and mental health (which was the area or work for my PhD), I have experience in designing and delivering complex interventions, as well as the feasibility, design and recruitment to studies within primary care and pharmacy settings. 

My current interests are in the use of routinely collected care data for the purpose of costing analysis, economic analysis and decision modelling. I also have an interest in the capability-approach and extra-wefarism and its conceptual and practical application to economic evaluations and decision making, and the conceptual and practical use of outcome measures in general.

I can supervise students interested in the use of large databases of rountinely collected care data for health economic analysis and decision modelling problems. These databases include, but are not limited to:

• Secondary Uses Service (SUS)
• Hospital Episode Statistics (HES)
• Clinical Practice Research Datalink (CPRD)
• ResearchOne

My research interests include outcome measurement,  psychometrics, economic evaluation and current health policy analysis including PROMs. I am also interested in economic evaluation of mental health policies and community services.

Research Interests

Jeremy's research falls broadly into three areas, with plenty of crossover between them – management of health care organisations, team working, and statistics. Recent projects in health care include a study of the effects of NHS staff engagement and experience on patient outcomes; various studies of team working in health care, particularly in mental health services; an examination of the effects of organisational restructuring in the NHS; and a project looking at the diversity of hospital staff and their representativeness of the local community. In 2014 he begins an NIHR-funded study evaluating Schwartz Center Rounds^® in the NHS.

As well as teams in health care, he has a more general interest in team diversity, and in particular how it should be measured. As a statistician he has also undertaken a wide range of methodological research, particularly regarding interpretation of interaction effects, measurement of diversity, analysis of incomplete team data, and the effects of aggregation on relationships. He has published over 30 papers in refereed academic journals in the fields of psychology, management, health care and research methods, as well as numerous project reports and articles in practitioner publications. He is an editorial board member of five journals, and an Associate Editor of the Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology.

Dr. Anna Weighall is a Reader in Cognitive and Developmental Psychology at the School of Education, with a cross-disciplinary focus encompassing Education and Psychology. She specialises in the intricate relationships between sleep, memory, and learning, along with spoken language development and vocabulary acquisition across different age groups and linguistic backgrounds. She is also an expert in sleep research, including the role of sleep in mental health and wellbeing.

Research interests

Developing and evaluating complex interventions, health literacy and user perspectives of services.

My main interests centre on the impact of mental health and physical co-morbidities and the analysis of routinely collected datasets in health services research.

Research interests

• Applied health economic modelling

• Model structuring methods

• Economic analyses of cancer therapies, including survival analysis

• Whole disease modelling

• Modelling methods development

Research Interests

My primary research interest is in 'improving the quality of life of older people'. Key research areas arising from this are:-

• The impact of the physical environment on the quality of life of older people
• Evaluating the housing needs of older people
• Assessing the palliative care needs of older people with life-limiting illnesses
• Improving communication between patients with life-limiting conditions and their health care professionals
• Improving hospital environments for the end of life care of older people

Tessa is a Senior Lecturer in Health Economics within the Division of Population Health. She has a background in economics and is a mixed-methods researcher, with significant expertise in quantitative and qualitative research.

Research Interests

• Measuring and valuing health, wellbeing and quality of life
• The development, evaluation, and modification of patient reported
• outcome measures and preference-accompanied measures
• Measuring and valuing child health and carer health and wellbeing
• Valuation of very poor health states which may be considered worse
• than being dead
• Normative and ethical issues in the valuation of health states
• The use of health values or utilities within economic evaluation
• Use of wellbeing measures in health and social care

Tessa is available to supervise students in these and related areas.

Research Interests

• Systematic review and evidence synthesis of medical, health and social science topics, including qualitative and mixed method evidence synthesis
• The Health Technology Assessment (HTA) process
• Information retrieval and programme evaluation (implementation fidelity) research

Broad areas of research interest:

• Health Inequalities

Research Methods I am able to supervise:

• Qualitative

Specific areas of interest:

• Community development/engagement
• Voluntary sector
• Geographical areas of deprivation
• Health improvement initiatives
• Social exclusion

Research Interests

My fundamental interest is in mathematical modelling approaches to inform decision making in health and healthcare.

I am currently principal investigator or co-investigator involved in over 19 research programmes and projects. Current government / national policy research.

Alcohol Policy

I have been involved in modelling alcohol behaviours and policy since 2008, when we began a programme of research for UK research bodies and policy makers. With Prof Meier, we have developed the Sheffield Alcohol Research Group, a leading international centre for alcohol policy and epidemiological modelling research. Our work has influenced government policy on minimum unit pricing for alcohol; shaping and informing policy in UK, Scotland, Canada, Wales, EU Commission, and Republic of Ireland.

Public Health - Health Economics and Decision Modelling

I am co-applicant (Health Economics and Decision Modelling leader) on large research grants for the NIHR School of Public health research and the ESRC funded UK Centre for Tobacco and Alcohol Studies.

I have a wider portfolio of public health work including work around screening and prevention of diabetes, linking smoking and alcohol behaviours and developing a joint smoking and alcohol policy analysis model, encouraging behaviours in physical activity and general lifestyle risk reductions. This entire programme relates to the central methodological interest which is in developing and using novel mathematical modelling approaches to support and inform decision making around health and healthcare for international impact.

Health Technology Assessment

I have been heavily involved in health technology assessment and health economic evaluation of pharmaceuticals and interventions for both government bodies in the UK eg NICE and internationally, and also with the pharmaceutical industry.

I direct a programme of research in Health Economic Modelling / Health Technology Assessment which involves a large team of modelling staff and their collaborators. We are recognized as a leading national and international centre for HTA modelling research. I have been involved in direct leadership of over 30 research projects within the last five years, working closely with ScHARR-TAG and DSU.

Sustainable diets, the analysis of economic drivers of over and under nutrition, food and nutrition policy evaluation and the role of agriculture and food systems in enabling better nutrition and health. Much of this work is of an interdisciplinary nature, conducted in collaboration with nutritionists, health scientists, geographers and environmental scientists.

Research Interests

• Health service access
• Participatory approaches
• Patient and Public involvement
• Health Literacy

I am a qualitative researcher and my research interests centre on working with vulnerable groups to explore ways in which they are enabled to actively participate in their health/health systems.

Research Interests

• measuring, valuing, and modelling health, and other aspects of well-being
• incorporating equity concerns into social welfare functions
• normative economics of health and beyond

I am interested in the many uses of the arts and popular culture, and the relationship between mental health, urban living, and politics. I think that people with mental health problems often find ways to live well and that one of the most positive developments in this field is the strength of the service user and voices movement. Collaborative approaches to mental health seem to me to offer a way forward. I have recently become a trustee of Art Refuge UK which uses art therapy in different international locations to support people (particularly young people and children facing the difficulties of migration).

Psychiatric classification. Psychosis (‘schizophrenia’, ‘bipolar disorder’): the mechanisms involved in hallucinations, delusions and other symptoms. The social determinants of mental ill-health. Psychological treatments.

Research interests

My research interests relate to the evaluation of complex interventions and systems in emergency care settings. I have extensive experience in multi-centre mixed methods studies which can directly inform the delivery of high quality emergency care to patients.

Dean

Professor Finn’s research takes an organisation studies perspective, with a particular focus on policies and processes or organising in the health and social care context.

She has published extensively in the field of health care organisation, worked closely with external partners (including NHS and third sector), receiving grant funding from a range of funders (e.g. NIHR, ESRC, NHS and The Health Foundation) and taking an interdisciplinary approach (e.g. collaborating with colleagues from ScHARR, School of Nursing and Medical School). Current and recent research has included:

• Evaluation of the Flow Coaching Academy Quality Improvement programme (The Health Foundation)
• Retention of Mental Health Staff in the NHS (The Health Foundation)
• System Leadership role of Health and Wellbeing Boards in improving population health (National Institute for Health Research)
• The Role of Lived Experience in the Training and Education of Mental Health Professionals (Sheffield Health and Social Care NHS Foundation Trust)

Research interests

My research (and teaching) often involves me in working with users of mental health services. I am currently working with a range of initiatives in which service-users are supported in using creative arts and digital media to explore and communicate their experience and influence healthcare policy and practice. I am always keen to hear from individuals, groups, or organisations who want to develop similar or related work. I am a long-time mental health service-user myself, and have a strong commitment to the rights and empowerment of individuals using mental health services and/or living with mental distress. I am committed to promoting service-user led research wherever this is feasible.

Research interests

Jenny's research interests centre on applied microeconometrics, particularly the interaction of health and labour market outcomes, health-related behaviours, health valuation, the economics of well-being and travel behaviours. She is currently leading a large, innovative, EPSRC-funded project, 'Reflect: Experienced utility and travel behaviour, a feasibility study', which uses smartphones to gather real-time data on commuting experiences, and to feed this back to them in various ways. The ultimate aim is to influence travel behaviour by encouraging people to reflect on their experience and those of other people.

Jenny is interested in supervising PhD students in applied microeconometrics, especially those with topics that are in line with the research interests described here.

My research questions the way we understand and address
inequalities in health, particularly as experienced by migrant and
ethnic minority groups. There is a focus on the intersection of three
main axes of inequality: race/ethnicity, gender and poverty and,
within this, on the role of power/control as an underlying social
determinant of health. My research takes an interdisciplinary
perspective, drawing on the theory and practical application of a
range of complementary methods drawn from sociology, political
science and history. Recent work, for example, has involved
developing critical methodologies that help us think differently about
the ‘problem’ of ‘Roma health’ and the types of knowledge that inform
how it is understood/addressed.

I have supervised Masters and PhD students in a range of social
science projects exploring pathways to and from health inequalities
among various disadvantaged groups (ethnic minorities, those living
in excluded communities, older people.) I am particularly interested to
hear from prospective students whose research explores the
intersection of health and social science with a focus on inequality
and critical methodologies.

Broad area of interest:

Research methods I am able to supervise:

Research Interests

Research interest focuses on inequalities in health and access to health services for both those with chronic disabling diseases and those who are socially excluded from care.

• Health inequalities 
• Health Services Research and Technology Assessment.
• Public and patient involvement in research

Professor of Managerial Economics

Although Don has a background in applied economics, he is better described as a researcher of policy-relevant, social science issues. Specifically he is interested in research that puts people and social issues (rather than money) at the core of economic concern.

Don has written over 90 academic peer-reviewed articles and led or collaborated on £2.2m of externally funded research. His work has been discussed at the United Nation's International Labor Organization (ILO) in Geneva, the Central Bank of Nigeria, the Welsh Government and elsewhere. He is part of a consortium that recently completed an AHRC-sponsored project investigating the influence of design on the Bristol and Bath economy.

Prospective PhD students who wish to study productivity (very broadly defined), health, education and/or geographically-related issues are encouraged to contact him for further discussion. He is very open to qualitative, quantitative and mixed methods research.

My research spans the areas of ageing, gender and sexual/reproductive health, as well as the psychology of health and health care.

I have a strong focus on help-seeking for sexual issues, patient-practioner communication about sexual issues, and social attitudes around ageing, gender, and sex.

Methodologically, my expertise lies in qualitative research, vulnerable groups, and sensitive topics.

Research Interests

• Systematic review of evidence for clinical effectiveness in healthcare
• Health policy and decision making
• Systematic review methodology

Chiara ‘s research is in Applied Microeconometrics and lies at the intersection of Labor Economics, Health Economics, and Public Economics. Chiara studies the behaviour of individuals, firms, and governments, and her research tries to understand intended and unintended effects of public policies, effects of innovation, issues relevant for the design of markets, inequality, consumer response to information, and the transmission of human capital.

Chiara is interested in supervising dissertations in Applied Microeconometrics, especially on topics related to the production of health and impact of healthcare policies.

My research interests involve the use of decision-analytic modelling to help with policy decisions. In particular, this includes the use of health economic modelling for assessing the effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of Public Health interventions. Key methodological interests include conceptual modelling and individual-level simulation.

General areas of interest:

• Systematic review and evidence synthesis of public health topics including qualitative and mixed method evidence synthesis.
• Qualitative evaluation of complex public health interventions.

Specific areas of interest:

• I am particularly interested in topics relating to social and commercial determinants of health, wellbeing, and housing concerns.

Research methods I am able to supervise: 

• Systematic review and evidence synthesis
• Qualitative
• Evaluation
• Mixed methods

Speech and Hearing

Professor Heidi Christensen is a Senior Lecturer in Computer Science at the University of Sheffield. Her research interests are on the application of AI-based voice technologies to healthcare. In particular, the detection and monitoring of people’s physical and mental health including verbal and non-verbal traits for expressions of emotion, anxiety, depression and neurodegenerative conditions in e.g., therapeutic or diagnostic settings.

PhD Supervison

Professor Christensen is particularly interested in hearing from research students interested in the following areas:

• AI-based voice technologies in healthcare
• Detection and monitoring of people's physical and mental health

Broad area of research interest:

• Malnutrition: under-and overnutrition
• Food environment and policy
• Nutrition in emergencies management
• Evaluation of complex interventions
• School health and nutrition
• Maternal and child health
• Low middle income countries

Specific areas of interest:

• The socio-cultural, economic and political influences of malnutrition
• Community-based approaches to addressing childhood malnutrition
• Food security, food systems and policies: Understanding the physical, economic, political, and sociocultural surroundings that influence an individual’s food choice
• Understanding how the individual dietary practices, patterns and behaviours impact on non-communicable diseases
• Social interventions to improve maternal and child health in low income countries.
• Infant and young child feeding practices, including school feeding interventions

Research interests

Our research aims to improve outcomes for children with inherited and acquired bone diseases and understand better the factors contributing to fracture in apparently healthy children.

We are currently conducting two studies of oral Risedronate therapy in children with Osteogenesis Imperfect (OI) and are collaborating with colleagues in Montreal to study Zoledronie acid in infants with severe OI (PI Francis Glorieux). In addition we are waiting with colleagues to study osteoporosis in children with inflammatory joint disease (POP study, PI Madeleine Rooney, Belfast) and the effects of Vitamin D supplementation in pregnancy on skeletal outcomes in infancy (MAVIDOS study, PI Cryus Cooper). We are the European centre for an open label study of recombinant bone-targeted alkaline phosphotase in severe hypophosphotasia (PI Cheryle Greenburg; funded by Enobia Pharma). Children travel from other European countries to participate in the study.

Research interests

I am a social psychologist, interested in self-regulation and behaviour change. Specifically, I am interested in how people achieve their goals and make changes to their behaviour.

The usual answer is that people need to be motivated. However, even medium-to-large changes in people's intentions seem to have only a small-to-medium effect on their behavior. In short, motivation is not enough. As a result, much of my research to date has investigated how the effects of motivation can be boosted by forming specific plans - known as "implementation intentions" - that links good opportunities to act with suitable responses to those opportunities.

I am a sociologist with interdisciplinary research interests in youth, lifecourse, generation, inequalities and creative qualitative methods. My research has investigated how wider changes in society have affected the health, wellbeing, identities and consumption practices of various groups, including women and young people. My current research explores:

• How austerity policies, the cost of living crisis, and wider socio-economic changes have affected the health, wellbeing and life courses of different groups, including young people and those living on low incomes;
• How to democratise and re-purpose social research methods and methodological expertise to support the creation of social infrastructure in community settings;
• Youth transitions;
• Young people's civic and political agency

Research Interests

My research interests are in Health Services and Public Health research.  My main field of research is the evaluation of emergency and urgent first contact care and services, particularly A and E services, including trauma services and chest pain care; ambulance services including helicopter ambulances; and urgent first contact care services including telephone and out-of-hours services.  I also carry out methodological research related to the design of health service evaluations, and I have a particular interest in the use of routine (e-health) data for HSR.

Mental Health Care Pathways and Service Implementation

After qualifying in clinical psychology my research focused on psychological therapies for psychosis and, later, their implementation in criminal justice settings. This work highlighted for me the difficulty of implementing therapies as per protocol in real world, chaotic, settings. To address this implementation gap, my work has focused on the implementation of therapy with the fewest possible therapeutic ingredients and expectations on those accessing it. The experiences and priorities of people accessing care in this context has become a central focus of my work.

Social determinants of Mental Health

My work in secondary mental health care placed the impact of social and economic factors on access to care into sharp relief. I have gradually fostered an interest in understanding the social determinants of health and have worked with doctoral students in this area, finding associations between inequality and mental health across domains (see Tibber el al. 2019, 2022).

Public Mental Health and Community Based Approaches

We know that there are many obstacles to accessing help from mainstream services. We also know that people prefer to access informal help from other sources - friends, relatives, voluntary and community sector organisations. In a recent study we found that people who self harm found that support from VCSE was beneficial and more accessible than mainstream care (a blog on this is available here (hyperlink to: https://sphr.nihr.ac.uk/news-and-events/blog/guest-blog-getting-help-for-self-harm-communities-of-support/). I have also been fortunate to work with doctorate trainee clinical psychologists on projects with refugee people, services supporting homeless people and those accessing creativity groups (see Tribe et al. 2019).

Systems Thinking and Cybernetics

With colleagues I have edited the Interdisciplinary Handbook of Perceptual Control Theory (PCT). PCT provides a unifying framework for psychological science that allows researchers in different fields a common language. It also views behaviour from the “inside out” making it consistent with qualitative and quantitative methodology. Finally, it holds potential for integrating a computational modelling in research methodology (see also Mansell and Huddy, 2018).

Broad area of research interest: 

• Health inequalities
• Gender
• Race/ethnicity
• Poverty
• Reproductive health
• Work and health
• South Asia

Research methods I am able to supervise:

• Qualitative
• Quantitative or mixed methods
• Participatory and inclusive research approaches

Specific areas of interest:

• UK South Asian populations
• Intersecting inequalities
• Complex interventions
• Knowledge translation

I am an interdisciplinary researcher who explores the impact of health communication on social inequalities. This has included research on menstrual health, menopause, childbirth, and energy limiting conditions. More broadly, I have published research is in the areas of sociology, communication, gender studies, postcolonial studies, and French studies. I am happy to supervise sociological or communication (including journalism) PhD projects on topics related to feminism, health & wellbeing, gender, and advocacy.

• Music and healthy ageing
• Music and dementia
• Music, health and wellbeing
• Music learning and cognitive skills
• Music technology and new musical instruments

I work at the intersection of medical sociology and science and technology studies. My doctoral research looked at lay and professional constructions of familial hypercholesterolaemia (FH), a treatable hereditary condition associated with heart disease. My analysis focussed on the themes of geneticisation, genetic responsibility and biosociality, three prominent concepts in discussions of the social implications of genetic knowledge. Subsequent research projects looked at more mundane health technologies for cholesterol management, including cholesterol-lowering foods containing plant sterols and prescription and over-the-counter statins. Current research is expanding this work on consumer health technologies, looking at self-monitoring technologies such as blood pressure monitors and weighing scales/BMI monitors. All of these studies consider professional expectations as well as people’s accounts of why and how they adopt and use, or don't use, particular products or technologies. They consider the way responsibilities for health are distributed, the practices involved and the implications for forms of expertise in relation to health care. The work critically engages with notions of 'self-care' and 'health behaviours', proposing alternative lenses such as care infrastructures and practice theory approaches. I have an ongoing interest in developments in the biomedical sciences. Recent work has looked at the routine practices of racialised prescribing.

 Research interests:

• everyday health practices
• mundane health technologies
• self-monitoring, self-tracking, self-care
• social implications of biomedical developments eg genomics, epigenetics
• social categories in the clinic
• qualitative research methods

Research interests

My research interests focus on:

• Trust formation in health online information

• Information needs of healthcare professionals

• Online information needs of men and women in different contexts (e.g. e-commerce, health, finance, holidays, etc.)

• Non-compliancy issues in relation to chronic conditions (e.g. why people tend to not use medications as prescribed)

• How to understand and meet the needs of dementia patients’ cares

• How to understand and meet the needs of Alzheimer’s patients’ cares

I would be interested in supervising PhD students in any of the above areas.

I am broadly interested in all areas of economics of health, but especially the economics of "sin" behaviours such as alcohol, tobacco, drugs and gambling. I am also interested in the economics of food. I am currently involved in several different topics within the Sheffield Alcohol Research Group including work on alcohol dependence, local alcohol consumption estimates, joint modelling of tobacco and alcohol demand, and modelling of price policies.

I am also more generally interested in wellbeing work, especially work combining this with "sin" behaviours. Previous work includes looking at the monetary cost of problem gambling on wellbeing. I have also supervised an MSc dissertation looking at smoking and wellbeing.

Harriet is interested in the discourses of learning, learning difference and learning identity. She is particularly interested in the way language around learning disabilities and differences comes to shape the way diagnoses of autism, (specific) learning disability, ADHD and mental ill-health are constructed in specific places, spaces and times. Harriet is also interested in the lived experiences of people who come to be categorised as ‘deficient’ in learning or communicating, and in how systems, processes, and policies interact with these experiences, both in ‘western’ contexts and in the global South.

Research interests

Developmental speech, language and communication needs:

• Developmental trajectories and long term outcomes of children with speech, language and communication needs (SLCN)
• Impact of social disadvantage on children’s speech, language and communication development
• Complex co-morbidity between speech and language development, social disadvantage, behavior and mental health in children and adolescents
• Evaluating the effectiveness of speech and language therapy interventions for children and adolescents

Available to supervise history topics

Sarah is a social and military historian focusing on Africa, the Caribbean and Europe during and after the Second World War. Her main interests include everyday life under colonialism, physical and mental health after trauma, and political activism and resistance in the former French colonies. Her first book examines the experiences of colonial prisoners of war in German captivity looking at how questions of race, national 'greatness', the rise of global humanitarianism, and the lived experiences of these prisoners collided. 

The interplay of the body and the mind in development interventions, the role of identity and agency within gender, class and race oppression and their intersections with a particular focus on mental health. Critical theory, critical pedagogy and the capabilities approach.  Current research

Recovery and reintegration of survivors of modern slavery (Philippines)

Psychosocial wellbeing, ICTs and post-conflict societies (Myanmar)

Mobile Information Literacy (MIL) training for librarians

Mobile application for women’s empowerment

Conscientisation and human development

Research Interests

My research interests are:

• Healthcare modelling
• Health economics
• Multi-criteria decision analysis
• Optimisation

Research interests

Dr Barthorpe's research covers a range of problems in the field of structural dynamics and beyond, with an underlying theme being the integration of numerical modelling and experimental data. Structural health monitoring is one of his major research themes. The broad aim of an SHM system is to be able to identify, at an early stage, occurrences of damage that may ultimately lead to the failure of the component or system being monitored.

Established approaches to this task typically fall into one of two categories: they are either based entirely on experimental data, or make use of a numerical model that is periodically updated as new data becomes available. Both of these approaches have distinct drawbacks: for the former, lack of appropriate experimental data is the major issue; for the latter, model-form uncertainty is among the challenges faced.

Part of Rob's work is in investigating ways to circumvent the lack of data problem through novel experimental and data-modelling techniques. A larger part is in developing new methods for integrating experimental and numerical methods, such that uncertainty in both the experimental measurements and the numerical model may be accounted for.

These methods are being developed for application to aerospace structures, wind turbines and civil infrastructure. However, the domain of applicability is much broader as the issues of handling uncertainty, solving inverse problems and overcoming test-model discrepancy are pervasive in many branches of science and engineering. Applications being investigated include the energy performance of buildings and the modelling of human bones.

My research centres on social science and perspectives on health and illness, especially with respect to health inequalities and ageing. My work sits at the interface of sociology, social policy and public health.  I have particular interests in intersectionality, biomarker analysis, chronic disease/multimorbidity, social determinants of health, the life course, and extending working lives. I have methodological expertise in the analysis of survey data, including the use of multilevel models and panel data methods.  I am interested in supervising PhD students working on the above topics.

My research falls at the intersections of Science and Technology Studies, Sociologies of Race and Ethnicity, and Digital Sociology.

My current and previous research includes:

• exploration of institutional practices of stem cell banking which included looking at race classifications, legacies of health care inequity, and genetic understandings of racial differences in blood and tissue in a UK context
• digital health and self-monitoring technologies - user, commercial and policy perspectives through ethnography, interview, and novel material methodologies
• stem cell donor recruitment activities in minority communities including ethnography of minority community donor drives, and digital method-based analysis of online minority ethnicity recruitment campaigns that focus on mixed raced donors

Interested in supervising research students who are focused on the following topics (in UK and/or other national/regional/international contexts)

• health activism - particularly targeted at, or taking place within, racialised communities
• processes of racialisation (and, more generally, invocations of racial difference) within biomedical contexts
• mixed raced experience, particularly in the context of health, and of new genetic sciences
• the intersection of race/ethnicity and digital media in general

Research Interests

My research focuses on alcohol and public health.  I have particular interests in trends and patterns in alcohol consumption, alcohol policy analysis, and the relationship between alcohol use and other health-related behaviours.  Recent projects focus on alcohol pricing, trends in drinking occasions, cultures and practices, youth drinking trends, the development and evaluation of drinking guidelines, and the equity implications of alcohol policy. 

I would be interested in supervising doctoral research related to any of the topics above using quantitative or mixed methods.  

My broad research is focused on mathematical modelling within health economics. I have gained significant expertise and experience in two related areas:

• Bayesian calibration of cancer natural history models: This is my main methodological research theme, please see MDM publication http://mdm.sagepub.com/content/31/4/625 and Example Excel model using the Metropolis Hastings algorithm to calibrate a state transition model available to down load from the Downloads box)
• Early diagnosis of cancer: I have substantial experience having worked on more than 15 projects in this area of applied research.
• In addition to these main research themes I have undertaken research to inform policy making: Health Technology Assessment (HTA) for NICE (https://www.shef.ac.uk/scharr/sections/heds/collaborations/tag) , and research as part of the Policy Research Unit in Economic Evaluation of Health and Care Interventions (EEPRU) for DH (http://www.eepru.org.uk/)

Research interests

I am interested in supervising research into health behaviour change. I am particularly interested in supervising research on physical activity. I am able to supervise students in qualitative, quantitative and mixed methods research, and many different types of evidence synthesis.

I originally came to Sheffield in 2003 for medical school. I stayed in South Yorkshire for my junior doctor jobs and then started specialist training in Infectious Diseases and Microbiology at Sheffield Teaching Hospitals. I went to Oxford University in 2015 to work on typhoid human challenge models and then got my PhD, based in Malawi studying typhoid epidemiology and vaccination in Africa and Asia. I have worked across Africa and Asia including the West Africa Ebola Virus Outbreak in 2014.

I am currently an academic clinical lecturer in the department of infection and immunity interested in measuring the vaccine preventable burden of infectious diseases in at-risk populations and using vaccines to prevent antimicrobial resistance.

Stefania's overarching research interest is in dynamics of civic engagement on digital platforms of communication. Her approach to online data is based on a variety of textual analysis techniques - with an increasing focus on text analytics - informed by social network and framing theories. Stefania specifically focuses on:

• Digital activism: Stefania's early research focused on how digital media ease upward and downward scale shifts (i.e., from local to transnational and vice versa) in framing grievances. Work in this camp investigated the Global Justice Movement and the World Social Forum. She is also particularly interested in social media use with relevance to public sphere processes in the context of protest events, issue publics, everyday talk. Her work in this field has specifically focused on interactional and deliberative processes in the Cuban blogosphere and on meaning construction on Twitter streams relevant to anti-austerity protests in Italy.

• Digital health. Stefania is interested in the role of digital media in health democratizing processes, especially in processes of self-care, patient advocacy, health public debate, and health activism. Her main interest is in if, how and to what extent digital media may enhance bottom-up, patient-centred health practices. Stefania's work in this area is currently looking at online affordances for rare disease patient organisations in advocacy and activist dynamics and rare disease discourse practices on Facebook and Twitter.

Stefania has supervised PhD projects looking at different aspects of digital media use, among which, digital literacy, digital activism and online political participation. She is particularly interested in supervising students investigating digital activism, social media and health and/or who wish to apply digital methods approaches.

• New media and digital cultural studies
• Reproductive health, justice and politics in Latin American culture, especially teenage parenthood and reproductive health and representations of childbirth, pregnancy and midwifery.
• The intersection of market forces and articulations of national identity, especially in the contexts of tourism and nation branding

Abigail joined the Sheffield Methods Institute as a Lecturer in Qualitative Methods in 2020. Previously she had worked at Alliance Manchester Business School, University of Manchester. Abigail completed a PhD at the University of York in 2015. Her thesis investigated female cultures of body modification across the life course, focusing on how women learn practices and the social norms which surround them. Abigails research has focued on organisational change (particularly within health and social care) and the impliations for workforce and inequalities as well as policy implementation. Taking an interdisciplinary approach, her research interests focus on organisation studies, inequalities and medical sociology/health services research and their intersection.

Abigail would welcome students with an interest in medical sociology, workforce and organisations adbn gender studies .

Broad area of research interest:

• Primary and secondary prevention of nutrition-related diseases.
• Interventions to support healthy eating and lifestyle in underserved groups.
• Reviews
• Food analysis and nutrient composition
• Public health, including low/middle income countries
• Sustainable diets

Methods I am able to supervise:

• Quantitative
• Qualitative (interviews, focus group discussions and vox pops)
• Mixed Methods
• Systematic review
• Narrative review

Research interest:

• Nutrient composition of ethnic foods
• Development of food-based resources for health promotion and interventions
• Community-based interventions to support healthy eating and lifestyle.
• Interventions to enhance health literacy, expand health opportunities and reduce nutritional issues related to under/over nutrition.
• Promotion of sustainable diets.

My research is fundamentally interdisciplinary, and has applications both in academic, public service and in industry. The topics and methods I am interested in include, but are not limited to: Information Retrieval, Human Computer Interaction, Data Visualisation, Urban Analytics, Digital Health, Machine Learning, Spatial Data Science, Representation Learning.

A detailed and updated list can be found here.

Research interests

The World after Empire: themes include Muslim geographies and postcolonial cities 
Two generations after it was broken up, the British Empire lives on in a number of ways, including through communities that trace their heritage and origins to former colonies, and in cities, born of empire, that are forced to redefine themselves for new times. I have investigated these issues through research involving British Muslims and members of the Liverpool-born black community (see Muslim Spaces of Hope, published in 2009, and Liverpool ’81: Remembering the Riots, 2011). I have also researched the ways in which empire is invoked in contemporary political action, through a project on anti-imperialism in the UK anti-war movements (which protested intervention in Afghanistan and Iraq). I have also investigated the historical geographies of the British Empire through studies of colonial travel and adventure literature (Mapping Men and Empire: A Geography of Adventure, 1997) and through an historical geography of sexuality politics in the British Empire (Sex, Politics and Empire: A Postcolonial Geography, 2006).

Sexuality, Space and Power: constructions and contestations of sexual identities 
Sexuality is an important vehicle for constructing and contesting power relations between national, cultural and religious groups. I have traced imperial sexuality politics through key sites within the British Empire, investigating the legacies of these colonial histories and geographies in ex-colonies including Jamaica and Sierra Leone. I have also begun to examine these dynamics within Europe, investigating cultural practices through which Muslims are constructed as 'non-liberal' minorities, through representations of forced marriage and homophobia. My books about sexuality investigate the contested regulation of sexuality in the British Empire (Sex, Politics and Empire: A Postcolonial Geography, 2006), examine sexuality politics and identities outside the cities that dominate research on sexualities (De-Centring Sexualities, 2001), and investigate the place of sexuality within sometimes tense relationships between majority societies and cultural minorities (controversies surrounding Muslim attitudes towards marriage and homosexuality are examined in a paper published in Gender, Place and Culture, 2012).

Curiosity and Adventure: from children’s books to health and wellbeing policies
My first book, entitled Mapping Men and Empire: A Geography of Adventure (1997), investigated boys' adventure stories, tracing their significance for constructions of imperialism and masculinity. I have subsequently researched and written about adventures through a range of juvenile and adult literature, notably travel writing. My more recent work focusses upon a term closely related to adventure – curiosity – through research on ‘space for curiosity’ (the title of a paper in Progress in Human Geography, 2014) and interventions on the sometimes celebrated, sometimes embattled place of curiosity in universities (paper in Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, 2010). My interests in curiosity extend to a practical and philosophical approach to pedagogy, and a desire to better understand and encourage curiosity-driven learning among students was the motivation behind my book for students on the subject of geographical fieldwork: Fieldwork for Human Geography (2012).

Her research focuses on understanding human social communication and applying this knowledge to the development of human-centred artificial intelligence and social robots. Specifically, Dr. Chen's interests include:

• Computational Modelling of Social Signals: Investigating how humans communicate with one another by mathematically modelling social signals, such as facial expressions, gaze, and body movements.
• Impact of Social and Cultural Conventions: Exploring how social and cultural conventions, as well as individual characteristics, influence the adaptation of human communicative behaviours, including cultural adaptation and social learning.
• Development of Human-Centred AI and Social Robots: Creating human-centred artificial intelligence and social robots to support the learning and training of social communication skills, particularly in contexts related to social anxiety and mental health.

Research interests

My research interests focus on economic evaluation methodology, with a particular emphasis on the incorporation of survival analysis within economic models. My doctoral and post-doctoral research has focused primarily on methods for adjusting survival estimates in the presence of treatment switching - that is, when patients in the control group of a clinical trial switch onto the experimental treatment, thus confounding estimates of the treatment effect (where the relevant question for an economic analysis is what would have happened if control group patients did not receive this experimental treatment). Adjustment methods are primarily from the causal inference literature, and I have a related interest in the use of causal inference methods to estimate comparative effectiveness from registry datasets, particularly in the area of cancer.

• Health & Social Care at home and in institutions
• Care recipent's and care worker's perspectives and knowledge 
• Financialisation of social care, business models and managment
• Social innovation in home care provision - a Wellcome Trust funded project 2017-18.
• Diane's Department of Health and Comic Relief funded project examined organizational cultures in care homes for older people and positive experiences of care. This study was conducted with colleagues at the University of East Anglia, University of Stirling, University of Worcester and Cardiff University.
• Recently Diane was involved in a two and half year, Department of Health and Comic Relief funded participatory project with care home residents and family carers to examine the organisational dynamics of abuse and respectful care of older people in care homes.

Diane’s research examines organizational arrangements, cultures and change in health and social care systems with two sub themes – organizational failure and institutional abuse in care homes; and social innovation in home care provision.

Diane is interested in supervising qualitative research in health and social care systems and organization; job quality, care workforce and labour arrangments; care quality, abuse and mistreatment in organized care; voice, power and whistle-blowing in the workplace and other organizations; collaborative forms of organizing and partnership. 

Diane is particularly interested in action research, participatory appraoches and co-production, and the development of organizational ethnography using visual methods, poetics and film.

Available to supervisor philosophy topics

Most of my work is in ancient Greek philosophy and in ethics (both ancient and modern), and I have broad interests across both fields. Topics that I particularly focus on are: the ethics of flourishing and virtue ethics; courage, heroism and fame; concepts of 'manliness'; war and peace; love and desire; mental health and illness; relations between philosophy and literature; relations between ethics and aesthetics. In Plato and the Hero I concentrate on Plato's critique of the notions and embodiments of 'manliness' and courage prevalent in his culture (particularly those in Homer), and his attempt to redefine them in accordance with his own ethical, psychological and metaphysical principles. The question of why courage is necessary in the flourishing life in its turn leads to Plato's bid to unify the noble and the beneficial, and the tensions this unification creates between human and divine ideals.

I am currently working on a new translation of and commentary on Plato's Symposium (for Oxford University Press) and a book on heroism, courage and fame.

Research Interests

My research interests focus on all methods of systematic review,  evidence synthesis, evidence based practice, and knowledge translation. I am particularly interested in systematic review topics from developing countries, particularly from Sub-Saharan Africa, and in public health topics such as alcohol and HIV/AIDS.

I have published with students in topics such as medication adherence, social marketing,  disaster management and evidence based management. My current research students are working in knowledge management in acute hospitals and use of NICE guidance in Social care.  I have been involved in development of a wide range of tools for dissemination, both web based and as online briefings. In 2013 I was one of the first to achieve the University of Sheffield's PhD by Publications with my thesis entitled Acknowledging a Dual Heritage for Qualitative Evidence Synthesis: Harnessing the Qualitative Research and Systematic Review Research Traditions. My most recent interests centre on multiple types of review, including rapid reviews, mapping reviews and scoping reviews.

Research interests

Membrane trafficking and signalling in polarised cells. Role of multi-PDZ domain proteins in cancer formation, metastasis and tumor invasion.
Our group is interested in the regulation of membrane trafficking and its relation to human diseases. In particular we are interested in the molecular mechanism leading to Lowe syndrome, a X-linked disease characterized by congenital cataracts, mental retardation and kidney failure. Moreover, we analyze the molecular function of multi-PDZ domain proteins (PTPN13 and FRMPD2) in vesicular trafficking and signal transduction as well as their role in cancer development and progression.

My research focuses on alcohol epidemiology, public health policy evaluation, and reducing health inequalities. I am interested in how complex social systems produce and interact with population health and inequalities, and in using this knowledge to inform intervention development, evaluation and refinement.

My recent projects have focused on changes in the clustering of health and wellbeing indicators among adolescents in high-income countries since the early 2000s, and the evaluation of major alcohol policies including minimum unit pricing in Scotland.

Penny is currently a research associate in ScHARR within the Health Economics and Decision Modelling Section. Penny has been at ScHARR for over 4 years, first as a PhD student and more recently working as a health economics modeller. Before working in ScHARR Penny was working as a health economics consultant at IMS Health developing cost-effectiveness models for pharmaceutical products. The subject of her thesis was to investigate the use of health economic models to develop drug development programmes for new treatments for systemic lupus erythematosus. Since working at ScHARR Penny has been working on a project funded by the School for Public Health Research (SPHR) to provide a coherent, model based framework for the evaluation of strategies for the prevention of type 2 diabetes. Penny has developed a new cost-effectiveness model to evaluate a broad range of type-2 diabetes prevention interventions in the United Kingdom. Penny's research interests are in methods for longitudinal data analysis for use in decision-analytic modelling. Specifically in complex natural history models with multiple dynamic risk factors.

My primary research interest is strengthening the collection, collation, and use of HIV data to inform prevention and care programming in sub-Saharan Africa.

Working towards this broad objective, my key research areas are

• developing epidemiological methods to strengthen the collection and use of data collected through surveillance and service delivery platforms
• characterising the locations, populations and individuals at greatest risk of infectious disease
• designing and implementing frameworks to collect strategic health data
• constructing health indicators / minimum indicator-sets
• implementing continuous data quality improvement
• formative research into the health and wellbeing needs and priorities of communities

Research interests 

• Bayesian statistics in clinical trials and health economics
• Network meta-analysis
• Extrapolate time-to-event data
• Eliciting probability distributions
• Value of information analysis

I conduct qualitative research to understand the experience of living with long term conditions such as MND, dementia and cancer. I am particularly interested in the design and evaluation of complex interventions within social care.

Offering PhD opportunities in the following areas:

• Improving social care for people with long term health conditions
• Designing and evaluating complex interventions for social care
• Assessment and diagnosis experiences for people with MND
• Emotional labour of conducting research with people with long term health conditions

My current research is focused around the Social Accountability of Medical Schools, the impact on medical students and community organisations working in partnership with the university. This involves supporting students to become more aware of health inequity and social determinants of health and the broader implications for society.

My background is in academic psychology and counselling and I have a longstanding interest in the psychosocial impact of illness, in particular in relation to cancer survivorship and the management of children with long term conditions

Methods and Instruments

• Within and beyond trial health-economic modelling
• Patient reported outcome and experience measures - Symptom burden, quality of life (utilities), mapping to the EQ5D
• Observational data, secondary use of data and data linkage for epidemiology and comparative effectiveness
• Statistical methods to reduced confounding - Instrumental variables, marginal structural models, G-methods and treatment switching
• Discrete choice experiments
• Systematic review and meta-analysis

Topics

• Health Technology Assessment
• The two-day break in three times as week haemodialysis
• The health economics surrounding renal replacement therapy - In centre haemodialysis (range of formats and settings including intensive frequency/duration and minimal care), peritoneal dialysis, home haemodialysis and transplantation
• Patient centred care, decision making and research prioritisation

Lecturer in Organisational Behaviour

Sarah joined the University of Sheffield in 2012 after being awarded a Management and Business Development fellowship jointly funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC), the UK Commission for Employment and Skills (UKCES) and the Society for the Advancement of Management Studies (SAMS). The fellowship was designed to improve practitioner experience within the academic field. In December 2015, Sarah became a full-time lecturer in Organisational Behaviour with specific focus on Occupational Psychology, Human Resource Management and Leadership.
Prior to joining the University, Sarah held a number of positions in the fields of operations management and management consultancy, leading change management projects in both the private and public sector. She is currently in the fourth year of a PhD at the Institute of Work Psychology focusing on understanding the role of formality on upward challenge in the UK Police Service.

Research

Sarah’s research interests include all aspects of voice and silence and organisational communication. As a qualitative researcher, Sarah is keen to use innovative and unique methods designed to provide insight into cognitive and mental models of individual behaviour such as card sort, repertory grid and thinking aloud technique.

PhD Supervision

Sarah is interested in hearing from anyone interested in studying voice and silence or wider communication issues in the workplace.

Working with Organisations and Public Engagement

If you are interested in knowing more about the reasons why employees don’t speak up to their managers, or why managers might not encourage voice, please contact me. I am happy to run workshops designed to raise awareness of these issues. If you would like to work with me on a piece of research in your organisation, I would also be delighted to hear from you.

Publications

Brooks, S. (2014). Understanding workplace voice and silence. European Journal of Work and Organizational Psychology in Practice, 6 26-38.

Full list of publications

My research interests include:

• Systematic reviews of diagnostic and screening tests
• Systematic reviews of healthcare interventions, complex interventions and public health interventions
• Development of methods for systematic reviewing and evidence synthesis
• Rapid review methods and diagnostic review methods

Research Interests:

• Access to and provision of equitable services for individuals from marginalised groups
• Learning disabilities
• Health behaviour particularly weight management
• Qualitative methods
• Narrative research
• Cross lanaguage qualitative research
• Realist synthesis
• Complex intervention development and evaluation
• Social Care Research

Specific area of research interests:

• Statistical methods
• Clinical trials methodology to improve trial efficiency across disease areas
• Adaptive designs
• Bayesian methods with application in clinical trials
• Early phase clinical trials
• Diagnostic accuracy studies
• Hierarchical or multilevel modelling
• Global health research
• Prediction modelling

My research interests are in palliative and end of life care, in particular the role of the family caregiver, palliative care in hospitals, care of older people at the end of life, and health economic approaches to palliative care. My methodological expertise lies mainly in qualitative, mixed methods research and evidence synthesis

My research interests are in Bayesian statistics, in particular uncertainty quantification for complex computer models, eliciting probability distributions from experts, and applications in Health Economics. On my personal website you can read these guidance notes for more information about PhD projects and suggested background reading.

Broad Research Interests:

My research interests are health-related quality of life and patient outcome measures. In 2006 I was awarded a fellowship (Researcher Development Award) through the National Co-ordinating Centre for Research Capacity Development, NCCRCD). My PhD involved designing a paediatric disease-specific health related quality of life measure for amblyopia. The Child Amblyopia Treatment Questionnaire (CAT-QoL) is a short questionnaire that was designed for children aged 4-7 years to measure the impact of amblyopia treatment from the child’s perspective.

Research Methods I can Supervise:

• Instrument Development
• Mixed Methods
• Specific Areas of Interest:
• Paediatric
• Quality of Life

Research interests

His main clinical interests are inborn errors of steroidogenesis, congenital adrenal hyperplasia, disorders of sex development (DSD), and PCOS; his main research interests are on inborn errors of steroid hormone biosynthesis and steroid hormone metabolism in health and disease.

Current efforts of his work concentrate on the implementation of model systems to study genetic variants and the integration of diagnostic methods in adrenal disease and DSD. His group has implemented various in vitro assays to study enzymatic defects in steroidogenesis. The most recent work of his group explores the consequences of disrupted steroid hormone synthesis and action on whole organism employing zebrafish as a model organism in translational steroid hormone research (Endocrinology 2013; Endocrinology 2016). This research is based at the Bateson Centre.

The main focus of this clinical research program is on CAH. He leads on a multicentre, 17 tertiary paediatric endocrine centres in the UK, NIHR RD TRC funded project to establish the evidence basis on the current health status in children and young people with congenital adrenal hyperplasia in the UK. In addition, he works on a program to improve health care deliver for children and young people with adrenal conditions and DSD.

Available to supervise archaeology topics

I am a specialist in human osteology and palaeopathology with particular interests in multidisciplinary approaches to questions surrounding past population structures, health, disease and lifestyle. I have worked with human remains from many periods and locations, but have primarily focussed on material from post-Roman to modern periods in the UK. My current main areas of research include:

• Multidisciplinary analysis of osteological and funerary data from early medieval to post-medieval contexts
• The character and provision of funerary practices in early Christian and medieval England
• Health status and social status in past populations
• Disease, disability and disfigurement in the past (including social attitudes to sickness and medical/surgical interventions)
• The archaeology of childhood
• Archaeology of the body, especially practices for managing, manipulating and curating human remains

Research Interests

My main interests are in text mining, both from semi-structured sources (such as publications) and unstructured sources (web, social media) and the application of natural language processing techniques for the purpose of knowledge extraction. I am particularly interested in applications in health, employment and education.

PhD supervision

I am interested in supervising PhD projects that exploit natural language, including:

• Combinations of text and speech within language models.

• Extraction of information from social media for the creation of (potentially structured) knowledge bases.

• Automatic organizing (hierarchical structuring) of information.

• Identifying and quantifying new information in text.

• Applications in the health domain, including literature based discovery or automatic diagnosis (assistance) based on natural text.

• Analyzing natural language (including native language identification) for applications in education.

Research interests

My eresearch interests are in epithelial cell biology and tissue engineering, in particular the construction and use of 3D multi-cellular models. Within my laboratory we have successfully developed and characterised advanced full thickness constructs to model human skin and oral mucosa to assist in understanding the biology in health and disease.  Using these systems, my current research focuses on the development of the novel therapeutics and drug delivery mechanisms for epithelial drug delivery. 

Research interests

Oral clinical phenotyping, involving the accurate measurement of oral parameters using image analysis.

Normal and abnormal oral growth and development, including investigations into anomalies of tooth number, size, form and structure.

Quantification of dental plaque and periodontal disease.

Child protection, children and young people's oral health, oral neuroscience.

Naomi Hawkins's research focuses on the interaction of law and biomedical science, particularly around intellectual property rights. She uses traditional legal research and empirical methods to investigate the impact of human gene patents on the development of translational outcomes of genetics and genomics research.

She is also interested in the ways in which data sharing practices intersect with intellectual property rights in science

• Nonlinear system modeling, analysis and design in the frequency domain
• Health monitoring and fault detection of engineering systems and structures
• Smart structures and systems
• Wind turbine system condition monitoring and control
• Passive and semi-active vibration control with applications in marine, automobile, civil, and earthquake engineering
• Development of new healthcare technologies using complex system modelling and analysis approaches

Research interests

Synthesis and application of nano-particulate materials for dental applications.

The application of nucleating agents for the remineralisation of dentine

Integrity of structurally compromised restored teeth as compound systems

Optimisation of ceramic crown-tooth compound systems

Development and characterisation of novel restorative systems.

Remote digital communication for the provision of health care in dentistry

Development of L&T in restorative dentistry

Clinical evaluation of restorative systems

Research Interests

Deafness is a major public health issue worldwide, with more than 3 million people in the UK alone enduring a moderate to profound hearing loss. The Rivolta laboratory is dedicated to study the biology and behaviour of auditory stem cells (primarily human) and to explore their potential to regenerate the damaged inner ear.

Read more on research in the Rivolta laboratory

Most of Nicolas’ current research uses cross-country data to study the effectiveness of foreign aid. This includes work on the fungibility of education and health aid, and on a new method to identify the causal effect of aid in a panel data context, used to study the domestic absorption of aid. In addition, he is involved in research on the nexus between child labour and school achievement in Peru.

Nicolas would consider supervising PhD students with a focus on applied econometrics in a number of fields, including development economics and political economy.

Research interests

Dr Chen’s research interests are in China’s urbanisation and rural-to-urban migration. China is experiencing the largest migration wave in human history, with hundreds of millions of people moving from the countryside to cities to seek better life. She is interested in the social, economic, spatial and environmental consequences of such massive urbanisation.

She is currently working on the following projects:

ESRC/CASS Urban Transformations: Urban Development, Migration, Segregation and Inequality (2015--2018). This project aims to bring together researchers from the University of Glasgow, University of Sheffield and the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, to develop new ideas, innovative methods and analysis on the impacts of migration on urban development, the related social-spatial segregation and public policy challenges.

ESRC/GCRF: Dynamics of Health & Environmental Inequalities in Hebei Province, China (2017–2018). This project aims to develop the data infrastructure and to examine the social and health impacts of rapid urbanisation and air pollution, in order to improve decision support tools for economic and social policy.

She is also interested in rural-to-urban migrants and their life prospects. Her previous projects examined the aspirations and socio-economic integration of new-generation migrants in urban China.

She welcomes applications from prospective PhD students in the fields of urbanisation, migration, urban development and housing.

My research passion is to bring cutting edge technologies to application reality in complex environments through co-creation with Industry partners.  Concrete examples include current partnerships with Rolls-Royce and Airbus which are seeing novel application of:

• Sensors: self powered wireless sensors running on engine testbeds, and RADAR/LiDAR systems for health monitoring and vision-based control;
• Data analytics: real-time to estimates of unmeasurable engine states, bring physics into data driven deep models for advanced anomaly detection;
• Control architectures: using systems based engineering to develop cyber-secure distributed control systems with multiple levels of safety criticality, fusing machine learning with control methodologies for increasing system resilience to faults and degradation.

PhD topics in diverse areas are available including vision-based health monitoring systems for aircraft landing gear, generative AI for jet engine fleet forecasting, novel state estimation approaches using 'black-box' simulation models.

Research interests

The Sheffield Institute of Translational Neuroscience, established as part of a major strategic initiative within the University of Sheffield is well-placed to harness the revolutionary developments in biomedical science for the benefit of patients with neurodegenerative disease. The major goal of my group is to elucidate the functioning of motor neurones in health and disease and to translate these basic science findings into health benefits for patients afflicted with degenerative motor system disorders.

My research group consists of a multidisciplinary team of basic and clinical scientists investigating molecular mechanisms of neurodegeneration in disorders of the human motor system, particularly motor neurone disease (MND), spinal muscular atrophy and hereditary spastic paraparesis (HSP). The Neurology group is closely linked with Neuropathology, headed by Professor Paul Ince. The research resources underpinning this programme include clinical material (Biobanks of DNA, blood RNA, CSF, fibroblasts and CNS tissue donated by patients for research); and in vitro and in vivo experimental models employed to investigate molecular mechanisms of motor neurone injury including genetic perturbations, oxidative stress, mitochondrial dysfunction, and disorders of RNA processing.

I completed my undergraduate degree in Law with Politics at Keele University in 2007. I then worked as a lawyer and as a teacher (in further education) before returning to Keele University to undertake an LLM in Law and Society in 2013. In 2014 I was awarded funding by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) North West Consortium Doctoral Training Partnership (NWCDTP) to undertake a PhD at Keele University. My PhD research consisted of an ideology critique of market reforms to the English National Health Service (NHS). I joined the School of Law at the University of Sheffield in January 2018.

Research Interests

I am an applied environmental microbiologist with inter-disciplinary research interests regarding understanding the microbial ecology of natural and engineered environments, particularly with respect to microbial biofilms.

Specifically, I am interested in understanding how microbial management approaches impact biofilms and, in turn, how biofilms respond to these practices, predominantly (but not exclusively) in aquatic systems.

My current research involves collaborative projects which incorporate (micro)biological, physical and chemical analyses to explore the influence of management approaches, such as disinfection concentration, on biofilm physical (EPS and cells) and community structure (using molecular analysis), with consideration of impacts on public health and water quality.

Current projects

• DiPALS - RCT evaluating diaphragm pacing in patients with MND
• DiPEP - Diagnosis of Pulmonary Embolism (PE) in Pregnancy
• HubBLe - Haemorrhoidal Artery Ligation versus Rubber Band Ligation for haemorrhoids
• Hydro DMD - Hydrotherapy for Duchenne muscular distrophy: a pilot and feasibility RCT in children
• Meridian - MRI to enhance the diagnosis of fetal developmental brain abnormalities in utero
• PaINTED - Pandemic influenza triage in the emergency department
• PLEASANT - Preventing and lessening exacerbations of asthma in school age children
• STEPWISE - Structured lifestyle education for people with schizophrenia
• TABUL - Ultrasound compared to biopsy of temporal arteries in giant cell arteritis (GCA)
• YHS - Yorkshire Health Study

Senior Lecturer in Cultural and Creative Industries

Dr Morgner's research lies within fields like complexity studies, network analysis and creative practices, with a particular focus on diversity and inclusivity. He has a particular interest in grand conceptual questions and methodological innovation in studying global cultural processes and innovation.

Dr Morgner would welcome enquiries from prospective postgraduate students, particularly in the following areas: Cultural and Creative Industries Social Theory (in particular on Niklas Luhmann’s system theory). Race and Inequality Interaction and Health Disaster and Risk Communication Urban development

My research interests include prognostication and clinical decision-making, particularly with respect to end of life care.  In addition to developing my own ambitions, I have worked with St Luke’s on their existing research portfolio, including EnComPaSS and project ECHO. 

I have collaborated with researchers nationally to support St Luke’s involvement with the £1.3m Yorkshire Cancer Research funded RESOLVE study, and the NIHR portfolio StOIC study, exploring management of opioid-induced constipation in cancer patients.

In collaboration with colleagues at ScHARR, I am undertaking research into Avoiding Emergency Admissions in Palliative Patients, funded by the Sheffield Health Care Challenges Collaboration.

Research Interests

My research focus around designing and applying Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) models in two major areas:

1. Computer Vision: Industry and Academics research projects in areas of Object Detection (YOLO, SSD, RetinaNet), Image Segmentation (Segment anything Model SAM, U-Net), Image Classification (MobileNet, ResNet, VGG, DarkNet), Few Shot Learning, 3D Point Cloud (PointNet, SPVCNN), and these approaches with Supervised, Semi-Supervised, and Unsupervised
Learning.

2. Health Sciences: Electronic Health Records, Multiple Long-Term Conditions (MLTC), Multimorbidity, Temporal Graph Neural Networks, Codelists (SNOMED, MedCodes), Designing Deep Neural Networks for diagnosing medical conditions like Arthritis, Hospital Admissions, Face Injuries, Skin Cancer, Brain Tumour, and other use cases.

3. Other research areas: Internet of Multimedia Things (IoMT), Publish Subscribe Paradigm Multimedia Event Processing (MEP), Complex Event Processing (text data queries).
Please find details in research publications at:

(https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=bfXlzuMAAAAJ&hl=en)

Codings, Tools, and Implementation (Help for PhD Students in): Python, Tensorflow, CUDA, Pytorch, Pytorch Lightening, TensorFlow, Keras, Pandas, NumPy, SciPy, Jupyter Notebooks, GPU servers, Visual Studio, entwine, CloudCompare, MLflow, Jira, confluence.

Major Research Areas can be summarised as: Computer Vision, Deep Neural Networks, Smart Cities, and Health Sciences.

Research Supervision

I am looking for PhD students interested in Interdisciplinary projects involving Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) applications in multiple domains. Some of the potential examples are included below:

- AI based models for processing Heterogenous data for Early Diagnosis of Life-threatening Conditions.
- Asset Inspection with 3D Image Segmentation.
- Generative AI Models for Skin Cancer Detection on Phone Images.
- Automatic generation of Object Detection Dataset (ObjectNet).
- Pattern Detection in Patient Trajectories using Temporal Graph Neural Networks.

 Research interests

I welcome research students who are interested in applied linguistics in its broadest sense. Qualitative and multiple/mixed methods approaches (incl. participatory and inclusive designs), interdisciplinary research as well as collaborations with institutions and organizations outside the University are all welcome. Interesting topics include but are not restricted to the following

• Individual multilingualism (from a socio-cultural perspective)
• Intercultural communication
• Interpersonal communication
• English as a Lingua Franca
• Translation and localization
• Multimodal communication (including audiovisual translation)
• Intercultural/contrastive pragmatics
• Register analysis (comparative/diachronic)
• Communication in organizations and institutions (including web-based communication)
• Business communication
• Interaction with technology (including user studies)
• Technology and science communication
• Risk, health and safety communication
• Medical communication
• Second language use
• Second language identities

My work examines how relevant policies, strategies and political rhetoric are implemented in and experienced by urban green and open spaces users. This is conceptualised as place-keeping: the long-term management of our green and open spaces. This involves exploring innovative approaches to designing and managing open space while securing its long-term future by getting the right people, funding and policies in place.
 
Recently, my research has been examining how urban nature in our cities can improve the health & wellbeing of city residents. I have also been investigating the contribution of specific ‘healthy’ interventions in other settings including neighbourhoods and hospital sites. Click here to visit the Place-Keeping website.

Research Interests

My research focuses on the provision of library services to people affected by incarceration. I have carried out research on family literacy initiatives in prison, prisoners’ engagement with library services, staff experiences of prison library provision, and policymaking in the prison library context. I am interested in supervising PhD students in the area of prison librarianship and prison education. 

I would welcome proposals related to:

• Information needs and/or information behaviour of people in carceral settings

• Collaboration between prison libraries and other library sectors such as public, health or academic libraries

• Training and professional development needs of prison library staff

• Prison library policy and how it has been implemented in different countries/contexts

• Participatory action research studies which allow those with lived experience of prison to help facilitate change in library policy and practice

Research interests

My group is interested in identifying novel regulators of inflammatory signal transduction, characterising their basic mechanism of action, as well as validating some of these novel genes as potential drug targets for therapeutic intervention in chronic inflammatory diseases.

Much of our recent work has been focussing on studying the biological importance of the tribbles (TRIB) family of pseudokinases in cell types that are relevant to the development of cardiovascular disease.

In addition, we have also been collaborating closely with several research groups, from the US and Europe to characterise the role tribbles proteins play in the development and progression of cancer.

Most recently, we begun to develop approaches that enable us to selectively target TRIBs with the aim to use these as a platform for future drug development.

To support our research goals, we have established a global network of collaborators to pursue joint projects that aim to understand the importance of tribbles in cell biology, both in health and disease.

Professor of Management

Research interests

An economist by background, Paul's research interfaces applied labour economics and employment relations, and focuses on the management and resolution of workplace conflict, including mediation and other forms of alternative dispute resolution (ADR), and Employment Tribunals. More recently this has included funded work on the role of line managers and how an online training intervention might impact conflict confidence and competence. 

Other areas of research interest include the relationships between disability and work; occupational health and safety; vocational training; self-employment/entrepreneurship; and economic inactivity.

Paul would be willing to consider supervising PhDs in relation to any of his research interests or related areas. Students wishing to explore research that draws on a variety of disciplinary perspectives are very welcome, as are those wanting to undertake pedagogical research.

Research interests

Dr Thomas Paterson is a Lecturer in the School of Clinical Dentistry at the University of Sheffield, where he combines his expertise in materials science with the field of bioelectronics to drive innovations in healthcare. His research primarily develops implantable and wearable bioelectronic devices that improve diagnostics and treatments across various medical applications. These devices span a wide array of applications, from epilepsy treatment and soft electrode manufacturing to wound healing and dental health monitoring, aiming to address complex healthcare challenges through technology.

Throughout his career, Dr Paterson has developed a particular interest in additive manufacturing, hydrogel engineering, biosignal recording and antimicrobial materials. These interests have translated into several ongoing projects, including developing conductive and elastic materials for wearable diagnostics, conductive electrospun sensors for jaw movement tracking, and exploring cellular mechanisms underpinning wound healing under variable pressure conditions.

Research Interests

My research interests are at the intersection of critical studies of technology and society, social change, and information ethics. I focus on social appropriation and embodied experiences of technologies by different social groups, digital poverty, information privacy in the context of people’s migration and displacement, critical studies of information and communication technologies within sustainable development, and the role of public access to information in mis/disinformation. My research is qualitative and I use participatory and visual methodologies of research.

Research supervision

I am particularly interested in hearing from research students focusing on the following areas:

The design and evaluation of health communications (text, images, different technologies and so on) and interventions

How different people (i.e. children, professionals and so on) search for, and use, information, as well as the influence of the environment and the context of use

The design of inclusive research methods / methodologies

Dr Maria Tzanou’s research focuses on European constitutional and human rights law, privacy, data protection, surveillance, the regulation of new and emerging technologies and the inequalities of data privacy law and how these affect vulnerable groups. She is the author of The Fundamental Right to Data Protection. Normative Value in the Context of Counter-Terrorism Surveillance (Hart, 2017) and the editor of Personal Data Protection and Legal Developments in the European Union (IGI Global, 2020) and Health Data Privacy under the GDPR. Big Data Challenges and Regulatory Responses (Routledge, 2021). 

Research Interests

• Data Protection Law
• Privacy Law
• European Human Rights Law
• AI and Emerging Technologies Regulation
• Surveillance

Maria is happy to supervise PhD research in the following areas: privacy and data protection, big data, AI and human rights, surveillance, regulation of emerging technologies.

Research interests

Healing defects are one of the largest current health challenges, with chronic wounds frequently requiring amputation of the affected limb. In 2008, 200,000 UK patients were suffering chronic wounds, costing the health service £3.1 billion annually.  Since then, a 26-49% increase in risk factors such as age and diabetes has made the situation worse. 

Upon wounding healthy skin, inflammatory cells combat infection, fibroblasts migrate into the wound bed and contract the defect, and finally re-epithelialisation closes the gap.  However, these processes become less efficient with age and risk factors such as diabetes, obesity or smoking, eventually leading to the formation of chronic wounds that include pressure ulcers, venous leg ulcers and diabetic foot ulcers.

We are investigating the processes of fibroblast recruitment and wound re-epitheliasation with a view to developing new therapies to promote healing.  Part of our work focuses on the signalling by adhesion receptors that detect the changes in skin upon injury.  We investigate the signalling through Rho-family GTPases that regulate cell migration and receptor trafficking.  We are finding that these pathways influence wound healing, but in more recent work we are finding that they also impact on cancer progression.  Importantly, our projects in collaboration with the hospital and industry are translating our advances in basic biomedical science into practical application.  We have developed ultrasonic strategies that reduce healing time by 40% and can be applied to human patients.  By doing so, we are able to investigate fields that span from basic molecular science fields of signalling and migration to therapeutic outcomes.

My research investigates drivers of behaviour, and ways to increase engagement in healthy and sustainable behaviours. My main research areas are in the psychology of eating behaviour and weight management, including dietary and psychological strategies for appetite control, weight management and weight stigma. I am also interested in and have led research projects investigating ways to encourage environmentally sustainable behaviours, such as reducing dietary meat intake and encouraging sustainable waste behaviours. I am currently leading the behavioural workstream of an industry-academic consortium on compostable packaging (funded by UKRI Innovate UK). Furthermore, a main theme of my research is investigating individual variability – understanding the psychological characteristics which contribute to why some individuals are more or less likely to engage in health or pro-environmental behaviours, and the implications of this for individually-tailored interventions.

My research career began with a BSc in Psychology from the University of Sussex. During this time, I undertook research positions at Arizona State University’s Health and Ageing Laboratory and Conditioned Feeding Laboratory which inspired my interest in human appetite research. I subsequently obtained my PhD from the University of Leeds in 2013 which examined the impact of environmental prompts on snack and meal intake. I then spent three years as a post-doctoral researcher in the Human Appetite and Research Unit at the University of Leeds conducting a clinical trial which investigated the effects of energy density on appetite control and weight loss. Following my post-doctoral positions, in 2017 I joined the University of Sheffield as a lecturer in Psychology.

Journalism, Media and Communication

Bina’s research interests include media representation, the relationship between the media and democracy, critical incidents in journalism, race equality in journalism, media policy, and media self-coverage. Bina’s research and publications have contributed to knowledge relating to key debates about press regulation, the public interest, public trust, media ownership, political economy of the media, paradigm repair, boundary work, and the public sphere concept. Her research into how the British press covered the press standards debate that followed The News of the World phone hacking scandal and the Leveson Inquiry employed content and critical discourse analyses and was interdisciplinary in content drawing from law, politics and psychology in addition to journalism. 

Bina’s research entitled, A meta-analysis of key concerns and developments on media standards informed the 2020-2022 Impress Code Review. The research findings were used by the press regulator, Impress to modernise the Standards Code and make it fit for purpose in the digital age. Her research on the WhatsApp, Black People and COVID-19 Infodemic explored the WhatsApp Communications of Nigerians in the UK and Nigeria, using the methods of interviews and content analysis. This work made contributions to knowledge about effective health communications in times of Public Health Emergencies. Bina’s current research investigates race-based student activism in journalism, media, and communication schools in the UK using the methods of content analysis, interviews, and surveys. 

PhD Supervision 

• Bina is interested in supervising students in the following areas:
• The relationship between the media and democracy
• Race equality involving Black Asian and Minority Ethnic groups
• Media representation on diverse platforms
• Media self-coverage 
• Political economy of the media

Research interests

I have two main areas of research interest. The first is the ethical, legal and social issues associated with emerging medical technologies and the second focuses on the commercialisation of biotechnology and expectation dynamics in medical innovation. My research has previously examined the development of gene therapy, genomics, pharmacogenetics, stem cells and regenerative medicine. I have advised the European Parliament, the Conseil d'Analyse Economique (part of the French Prime Minister's Office), the UK Department of Trade and Industry and the Wellcome Trust. I am a member of the Editorial advisory Boards of Sociology of Health and Illness and New Genetics and Society.

As regards my research interests in synthetic biology, I am currently a member of a BBSRC working group on synthetic biology, a co-investigator in a recently established multidisciplinary chell network and have co-authored a major review of the social and ethical issues raised by synthetic biology which was published in June 2008.

As regards my research interests in neuroscience, I am leader of a strand of research on neurosociety as part of the £1.6m Leverhulme Trust Programme Grant 'Making Science Public'.

I am working on my monograph titled Monstrous Happiness: Neoliberalism, Women’s Lives and Women’s Writing in Japan and the UK, which developed from my PhD thesis.

I argue that neoliberalism created a particular culture we live now and this contemporary culture is the “harvest” of the 1980s.

Looking at social discourse and literary texts in Japan and the UK in the 80s, I examine the ways in which women writers respond to and explore the ideas of women’s liberty, happiness and its contradictions.

I examine literary texts such as works by Banana Yoshimoto, Foumiko Kometani, Jeanette Winterson and Doris Lessing.

I am currently interested in, as well as writing on, the concept of female masochism, especially its psychic and narrative construction from social discourse, in literary and visual texts.

This new project aims to provide a genealogy of female masochism, and how it differentiates from, as well as inherits, the idea of shame in Japanese culture.

Research Interests

• Affect, Happiness and Neoliberalism
• Comparative Literature
• Contemporary Women's Writing in Japanese and English
• Health, Well-being and Medical Discourses on Women’s Bodies
• Intersections of Gender and Sexuality
• Masochism
• Literary Cognitive Theory

Calum Webb joined the Sheffield Methods Institute as a British Academy Postdoctoral Research Fellow in September 2021, having previously worked as a Research Associate in the Department of Sociological Studies. His research explores socioeconomic inequalities in the child welfare system and their relationship to fiscal and social policy using quantitative research methods. He completed his PhD in Sociology at the University of Sheffield in 2019 as an ESRC-funded White Rose Doctoral Training Partnership student.

His research on child welfare inequalities and the funding of local services for children and young people has been published in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health, Children and Youth Services Review, the Journal of Mixed Methods Research, Child & Family Social Work, and elsewhere. Outside of academic circles, his work has been cited by the National Children’s Bureau, Ofsted, Children England, the British Association of Social Workers, the Independent Review of Children’s Social Care, the Department for Education, and other organisations.

From 2021-2024 Calum will be leading an innovative new research project as a Postdoctoral Research Fellow of the British Academy titled “Investment in Prevention and its Systemic Effects (IPSE): Modelling the causal effects of spending in children's services with a whole systems approach.” 

My primary research interests are in colonial and postcolonial literatures from India and Africa, with a particular focus on alternative and global modernisms and writing interested in children, youth and development.

I am currently completing the manuscript of my first monograph, Postcolonial Children: Infancy and Development in South Asian Fiction in English. The book considers the figure of the child in fiction that deals with anti-colonial activism, Indian independence and the postcolonial state, looking at writers including Mulk Raj Anand, R.K. Narayan, Attia Hosain, Shashi Deshpande and Nadeem Aslam.

I am also beginning a new project called ‘Youth and Health in Postcolonial Literatures: India, Nigeria, South Africa’, a comparative analysis of the concept of youth that seeks to make connections between Postcolonial Studies and the growing field of Medical Humanities.

I am a founding member of The Northern Postcolonial Network, which supports knowledge exchange and networking amongst scholars working on postcolonial topics across the north of England and organisations and community groups with intersecting interests. We build sustainable relationships with groups and communities through research, public engagement and creative workshops in which we can explore issues including migration, asylum, human rights and inclusive pedagogy. Details of our past events and future activities can be found here www.northernpostcolonialnetwork.com

I am a member of The British Association of Modernist Studies, the Modernist Studies Association and the Postcolonial Studies Association.

• Benefits of urban plants as determined by plant species choice
• Gardens / Gardening for health and well-being
• Climate change and urban plants
• Green walls and building insulation 
• Landscape plants and urban water management

Developing more sustainable landscape management techniques is a key driver in much of my research, and I have been involved in a number of projects investigating more efficient use of resources (water, organic waste streams as soil amendments, alternative growing media and energy).

I led a DEFRA LINK project - Efficient use of water in horticulture which proposed a 2/3 reduction in water use during the production of ornamental plants. This project involved 14 partner organizations and was rated 9/10 by DEFRA – one of the highest-ranking scores at the time.

I have also more recently conducted projects evaluating the use of grey water for landscape applications. I work closely with industry partners, for example, the Horticultural Trades Association on the ‘carbon footprint’ of plant production and maintenance; and the Royal Horticultural Society on maximizing invertebrate biodiversity through the appropriate use of garden ornamentals.

As a landscape horticulturalist, I also am very keen to understand more about how people relate to the landscape and what sorts of plant-based designs provide strong resonance with the public and why?

I am particularly interested in the relationship between plants, ‘naturalistic’ landscapes and human well-being. As such I have worked on a number of consultations with stakeholders in this field, including MIND, the horticultural therapy charity THRIVE, The Royal Neurological Hospital and the Landscape Institute.

Research interests

Bacterial infections cause a diverse range of disease ranging from superficial skin infections to periodontitis to severe infections such as sepsis and meningitis. This coupled with rising antimicrobial resistance have led to increasing burdens of infection and are therefore a significant health concern worldwide. Bacterial adhesion to host cells is essential for both colonisation and infection. New therapies to prevent adhesion could significantly decrease disease and reduce the burden of antibiotic usage.

We have identified a superfamily of proteins on host cells which appear to control bacterial adherence to epithelial cells. These proteins, the tetraspanins, do not act as receptors but organise and cluster hijacked host proteins into 'adhesion platforms' to allow efficient adherence and entry of bacteria to cells. Blockade of these proteins leads to a significant reduction in bacterial adherence of many Gram negative and Gram positive bacteria. Using a variety of techniques we have identified members of these adhesion platforms and new ways to inhibit their function during infection. Furthermore, we investigate changes to the composition of both bacterial membrane proteins and host adhesion platforms during tetraspanin-mediated infection utilising a number of bacteria as models.

We are also interested in the importance of the bacterial microbiome in humans and how dysbiosis of this flora can affect various diseases ranging from skin afflictions to cancer. We currently run a number of studies which utilise Oxford Nanopore Technology sequencers to delineate the microbiome.

I have a long-standing interest in understanding the molecular mechanisms controlling the human RNA metabolism in health and neurodegeneration. Research in my group primarily focuses on identifying gene expression alterations which cause progressive death of neurons in incurable neurodegenerative diseases and ageing in order to correct these pathophysiological changes using gene therapy approaches.

To this purpose, we use biochemistry, molecular and cellular biology together with various disease models which include mammalian cell lines, stable inducible cell lines, patient-derived neurons and mouse models. The main research themes currently under investigation in my laboratory are:

1.     Targeting the nuclear export of pathological C9ORF72-repeat transcripts in C9ORF72 linked amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) and frontotemporal dementia (FTD) as well as in Fragile X-associated tremor/ataxia syndrome (FXTAS) using gene therapy programmes based on viral and non-viral approaches.

2.     Understanding the molecular mechanisms of pathological repeat-associated non-AUG (RAN) translation in C9ORF72-ALS/FTD and FXTAS in order to identify novel therapeutic targets.

3.     Identification of transcriptomes and translatomes using Next generation RNA sequencing technologies to define the mechanisms of neurodegenerative diseases and how gene therapies/drugs confer neuroprotection.

4.     Structural and functional characterisation of the nuclear export of pathological microsatellite repeat transcripts in neurological disorders.

5.     Identifying the mechanisms leading to altered nucleocytoplasmic transport of proteins and cellular RNA in ageing and neurological disorders.

Lecturer in Work Psychology

Research Interests

I have two established streams of research. Both streams aim to further our knowledge of socially responsible and sustainable practices. One focuses on individual level practices and the other focuses on organisations and industry.

At the individual level, I focus my research on building our understanding of how individuals’ roles and experiences outside of work influence their work lives, and vice versa. To do this I examine the impacts of leisure activities, idiosyncratic deals (‘i-deals’) and interpersonal emotion regulation on employees work and non-work lives. My research contributes to the literature on work-life enrichment by providing a more nuanced understanding of the roles individuals fulfil, beyond the traditional focus on family. It sheds light on broader mechanisms that facilitate individual success and productivity in the workplace. I do this through intensive longitudinal quantitative methods- often referred to as diary studies.

At the organisational and industry level, my research deals with how businesses and public bodies can positively impact wider society.

I have worked on multidisciplinary projects such as:

• Comparative Police Studies in the EU (COMPOSITE), a European project examining policing processes across countries.
• Mainstreaming Assisted Living Technology (MALT), a TSB funded project aiming to facilitate the large scale introduction of telehealth technology.
• Active Workforce Initiative (AWI), a BOHRF funded project examining the impact of positive psychology interventions on the well-being of police and health workers.
• Business Driven Social Change, an NBS funded review of literature on the techniques and outcomes of business driven social change.

PhD Supervision

I am interested in supervising PhD students who would like to examine issues to do with the interface between work and other life domains - this can include work-life balance, enrichment and conflict pertaining to family and leisure domains as well as the impact of supportive supervisor behaviours on work-life balance.

Sihan Li is a Lecturer in Climate Science in the Department of Geography at Sheffield University. Sihan obtained her PhD in Earth, Ocean and Atmospheric Sciences from Oregon State University in 2017, on large ensembles of regional climate modelling over the Western United States. Her PhD work was focused on modelling the regional response to anthropogenic warming in complex terrain, the changing characteristics of hydrometeorological extreme events, and uncertainty quantification/reduction in climate modelling. She then moved to University of Oxford as a research associate to work on droughts and fires in the Amazonia in response to climate change. Sihan stayed in Oxford as senior research associate to work on hydrological modelling of monsoon rainfall triggered landslides in mountainous Nepal, as part of a large international interdisciplinary project Sajag-Nepal– a partnership to improve preparedness for the mountain hazard chain in Nepal.

Current Projects:

Deplete and Retreat: The Future of Andean Water Towers

Sajag-Nepal, a partnership to improve preparedness for the mountain hazard chain in Nepal (https://www.sajag-nepal.org/)

Attribution and Synopsis of Landslide Impacts from Precipitation (ASLIP) in Southeast Brazil

World Weather Attribution, an initiative to conduct real-time attribution analysis of extreme weather events as they happen around the world (https://www.worldweatherattribution.org/)

Previous Projects: 

Climate and Health Pump-Priming Fund: Dengue forecasting workshop

Attributing Amazon Forest fires from Land-use Alteration and Meteorological Extremes (AFLAME)

Evaluating Extreme Rainfall in Eastern China (EERCH)

The Nature Conservancy/Oxford Martin School Climate Partnership

Forest Mortality, Economics, and Climate (FMEC)

Based in the Digital Humanities Institute and available to supervise Digital Humanities topics

Alexandra's background is in early modern European intellectual history, digital humanities, and cultural heritage studies, and her research is largely focused on Italy, Britain and the Atlantic world in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. 

Research interests

Imaging the fetus is routine during pregnancy in most countries. Ultrasound is the technique of choice as it is widely available and does not harm the fetus or mother. Despite major advances in ultrasound technology there are situations where it is necessary to know more or see more of the fetus. Magnetic resonance (MR) imaging is possible and during the last 20-25 years research has shown that MR is a valuable adjunct to ultrasound for fetal imaging. Over the last 12 years I have been involved in assessing the value of fetal MR in clinical practice and also developing additional sequences to image specific pathologies.
Outcome data is essential for such studies and I work closely with my clinical colleagues in neonatology, pathology and obstetrics to collect this data. This has lead to other avenues of research including imaging of the neonate with MR and imaging of the post-mortem fetus and neonate with MR in both the research and clinical settings.
Links have been established with psychology to study how the brain structure, as seen on imaging, relates to development in the term and premature infant.
Collaboration with social sciences allows us to look at the sociology of health, science and technology in fetal imaging and its impact in society.
The placenta plays an important role during the pregnancy and abnormalities of the placenta can affect the mother and the fetus. Recently, I have started to look at the placenta using MR. The majority of the work focuses on developing sequences that can determine whether the placenta has invaded into the uterine wall, if so by how much and at where. This involves a multidisciplinary team to ensure accurate follow up and outcome data.
In all areas of research I aim to translate the results into clinical practice as soon as possible and this means working very closely with clinical colleagues without whom I could not do any research.

Research interests

I am a specialist in Periodontology, with a MSc and PhD in Translational & Regenerative Dentistry. I am qualified in Brazil and in the UK, with over a decade of experience in clinical and research environments.

I have been dedicating my life to understand the body biology, so that new oral health interventions are fully based on the natural biological processes of body. I have a strong track record of restorative dentistry research, having completed my PhD (2014-2018), supervised by Professor Paul Sharpe, on operative dentistry biology, which produced high impact research on dental pulp stem cell biology. My research has the potential to transform the way that teeth cavities are treated in the future, making current filling strategies obsolete. Additionally, during my NIHR Academic Clinical Lectureship (2019-2023), I developed periodontal research with focus on ageing and glucose metabolism, by using an array of research methodologies, such as pre-clinical, computational biology, microbiological sequencing, and clinical research. I administrated an international research group based in the UK and in Brazil, which together achieved excellent results repurposing Metformin as new drug for the management of periodontal disease. My work was awarded the 2022 Sir Wilfred Fish Prize (BSP) and received attention from national and international media outlets. My focus will be to continue these lines of research bringing positive media attention to the cutting-edge research taking place at your university and building new and beneficial collaborations within and outside the University.

My career ambition is to shape the future of Dentistry via molecular biology, genetics and epigenetics, developing techniques that are industry viable and affordable for the general public. The dream being to help patients to naturally grow and repair their own oral tissues and organs.

Research Interests

The focus of both my clinical and basic research is on optimising pituitary hormone replacement. My group have identified and characterised uncommon mutations in the growth hormone receptor which have led to fundamental observations on the mechanism by which the growth hormone receptor signals through a pre-formed dimer. This work has led to a greater understanding of the regulation of growth hormone secretion and recently the group have developed a long acting form of growth hormone which has exceptional pharmacokinetic properties that means administration may only be required once a fortnight or once a month. This work was published in Nature Medicine in 2007.

The Clinical Research Programme has been investigating different regimens for replacing cortisol, testosterone and oestrogen in hypopituitary, hypogonadal and adrenal insufficient patients. The group have designed a new modified release form of hydrocortisone, Chronocort, which in phase 1 studies has proven to replicate the normal circadian rhythm of cortisol. This work is currently being taken through to phase 2 studies in congenital adrenal hyperplasia patients. Other work has examined the incidence of hypogonadism in cancer survivors and optimising oestrogen replacement in young women of fertile years.

I co-chair the Endocrine Unit Management Team which consists of 6 Consultant Endocrinologists and runs a number of unique and innovative specialist clinics in the Health Care Trust including: Pituitary Clinic, Transition Clinic for Paediatric Endocrinology, Late Effects Clinic for Cancer survivors, Joint Surgical Endocrine Clinics, Obesity Clinic, Genetic Endocrine Clinic and a Pituitary Multidisciplinary Team.

Publications and Patents: 234 publications during career, 34 publications in the last 5 years, Scopus h-index of 34, 7 papers cited over 100 times, 2 over 200 times and 1 over 300 times.  35 patents granted from 7 independent patent families.

1. Patent granted 2010: C Strasburger, M Bidlingmaier, Z Wu, G Matarese, R Ross. Leptin antagonist and method for quantitative measurement of leptin. US 7,807,154 B2
2. Patent granted 2012: R Ross, P Artymiuk, J Sayers.  Fusion protein compromising growth hormone and growth hormone receptor. US 8,173,782 B2