I am an academic GP.  My special interests are neurology, epilepsy and psychogenic non-epileptic seizures.  Major themes in my research are improving emergency care for people after a seizure and the use of free-association narrative interviews to give new insights into psychogenic non-epileptic seizures. All of my research is about health-service quality improvement, my personal methodological expertise is in quantitative methods but I work in multi-disciplinary research teams using mixed methods to develop and test complex interventions. 

I am very happy to receive informal enquiries.  Feel free to get in touch by email.  

My web profile is avaiable via this link:

https://www.sheffield.ac.uk/medicine/research/aupmc/staff/academicprofiles/jmdickson

Research interests

• Cariology
• Preventive dentistry, particularly fissure sealants
• Evidence based dentistry
• Child-centred dental research

My areas of particular research interests are cariology, preventive dentistry, research in primary dental care, evidence based dentistry and child focused research.

I am an academic GP with a particular interest in how doctors and patients deal with persistent physical symptoms. My work aims to help doctors explain symptoms constructively. We recognise that symptoms have both peripheral (body) and central (brain) processes and the challenge is to translate developments in science, particularly neuroscience, into explanations which safely make sense of symptoms for patients and lead to better management

I have other interests around diagnosis, testing and reassurance, and healthcare use in relation to both mental and physical ill-health. I use a variety of methods including analysis of large data, development and evaluation of clinical interventions, and technological innovation.

Within the university I lead the Academic Unit of Primary Care, and represent the Academic Unit of Medical Education on faculty research committees. I am a member of the Centre for Urgent Care Research within ScHARR.

My main research interests are in the field of health protection-related topics such as disaster response and emergency planning, and the control of communicable diseases/infectious diseases. I am also interested in topics in international health, primary care as well as health service management.  Examples of my previous research  activities include

• mixed methods study of the state of integrated disease surveillance globally
• evidence reviews on mass testing for COVID, public health benefits of urban greenspace, emergency planning in health in the UK
• qualitative studies on beneficiary perspectives of humanitarian aid in Sri Lanka after the Asian Tsunami disaster, and of the drivers of smoking in young people in Pakistan
• developing evidence-based disaster management practice in the UK and Nepal,
• mixed methods study investigating barriers to testing and treatment of Hepatitis B in the migrant Chinese ethnic population in the UK,
• Methods: policy, qualitative, epidemiology and evidence reviews.

My current ongoing research projects (as of February 2017) are:  

• developing a series of health research projects on slum health in Nepal,
• evidence review of public health needs following earthquakes.

Research interests

Mixed methods, evaluation of new health services, patient views of health care, urgent care.

Elizabeth's research focuses mainly on early childhood and primary education, including teachers and children. She has specific interests in play and pedagogy; curriculum and assessment in ECE; teachers’ professionalism, professional knowledge and leadership. Elizabeth's work on curriculum includes comparative policy analysis between the UK, New Zealand and Australia. Her work on policy analysis in early childhood education draws on critical discourse analysis and aims to understand how teachers mediate and contextualise policy in local contexts.

• 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.

Research Interests

My research interests are clinical trials in emergency medicine, economic analysis, the organisation of emergency care and methods for evaluating the quality of emergency care.

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.

My research, publications and teaching have focused on the relationship between work and care in contemporary societies, and on how people manage caring roles and responsibilities throughout the life course.

I specialise in research with the potential for policy and practical impact, and have expertise in making complex research findings accessible to a wide range of audiences, wide experience of research design and methods, and extensive knowledge of policy on care, carers and employment.

I currently supervise PhD students studying the work of carers’ organisations (Jenny Read) and the provision of home care in Shanghai (Wenjing Jin), and welcome enquiries from prospective PhD students wishing to study topics in my specialist field.

Research Interests

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.

Broad area of interest:

• Sociology of health and illness

Research methods I am able to supervise:

• Qualitative

Specific areas of interest:

• Reproductive technology
• Research ethics
• Gender and sexuality

Kate’s areas of interest are: family minded policy and practice, family participation in care and protection, the reform of safeguarding practice and child welfare inequalities. She is passionate about social work and the role of social work in supporting change. 

Kate supervises PhD students in the areas of family caring relationships, family interventions and family support. Kate is Co-Director of the Family Potential Research collaboration http://www.familypotential.org.

Research interests / Areas of Supervision

International migration

Intra-EU mobility

Transnational families

Migration and care

British emigration

Citizenship

Fathering

Research Interests

My research interests include:

• Systematic reviews of clinical effectiveness for healthcare interventions
• Development of methods for systematic reviewing and evidence synthesis, including rapid review methods
• Systematic reviews of complex interventions 
• Patient safety and quality of care
• Complementary and alternative medicine research

Methods:

• Realist (and other ‘theory led’) Evaluations of Programmes and Complex Interventions 
• Conversion Analysis & Ethnomethodology
• Mixed and Qualitative Research Methods

Topics of Interest:

• Health Service Organisation and Delivery
• Interdisciplinary Team-Working
• Organisational change management
• Implementation and knowledge transfer
• Use of technology in healthcare (for service development and evaluation)
• Health Care Interactions and Relationships
• Self-Management of Chronic and Long-Term Conditions
• Older People's Community Health Services

Katherine's research is rooted in critical disability studies scholarship and activism. Her research spans inclusive education, disabled children's childhood studies, as well as matters of health and social care in the lives of people with learning disabilities and their families. Her work draws on Feminist, Crip, Critical Psychology, Posthuman and DisHuman studies.

She engages with qualitative research approaches including: ethnography, narrative inquiry, arts-informed approaches, carried out in co-production with disabled people and their families and other allies.

Dr Statica’s work focuses on the relationship between gender and domesticity in the development and transformation of housing infrastructures and urban landscapes in Eastern Europe and Latin America. Her research interests are in the feminist practices of care, intersectional feminism, theories of infrastructure and the anthropology of socialism, and urbanism, specifically the comparative investigation of urban contexts in postsocialist and postcolonial geographies. She employs documentary film as an integral aspect of both research and practice.

Research interest and PhD Supervision areas: (Post)socialist architecture and urbanism; global urbanism and postcolonialism; gender and architecture; documentary and ethnographic film; domesticity/housing infrastructures/care; intersectional feminism and urbanism.

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.

My research is humanities based and critically explores architecture and urban space, using methodologies of critical-creative writing, ethnography, autotheory and feminism towards new cultural and social histories and theories. Key topics include combinations of architecture, health, domesticity, wellbeing, the body and the city. I use a variety of interdisciplinary sources including archives and English Literature. My current research, Lying in the Dark Room: Architectures of British Maternity, examines the role of architecture in the construction of the maternal body and maternity practices.

Potential PhD supervision areas: gender, domesticity and architecture/cities; health/wellbeing/medicine and architecture/cities; documentary, autotheory, ethnography and observational methods in drawing, writing and film; ideas of care and intersectional and decolonial feminism. I supervise both 'by design' and 'written' PhDs

Research Interests

My research interests are in developing machine learning methods, to address some of the fundamental questions in medicine. These include:

- predictive modelling

- explainable AI

- generative adversarial approaches (GAN)

- causal inference

- health inequality and bias

My work focuses on analysis of large-scale, longitudinal health records, including:

- biomarkers

- imaging

- multi-omics

- routine care data 

The aim is to optimise treatment strategies, improve patient care, and provide novel insights to health institutions.

Apart from clinical data, I also work on incorporating human behaviour data, such as those generated from wearable devices, with a particular focus on mental health.

The overarching objective of my research is to integrate predictive modelling in the bedside and bring the acquired evidence back, in a continuously improving feedback loop, consequently establishing a learning health system.

PhD Supervision

I will consider project proposals that relate to the aspects mentioned above.

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

Research interests

• Developing and applying the contingent valuation methodology, in particular the technique of willingness to pay. Applications include: estimating the social value of a quality adjusted life year (QALY); using willingness to pay values to aid priority setting in publicly-financed health care systems; investigating how willingness to pay can and should be used alongside randomised trials; the use of willingness to pay to evaluate the benefits of public health interventions such as the fluoridation of drinking water supplies and the supplementation of flour with folic acid; evaluating minimally invasive surgery; assessing patient preferences for diagnostic radiology; and assessing preferences for an expanded newborn screening programme.
• The identification, measurement and valuation of (dis)benefits that are not captured in the QALY approach. Applications include: assessing the value of patient health cards; eliciting patient preferences for out-of-hours primary care services; establishing and quantifying the preferences of mental health service users for day hospital care; eliciting patient preferences for the organisation of vascular services; and assessing preferences for access to a general practitioner.
• The application of economic evaluation techniques to assess the efficiency of health care programmes and interventions. Applications include: screening in primary care; antenatal screening; management of lower respiratory tract infection in general practice; computerised cognitive behavioural therapy for anxiety and depression; methods for assessing patients with intermittent claudication; drug treatments for epilepsy; stroke incidence and prevention in Tanzania; venous leg ulcers; and treating upper limb spasticity due to stroke with botulinum toxin.

His primary research interests are in Philosophy of Religion, Epistemology, and Virtue Ethics.

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.

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 research has encompassed issues such as: 

• Tort Law, Private Law Theory, Egalitarianism in Private Law
• Medical Negligence and Comparison with Strict Liability
• Informed Consent and Injury to Autonomy
• Egalitarian v Economic Analysis of Standard of Care
• Maternal Prenatal Duty
• Private Law Responses to Sex Trafficking
• Over Determined Causation
• Duty of Care for the Creation of Exploitative Demand
• Digital Privacy Law and Gender Justice
• The Law of Remedies and the Law of Restitution, and The Overlap Between Restitution for Wrongs and by Subtraction

Research Interests

My primary research interest focusses on nutrition and dietetics, in particular the prevention and treatment of undernutrition in vulnerable population groups.  I have experience of using quantitative approaches, including the development of health measurement scales, as well as qualitative research.

Research interests

My primary interests lie in the following areas:
• Cognitive content and processes that underlie and maintain the eating disorders
• The treatment of the eating disorders, with a particular focus on cognitive-behavioural approaches
• The translation of evidence-based approaches into real-life clinical settings, and the clinician variables that enhance or impede that process

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:

• 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

Research interests

My main research interest concerns the application of geographical information systems and science (GIS) to public health research and practice. Research fields within this area include (i) geographical and environmental epidemiology; (ii) geographical variations in health and health care; and (iii) methodology for spatial studies.

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 primary research interests lie in nineteenth-century literature, particularly Victorian poetry, cultural formalism, print culture and nonsense literature.

I have supervised and examined doctoral work on the literature of the long nineteenth century and would welcome PhD applicants who are interested in Victorian poetry, with particular reference to its relationship with aspects of nineteenth-century identity and culture.

Bryony taught mathematics in a range of schools in England and southern Africa for 12 years before joining the department in 2010. She was Head of Maths in an inner-city Sheffield school for five years and joined the Senior Leadership Team of the school for a year.

Bryony has worked as a Regional Coordinator for the National Centre for Excellence in the Teaching of Mathematics. In this role, she worked with teaching colleagues in both primary and secondary schools across Yorkshire and the Humber to develop outstanding practise through collaborative projects.

Research interests

My primary research interests focus on three interrelated themes:

Applied spatial analysis and GIS - developing and applying different conceptual, methodological and analytical frameworks to understand complex spatial structures and processes and their impacts on spatial development.

Housing and neighbourhoods - understanding spatial housing markets and their uneven structures and functionalities.

Urban-regional policy and planning - consideration of the policy frameworks and governance architectures that shape urban and regional development.

Research interests

Gurleen´s primary research interest is in Applied Econometrics. Her research has focused on the effects of economic growth and labour market institutions on the wage structure, distribution of income, and poverty in both the formal and the informal sectors of the economy. An example of a recent project is the effects of free trade on labour market outcomes for women in developing countries. Her current research focuses on the impact of poverty and inequality on early childhood development. Gurleen is interested in supervising students in applied micro- and macro-econometrics.

Meredith Warren's primary research interests lie in the cultural and theological interactions among the religions of the ancient Mediterranean, especially early Judaism and Christianity. Her current research focuses on the sense of taste and heavenly food in ancient Jewish, Christian, and Greco-Roman narratives. Warren's first book examined the tropes of anthropophagy, sacrifice, and divinity in the Gospel of John and the Ancient Greek novels.

Please Note:

Research applicants proposing Dr Meredith Warren as a supervisor should select the Arts and Humanities IPO on the application form.

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

Before moving to Sheffield, Andy was a lecturer at the University of Bristol, where he also completed his undergraduate degree (in Geography) and PhD (in Advanced Quantitative Methods). Methodologically, Andy’s interests are in the development and application of multilevel models, with work focusing on age-period-cohort analysis, fixed and random effects models, and multilevel models for uncovering intersectionality. He uses these methods in a broad range of substantive areas, such as mental health across the life course, the effect of unpaid care on employment outcomes, changing attitudes to migration, etc.

My research interests lie mainly in health inequalities and patient experience. I am especially
interested in the areas of health care access and communication between patients and
healthcare professionals. Recent studies have included qualitative research with patients,
family members and staff. This includes studies in the areas of mesothelioma, Type 2
diabetes, ageing, gender and sexual health.
Methodologically, my expertise lies in qualitative research and community engagement.

Research interests

• Evaluation
• Methodology
• Research methods
• Evidence synthesis
• Clinical trials
• Qualitative research
• Anthropology
• Ethnography
• Personalised care
• Quality improvement
• Philosophy of Science
• Theory
• Theories, models and frameworks
• Applied health research
• Health sciences
• Health Services Research
• Complexity
• Mechanisms and mechanistic thinking
• Philosophical Realism
• Philosophical Pragmatism

Broad area of interest:

Research methods I am able to supervise:

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 focuses on the role of innate immune cells like macrophages and dendritic cells in diseases including cancer and rheumatoid arthritis.  Recently, I have used my knowledge of this area to develop innovative cell-based methods to target anticancer thereapy to tumours.  For example, I have devised a way to use macrophages to deliver large quantities of cancer-killing virus to both primary and secondary tumours simultaneously (click here).  My group is also interested in improving the delivery of therapies to diseased tissue using a nanomagnetic targeting approach.

Jennifer welcomes applications for doctoral research degrees in literacy and language education
with a focus on digital literacy, multimodality and makerspace research. Jennifer is a multimodal
ethnographer who researches in formal schooling contexts like primary and secondary schools and
in informal learning contexts like community and welcome centres. Her research interests include:
theorising digital reading; the platformisation of literacies; digital materiality in teaching and
learning; makerspace research across formal and informal contexts; digital perspectives on language
teaching and learning; research that applies posthumanism and sociomateriality; digital inequalities
and digital divide research; post-qualitative methods and approaches to literacy; and, activist
disruptive literacies research.

Research interests

Simon's primary research focus is on the processes associated with erosion, transportation and deposition of sediment in river and urban drainage systems, with a strong emphasis on fundamental flow and grain processes. Linked to this theme is his work in turbulence and free surface wave dynamics associated with flows over rough, water worked sediment deposits. His secondary interests are in applying and developing improved measurement and management methodologies to allow urban water infrastructure systems to cope better with pressures caused by climate change, changing patterns of use and physical deterioration. Current work also includes the study of energy use and recovery in urban water systems.

I have a particular interest in researching nursing workforce issues and knowledge mobilisation. Current research includes longitudinal mixed methods cohort studies of advanced level nurse practitioners and trainee nursing associates. I am also involved in a systematic review of continuing professional development in nursing.

Methodologically my expertise lies in qualitative research (using observations, focus groups and interviews), and reviews.

I currently co-supervise two PhD students, exploring advanced nursing roles in surgery and stroke care settings, and welcome any prospective student interested in researching nursing workforce issues or aspects of knowledge mobilisation.

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.

Research interests

My primary area of interest is Romantic poetry. I have recently finished a monograph on the relationship on Percy Bysshe Shelley’s poetry and drama, entitled Shelley's Living Artistry: Letters, Poems, Plays (with Liverpool University Press). I am also finishing a book which examines the poetry and plays of Byron and Shelley and their development of the poet-hero in their works, and am beginning research on a book on Byron's influence on twentieth century British, Irish, and American poets.

I am currently supervising doctoral theses on the second generation Romantic poets and quest, Romantic influences on the poetry of Wilfred Owen, pleasure and pain in the poetry of John Keats, androgyny in the poetry and drama of Percy Bysshe Shelley, and the development of the pastoral genre in Romantic poetry. I am interested in supervising PhD candidates in any of my research interests, especially in Romantic or post-Romantic poetry.

Research interests:

My research interests are very varied and diverse. For instance I have worked on lithics in Swaziland, conducted surveying work with the University of Cardiff at the Sacred Animal Necropolis in Saqqara and excavated at Amarna in Egypt.

My main research is however, on the study and scientific analysis of archaeological materials, specialising in glass and other vitreous materials such as faience. The primary focus of this work is in Bronze Age Egypt and the Aegean mainly from production sites and on Roman glasses from consumption contexts. I use scientific methods to analyse archaeological glass and experimental archaeology to elucidate patterns relating to provenance, trade and consumption in the ancient and historic world.

• Material culture in the Roman and Ancient Egyptian worlds.
• The technology of glasses
• The analysis of glasses to explore production and consumption patterns
• Experimental archaeology
• Craft production in Egypt
• Provenance studies

The absolute Galois group of the rationals is my primary interest. It contains almost all arithmetic information: eg, solutions to explicit diophantine equations (as in Fermat's Last Theorem). The whole group in general is rather too large an object to study; a better way of understanding the Galois group is through its representations, and this brings out deep connections with other mathematical objects (such as modular forms). For example, given a two dimensional representation of the Galois group satisfying `usual conditions', there should be a modular form whose Fourier coefficients are related to the traces of the representation. The precise correspondences are conjecturally given by the conjectures of Artin (complex representations), Fontaine and Mazur (p-adic representations), and Serre (finite characteristic). It is aspects of these conjectures, both over the rationals and in the setting of totally real number fields, that I am most interested in.

Dr Maria-Cruz Villa-Uriol's main research interests are:

• the personalisation of models using computational imaging and modelling techniques, 
• the composition of scientific workflows, 
• and the use and development of data-driven decision-making strategies to support clinical decisions using heterogeneous data sources.

The data sources typically used in ther research are:

• personalised VPH (Virtual Physiological Human) models, 
• clinical databases, 
• mobile sensors capturing a wide variety of variables describing an individual and his/her environment and mobile healthcare. 

Her primary area of interest is in the cardiovascular domain with an emphasis in clinical translation.

She is member of the Organisations, Information and Knowledge Group (Oak), INSIGNEO institute for in silico Modelling and Center for Assistive Technology and Connected Healthcare (CATCH).

Research interests

My research interests are in Health Informatics and include the following areas:

• The use of e-Health resources by different consumer groups.

• Health information needs and information behaviours of patients, their families, carers and the general public.

• Evaluation of information systems within health care organisations.

• Applications of artificial intelligence and data mining techniques to analysing health information.

• Analysing health information in relation to the health and well-being of older people.

• Sharing of information and experiences by patients, carers and the public on social media, blogs and web-based discussion forums

I am particularly interested in how patients, carers and health professionals seek, obtain and share information and advice in relation to their health and well-being through online digital resources. 

My major areas of interest are management of urological cancers, clinical trials, early drug development and translational medicine. I have set up a large number of clinical trials from early phase to late phase studies during my career. My work on organ preservation in bladder cancer moved all the way from an early phase I study (Hussain et al Annals of Oncology 2001), to phase II efficacy study (Hussain et al BJC 2004) that led to a Cancer Research UK funded study BC2001 trial that was reported in New England Journal of Medicine (James, Hussain, Hall et al April 2012). This study has now changed the standard of care for patients with muscle invasive bladder cancer opting for organ preservation treatment.

My research interest focuses on understanding spatial intratumoural heterogeneity in high-grade brain tumours with a particular focus on responses to DNA damage and leveraging this knowledge to deliver new ways to monitor and treat disease in patients. I aim to combine a long-term ethos of excellence in clinical and surgical practice with internationally excellent academic research to ensure the best possible care and outcomes are extended to patients both now and in the future. I would be pleased to discuss PhD opportunities in areas including: DNA repair inhibitors and combinations; tumour treating fields; development of clinically- and surgically-relevant patient-derived 2D and 3D models; surgically-delivered therapies; early detection of tumour recurrence; surgical device development, and; early phase (including phase 0 / window-of-opportunity) clinical trials.

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/)

Overview

I am an interdisciplinary researcher with a background in psychology and human nutrition. I have considerable experience in supervising quantitative and qualitative research projects (lab based and free-living).

Research interests

My primary research interests are centred around (equitable) food systems, eating/ feeding behaviour(s), food consumption, and health. I have a specific interest (but not limited to) in the following topics:

• Promotion of healthy diets across the lifespan – specifically in young children and older adults
• Food insecurity
• Infant and child feeding behaviours
• Triple burden of malnutrition (over- and under-nutrition, micronutrient deficiencies)
• Impact of environmental influences on the habitual diet

Examples of recent PhD projects

• Biofortification and UK consumer acceptance
• Prevalence and associated predictors and determinants of disordered eating behaviours (DEB) among female adolescents in Saudi Arabia
• Downsizing: Using environmental cues to acquire healthy portion control in children
• Risk Factors for, and determinants of Obesity/Overweight in the Home Environment of 2-5-year-old Ghanaian preschoolers
• The contribution of urban horticulture to food security resilience, health and wellbeing
• Co-benefits of urban horticulture to physical, mental and environmental health, and motivations and barriers to gardening engagement

• The genomics of population divergence and speciation
• Speciation in facultative sexuals
• Experimental speciation in the lab using monogonont rotifers

I am an evolutionary biologist interested in the evolution of reproductive isolation. My research primarily focusses on the impact of sex and gene flow on the processes of adaptation and speciation.

What makes speciation more or less likely to occur? Each speciation event is unique, taking place with a different set of organisms with a different evolutionary history and a different set of environmental circumstances. The evolutionary forces experienced by populations during the speciation process will influence its outcome. Understanding the impact of these forces helps to explain the patterns of biodiversity we see around us.

A wealth of reproductive modes exist across the tree of life, from complete asexuality to obligate bisexual reproduction. A facultatively sexual reproductive mode, in which species reproduce both sexually and asexually, is common in fungi, plants and animals, and is found in ecologically and economically important groups including disease causing organisms, crop pests and primary producers. However, important questions such as how local adaptation and reproductive isolation evolve in the presence of gene flow, and how this impacts the genome, are yet to be asked of facultative sexuals.

To answer these questions I combine studies of natural populations with experimental speciation and genomics.

Research Interests

Signalling characteristics of cochlear hair cells

Mammalian cochlear inner hair cells (IHCs) are the primary sensory cells of the auditory pathway. Their job is to convert sound vibrations into an electrical signal that can be interpreted by the brain and it is vital that the information is transmitted with high fidelity and temporal precision. One of the major causes of hearing loss is associated with a loss of IHC function.

The aim of my research is to find out how IHCs accurately encode sounds over wide ranges of frequency and intensity, and how the information is processed on its way to the brain. Knowledge of how the ear processes sound will inform the development of hearing aids, including cochlear implants. An additional aspect of my research involves the physiological analysis of human stem cells that are being used to replace damaged nerve fibres to restore hearing (in collaboration with Dr Marcelo Rivolta).

In order to achieve this I will study IHCs in the isolated cochlea using a combination of electrophysiological, cell imaging and molecular biology techniques.

Research interests

Dr Matanle is pursuing a number of related research themes in collaboration with colleagues from around the world. Currently he is working on a co-authored monograph on Lifetime Employment in 21st Century Japan, as well as articles on depopulation and regional sustainability in East Asia, and postdoctoral career formation in Japanese studies.

In the future, Peter plans to research the relationship between demographic change and resource consumption in Japan's rural regions, focusing on the spatial impacts of depopulation on resource demand.

I have successfully supervised students through to completion in employment studies and the sociology of work and in the cultural geography of Japan. I am currently primary supervisor for four students in regional and environmental studies, and the sociology and culture of work, all of which focus on Japan.

I welcome applications for students in any of the above subjects, and I am particularly keen to develop long-term collaborative relationships that broaden the geographical scope of my own research. In future I also want to develop my work in environmental studies, with an emphasis on the human-environmental consequences of regional depopulation in the Asia-Pacific region.

Research Interests

Aberrant secretion of neurotransmitters, hormones or immune mediators contributes to the pathology of a wide variety of chronic neurological, endocrine and inflammatory diseases ranging from stress and hypertension through to asthma and irritable bowel syndrome. Research in our lab is focussed on identifying the signalling pathways and molecules controlling secretion from neurones and mast cells, with a special interest in voltage-gated (CaV), ligand-gated (P2X and nAChR), receptor-operated (TRPC) and store-operated (Orai) calcium channels, IgE and G protein coupled receptors (P2Y, Histamine), and SNARE regulatory proteins (synaptotagmins, Doc2 and Munc13).  Most of our work is performed at the level of isolated primary cells using high resolution techniques including patch-clamp electrophysiology, carbon fibre amperometry, calcium imaging and total internal reflection fluorescence microscopy with various fluorescence-based biosensors.

Recent highlights of our research include (1) the discovery of ATP-sensitive P2X receptors on human lung mast cells, activation of which may contribute to the pathophysiology of asthma, (2) the first demonstration of Munc13 as an essential effector of phospholipase C-coupled G protein coupled receptor regulation of neurotransmitter release in mammalian  cells, and (3) the modulatory action of synaptotagmin IV on the calcium-sensitivity of the neuronal fusion machinery.

Research Interests

Disinformation, (Self)censorship, Newsmaking, Russian and East European media

Ilya’s research includes two areas. First, he is interested in the study of state-funded disinformation campaigns with the focus on Russia and post-socialist countries. I am particularly interested in conspiracy theories, character assassination campaigns and disinformation as tools of political communication. I have written on Russian conspiracy theories inside Russia and abroad and continue to work on the projects related to Russian disinformation on the state and the grassroots level both inside Russia and the countries of Central/Eastern Europe and the Global South.

Ilya’s second area of expertise is the organisational aspect of newsmaking in Central and Eastern Europe: formal and informal networks of journalists and politicians, newsmaking process and the issues of censorship/self-censorship. I have been the primary investigator of the British Academy research grant on self-censorship among journalists in Russia, Latvia and Hungary (2017-2019). Currently I am working on the book about the history of Russian media post-1991 that investigates the role of journalists in facilitating Putin’s authoritarian regime.

PhD Supervison 

Ilya is particularly interested in the topics related to:

• Disinformation and conspiracy theories
• Censorship and self-censorship in media
• Character assassination in politics
• Political communication in authoritarian regimes

Research interests

My long-standing research interests have been focused on cellular differentiation and regulation of gene expression within the developing and adult pulmonary epithelium. This work involves the isolation of pulmonary epithelial cell specific genes (principally the BPIF/PLUNC and WFDC families) as well as the transcription factors, which regulate their expression. This work also involves studies of epithelial cell specific differentiation and understanding the role of distinct stem/basal cells in this process. This work has allowed me to use disease models, human clinical material and our novel genes to study aspects of pulmonary cell plasticity in the lung and changes that occur in IPF and COPD

Over the past few years my interests have also expanded into the fields of the genetics of complex diseases, pulmonary immunology, innate immunity and host defence and now a major focus of my work is on pulmonary innate immunity, the control of pulmonary inflammation and the role of innate defence pathways in the development of chronic lung disease.

I also work extensively with primary human and mouse airway epithelial cells in differentiated air liquid interface cultures using them as tools to understand the regulation of airway epithelial cell specific genes. At a more clinical level we are also studying host/pathogen interactions using both viral (RSV, flu, MHV68) and bacterial (Pseudomonas, Staph, NTHi) infections. This work has allowed me to align myself with the work of the Florey Institute for Host/Pathogen Interactions. In addition to our airway studies we have also developed primary middle ear epithelial cell cultures for our work on infections in Otitis Media which complements my developing interest in middle ear biology.

This applied work has allowed me to continue to study the role of epithelial differentiation in the airways and to use disease models and our novel genes to study aspects of pulmonary cell plasticity in the lung. This is particular focused on epithelial changes in the lungs of patients with IPF and COPD. Our recent work has begun to uncover a role for BPIF proteins in the pathogenesis  of lung disease using both human material and murine models. It has also led to new avenues of work that focus on the epithelial responses in nasopharyngeal infections and in Otitis Media.

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.

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 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

Our research has applications in orthopaedic and dental medicine, where clinicians are looking for improved methods to repair skeletal tissues; bone, tendon and cartilage.

Bone tissue engineering.
The aim of bone tissue engineering is to create bone matrix in the laboratory for clinical implantation and as an experimental tool. Our research in this area focuses on two main themes; the effects of mechanical stimulation on differentiation and matrix formation by bone cells and the interactions between precursor bone cells and their biomaterial substrate. Mechanical stimuli examined include dynamic compression, stretch and fluid flow induced shear stresses using a range of bioreactors (including a collaboration with Bose ElectroForce systems group).

Musculoskeletal cell mechanobiology.
We are interested in how skeletal cells respond to extrinsic and intrinsic stimuli by organizing the proteins and mineral they secrete in a way which enhances the strength of the matrix. This information can then be used to manipulate tissue engineered structures in order to induce structurally sound matrix formation. We specifically focus on mechanosensation mechanisms found on the cell membrane; the cell’s proteoglycan (sugar-based) coat and a small organelle that protrudes from the cell membrane – the primary cilia.

Orthopaedic biomaterials.
We investigate the interactions between musculoskeletal cells and orthopaedic and dental materials that are implanted into bone. Materials investigated include porous metals, polymer scaffolds and peptide coated surfaces (in collaboration with Orla Protein Technologies). This research encompasses study of the mechanical properties of biomaterial scaffolds, cell-material interactions, cell mechanics and cell signalling.

Briony joined the Department of Sociological Studies in early 2021. She initially joined the department as a University Teacher in Digital Media and Society (Grade 8), before transitioning to her current role as a University Teacher in Sociology in September 2021. In addition to her primary role as a University Teacher, Briony has also undertaken a fixed-term role as a Research Associate in Digital Technologies with Professor Helen Kennedy, as well as a HEIF-funded fixed-term role in the Sheffield Methods Institute as a Research Associate in the Creative Industries. 

Briony previously worked as an Associate Lecturer and Associate Tutor at the University of East Anglia, where she spent three years teaching across gender studies, political communication, digital sociology, and digital politics. Briony completed her studies in the School of Politics, Philosophy, and Language and Communication Studies at the University of East Anglia, completing her BA (Hons) in Society, Culture and Media (1:1*) in 2015, her MA in Media and Cultural Politics (Distinction) in 2016, and her PhD in Politics in 2021.

Briony is a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (FHEA) and is currently enrolled on the Postgraduate Certificate in Learning and Teaching in Higher Education (PG Cert LTHE) at the University of Sheffield. She is currently co-lead of the Critical Diversities and Everyday Life Research Theme.

While Briony is formally trained in cultural politics and the sociology of media and culture, her interdisciplinary research spans across feminist sociology, feminist cultural studies, media and communications, internet studies, girls’ studies, and fan studies. Briony is a qualitative feminist researcher and she uses ethnographic methods (both online and offline), including participant observation, focus groups, interviews, surveys, discourse analysis, and textual analysis. Her ethnographic research locates digital media fan communities as an important space for young people to produce, negotiate, and contest the meanings of feminism(s) in an informal and everyday context. In doing so, her work locates digital youth cultures on Tumblr as a fruitful site for young people to engage in feminist activism, community building, and knowledge sharing, while also complicating utopian framings of these digital spaces to reveal the contradictory and ambivalent processes of inclusion and exclusion at work within them. Broadly speaking, she is interested in the following:

• Youth and the intersection of race, gender, and sexuality
• Popular culture as a site of struggle
• Participatory culture and fandom
• Digital cultures and platforms
• Girls’ and young women’s media cultures
• Belonging, (cultural) citizenship and civic engagement
• Digital feminist pedagogy and knowledge sharing
• Feminist methodologies

Briony’s research on Tumblr has been featured in WIRED magazine, and she has been invited to interview as an expert on gender, popular culture, and fan culture for The Observer, Mashable, Vice, and BBC Radio, amongst others. Her first monograph will be published by Bloomsbury Academic in late 2023.    

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