As an MPhil or PhD student, you will be assigned a supervisor who will provide guidance and help you plan your study. Where possible, you should name your preferred supervisor in your course application.
How to find a supervisor
Please consult the staff list below. Availability depends on sabbatical leave, contractual arrangements, and the number of students they already supervise.
Choose a staff member whose interests overlap with your own. You can find more detailed information by clicking the links to supervisors’ research profiles.
MPhil applicants
• Please do not contact a prospective supervisor directly.
• Indicate your preferred supervisor, and one alternative, on your application form.
• If your nominated supervisor is unavailable or oversubscribed, we will forward your application to an alternative prospective supervisor for consideration.
• If you are offered a place, we will let you know if your assigned supervisor is different to the person nominated.
PhD applicants
If you are confident your project fits well with your preferred supervisor’s research, you do not need to contact them. No preference is given to applicants who have made contact.
If you have questions about whether your topic aligns with their interests:
• You may email your preferred supervisor
• When contacting a supervisor, attach your CV with details of the degrees you have taken and the marks you have obtained, and a one-page research proposal. There is no need to include references or transcripts.
Supervisors cannot give detailed feedback on your proposal or on your chances of admission.
• Once you are certain your preferred supervisor’s research interests are a good fit with yours, name them, and up to one alternative, on your application form.
• If your nominated supervisor is unavailable or oversubscribed, we will forward your application to an alternative prospective supervisor for consideration.
• If you are offered a place, the offer letter will include details of your supervisor.
Supervisor Availability for postgraduate courses starting in October 2025
|
Supervisor Name |
Research Interests |
Available to supervise |
| Social and political theory, cultural sociology, intellectuals & politics |
MPhil and PhD |
|
| Identities/gender and STEM/creative methodologies | PhD only | |
| Parul Bhandari | Class inequalities, love, marriage, and family in contemporary India. | MPhil only |
|
Social theory, political sociology, intellectual history |
MPhil and PhD | |
|
Social action under neoliberalism |
MPhil and PhD | |
| Robert Dorschel | Digital sociology, digital labour, digital capitalism, class, cultural sociology, social theory | MPhil and PhD |
| Jennifer Gabrys | Digital technology, environments, social life and and practices of citizenship, action and engagement with digital technologies and environmental problems. | MPhil and PhD |
|
Science, technology, biomedical innovation, political economy of diagnostic innovation |
MPhil and PhD | |
| Teaching Associate in Media and Culture | MPhil only | |
| Family demography, quantitative methods | MPhil and PhD | |
|
Historical and Political Sociology |
MPhil and PhD | |
| Prof David Lane | Political economy of transition from state socialism. Special interest in role of classes and elites. Contemporary Ukraine and Russia; post socialist states in the world system; alternatives to capitalism. | MPhil and PhD |
| Prof Christel Lane | Economic and cultural sociology | PhD only |
| Technology, media, journalism, human rights | MPhil and PhD | |
|
Social inequalities, race and class |
MPhil only |
|
|
Political sociology, nationalism |
MPhil and PhD | |
| Kenny Monrose | Urban Cultures, Criminal Justice, Religion and Windrush Studies | MPhil and PhD |
| Race, Racism (anti-Black, anti-Indigenous, anti-Asian), Antiracism, Intersectionality, Mexico and Latin America, Visual Culture, Emotions and Beauty. |
PhD only |
|
| Dr Shannon Philip | Assistant Professor Gender and equality | MPhil and PhD |
| Marissa Quie | Migration, peace and security | MPhil only |
|
Social and spatial inequalities |
MPhil and PhD | |
| Sebastian Raza-Mejia | Empirical studies of crises, turning points and social transformations, cultural sociology, social theory, and intellectual history and the history of sociological thought | MPhil only |
|
Neoliberalism including market formation, financialisation, credit-debt, and social class(ification) |
MPhil and PhD |
|
| Gender, feminism, class, post-socialism | MPhil and PhD | |
| Addiction, Sociology of medical thought | MPhil and PhD | |
| Alex Wood | Assistant Professor in Economic Sociology | PhD only |
