St Mary’s carefully matches student research interests to the academic knowledge and skills of its research supervisors.
All students are supervised by a minimum of two members of staff each bringing discrete expertise to the research project.
Business and law
Lubna Ahmed
My current research can be summarised into three broad themes; Visual attention, Cross-cultural differences in cognition and pedagogical research related to academic feedback.
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Philip Booth
Philip is currently researching public choice economics and tax and benefit systems; state pensions systems and inter-generational problems; Catholic social teaching and ethical behaviour in business; and the development of private regulatory institutions within investment markets.
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Judith Bourne
Judith's primary interest is the legal history of the first women lawyers.
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Gherardo Girardi
Gherardo's research interests are wide-ranging and include industrial economics, labour economics, attitudes towards climate change, international business strategy and teaching and learning in higher education. In addition, Gherardo is working on modelling the interaction between profit-maximizing and socially conscientious firms, and on the relationship between economics and faith, in particular the Christian faith. His research in teaching and learning has been sponsored by the Economics Network, formerly of the Higher Education Academy, of which Gherardo is a Fellow. Gherardo is a member of the NGO Good Works and gives public talks on Catholic social thought in the UK and abroad.
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Chi Maher
Chi welcomes PhD enquiries in social enterprise/entrepreneurship, public policy, international nonprofit management, public sector management, human resource management and civil society.
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Merlin Stone
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Communications, humanities and social policy
Hannah Marije Altorf
Hannah's main areas of research are Imagination and the Philosophical Imaginary, Iris Murdoch, Hannah Arendt and Philosophical Dialogue.
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Mark Donnelly
Mark welcomes applications for potential PhD supervision in the fields of philosophy of history, collective memory and contemporary British culture, politics and history.
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Yasemin J Erden
Yasemin's main areas of research include emerging technologies, philosophy of language, aesthetics, identity, philosophy of mind and Wittgenstein.
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Richard Mills
Richard's research interests are in Irish Literature and Popular Culture.
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Carole Murphy
Carole's research interests include the construction of social problems, the criminalisation of social problems (such as addiction, homelessness and mental health issues), and confronting stigma and social exclusion. Human trafficking and slavery, including policing, rescue, rehabilitation and reintegration.
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Claire Norton
Dr Norton is happy to supervise PhD theses on the theoretical and philosophical issues surrounding the production and consumption of history; Ottoman history, and Muslim-Christian interactions in the early modern period.
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Stuart Oliver
Stuart’s work is primarily concerned with cultural geography and the production of nature.
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Glenn Richardson
Glenn's areas of expertise are the Tudor monarchy, England's international relations in the sixteenth century, The Field of Cloth of Gold (1520), Cardinal Wolsey.
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Education and teaching
Christine Edward-Leis
Christine’s doctoral studies were in Mental Model Theory and she continues to research, supervise and examine in this area. Contexts for her research are Design and Technology and Mathematics.
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David Fincham
David's main areas or research are Catholic Education, Citizenship Education, Personal and Social Education, Careers Education and Special Educational Needs.
Kathleen Fincham
Kathleen's research focuses on the sociology and politics of education and learning within the contexts of developing countries and conflict-affected environments. Specific themes of interest include: identities, inequalities, social exclusion, social cohesion, social mobility, citizenship, inter/intra community relations and institutional power.
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Caroline Healy
Caroline's research is principally concerned with the Politics of Education, especially the ever-changing relationship between the state, the market and institutions of education.
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Linda Saunders
Linda's research interests include reading motivation, reading selection strategies and achievement motivation.
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Jennifer Chung
Dr Jennifer Chung welcomes doctoral applications within comparative education, specifically focusing on the Nordic countries, primary and early years, and teacher education.
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Anastasia Liasidou
Dr Liasidou’s research interests include:
- Inclusive (Special) Education Policy and Practice
- Sociology of Education
- Inclusive Leadership
- Critical Disability Studies
- Qualitative research including Critical Discourse Analysis
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Fin Cullen
Dr Fin Cullen is interested in hearing from potential PhD candidates in the following areas:
- Gender related violence
- Girlhoods, masculinities and femininities
- Youth cultures
- Youth work and informal education
- Drugs and young people
- Gender and sexualities equalities in education
- Citizenship and identity
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Paul Tarpey
Paul is interested in supervising PHD research in English teaching and cultural studies. He has a particular interest in Professional Memory, history of education and Vygotskian and Bakhtinian approaches to practice.
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English and creative arts
Pauline Foster
Pauline welcomes students interested in task-based, interactive and cognitive approaches to second language acquisition.
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Peter Howell
Peter has research interests in the culture and thought of the 'long' eighteenth century, urban history (particularly that of east London) and hypertextual culture.
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Michelle Paull
Michelle’s research and teaching interests include contemporary theatre, London theatre, Irish plays, Sean O’Casey, adaptations on stage and screen and contemporary writing in English.
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Russel Schechter
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Allan Simmons
Allan is one of the world’s leading authorities on the works of Joseph Conrad, and runs the University's Centre for Joseph Conrad Studies.
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Trevor Walker
Trevor's recent research interests include Applied Theatre and Healthcare.
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Kasia Zarema-Byrne
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Kim Salmons
Dr Kim Salmons is the Associate Director for Academic Strategy and Associate Dean for Research and Enterprise. She has published two books: ‘Food in the Novels of Joseph Conrad: Eating as Narrative’ and ‘Food in the Novels of Thomas Hardy: Production and Consumption’, both were published this year by Palgrave Macmillan.
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Human and applied sciences
Lubna Ahmed
Lubna’s research aims to understand cognitive functions such as selective attention and memory, and in particular how their efficiency is impacted by individual differences and external factors.
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Nicola Brown
Nicola's research interests are within the area of the exercising female. She has released publications and given conference presentations in the area of female health and exercise, including breast pain and bra fit issues in exercising females, breast education of adolescent schoolgirls, and menstrual disturbances in female athletes.
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Peary Brug
Peary is primarily concerned with the social psychological impact of integration on majority and minority groups in Western cultures.
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Christine Campbell
Christine is interested in the psychology of emotions, such as anxiety and jealousy.
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Elisabetta Canetta
Elisabetta is a biophysicists and nanobiotechnologist with a keen interest on the nanostructure, nanomechanics and biochemistry of biomaterials. Elisabetta’s main expertise is in Atomic Force Microscopy (AFM) and Raman microspectroscopy
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Guiseppe Cimadoro
Guiseppe's main areas of research are striking combat sports: neuromuscular and biomechanical profiles, neuromuscular function and plasticity to strength training, and physical preparation methodology from a neuromuscular perspective.
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Daniel Cleather
Daniel's research interests include the functional anatomy of the lower/hind limb with a focus on the knee, the development of musculoskeletal modeling technology into practical clinical tools and exercise is medicine: translating strength and conditioning practice to medical interventions.
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Michael Eynon
Michael’s research interests relate to the psychological underpinnings of exercise adoption and maintenance.
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Mark Glaister
Mark was promoted to Reader in Exercise Physiology for his contribution internationally to scientific knowledge in the area of caffeine supplementation and its effect on performance in sport, particularly in sprinting.
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Jess Hill
Jess' research focusses on recovery from muscle damage and her PhD investigated the efficacy of compression garments on recovery from strenuous exercise.
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Ryan Mahaffey
Ryan's areas of expertise include childhood obesity, physical activity, movement analysis, biomechanical assessment of health and sport.
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Yiannis Mavrommatis
Yiannis' areas of expertise are in nutrition and genetics (including nutrigenomics, nutrigenetics and personalised nutrition).
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Colm Murphy
Colm’s research focuses primarily on anticipation and decision making, particularly the role of contextual information in the making of expert judgements. He is also interested in feedback provision during the skill acquisition process.
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Jamie North
Jamie's primary research interests focus on the study of sporting expertise, in particular, the examination of the perceptual and cognitive factors that underpin expert performance and decision-making.
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Stephen Patterson
Stephen's main research focuses on vlood flow restriction training for rehabilitation and performance, ischemic preconditioning and physiology of team sports.
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Charles Pedlar
Charlie’s specialist areas include altitude and environmental physiology, sleep, the female athlete and the application of biomarkers to optimise performance in pro athletes.
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Andre Roca
Andre's current research centres on understanding the complex perceptual–cognitive skills such as decision making and creativity, and how these are acquired through practice.
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Jade Salim
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Carolina Scipilino
Carolina’s research specialises in intergenerational relationships within the family context, as well as representation and intergenerational perception of grandparenthood in different cultures.
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Ross Wadey
Ross' current research is at the intersection of psychology and sociology, and at the forefront of advancing knowledge on
well-being following amputation(s) and the role of physical activity, prevention of (and rehabilitation from) sporting injuries, and post-traumatic growth following adversity.
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Stacy Winter
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Theology and ethics
Download Theology & Ethics Research Leaflet
Ashley Beck
Ashley's main areas of research are healthcare resource allocation and Catholic social doctrine, Catholic social doctrine and Europe, 20th century church history, ecclesiology, political theology and the theologies of liberation, theology of the permanent diaconate, Catholic teaching about war and peace, liturgy, and the Catholic Church and Freemasonry.
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Stephen Bullivant
Stephen's research interests include several areas of Catholic theology, and the social-scientific study of religion and atheism/secularity.
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James Crossley
James research and teaching interests can be put into two broad categories: Christian origins and Judaism in the 1st century, and the Bible in political discourses in the 20th and 21st centuries.
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Chris Keith
Chris is the Director of the University's Centre for the Social-Scientific Study.
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John Lydon
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Jacob Phillips
Jacob works across a diverse range of sub-disciplinary areas, mostly within systematic and philosophical theology. He is particularly concerned with issues of human self-understanding, subjectivity, conscience and obedience, with particular reference to the work of Erich Pryzwara, Joseph Ratzinger, John Henry Newman and others.
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Trevor Stammers
Trevor's main areas of research include ethics of acquisition, donation and transplantation of organs, metaphysics of sex, sexual health and STIs in general practice and rheumatology.
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Anthony Towey
Anthony is the Director of the University's Aquinas Centre for Theological Literacy.
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Peter Tyler
Peter is the Director of the University's InSpiRe Centre for Initiatives in Spirituality and Reconciliation.
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