Find a PhD supervisor

Once you've identified the subject area you wish to research, you will need to find a supervisor for your project. All Doctoral Researchers are provided with a lead supervisor, who will act as the main source of academic supervisory support and research mentoring during your time as a Doctoral Researcher at the University.

Start your search

Âé¶¹¾«Ñ¡ for supervisors below to see who you think may be a great fit for your research area. Once you have identified they are able to offer appropriate supervisory support, you can start to reach out to staff using the contact details provided on their profile. 

Âé¶¹¾«Ñ¡ results for “environmental history”

Professor Joy Porter

Professor Joy Porter

Professor of Indigenous and Environmental History
University Âé¶¹¾«Ñ¡ 125th Anniversary Chair
Principal Investigator, Treatied Spaces Research Group

Department of History

Professor Porter has a strong track record helping ECR and PGR colleagues advance their careers. She has supported a significant number to achieve positions in U.K. and U.S. Universities. She has also supported students and ECRs to attract fellowships, travel awards and other funding from the AHRC, Fulbright US-UK, government bodies and North American and European universities.
She welcomes PGR enquiries linked to:
Global Indigenous Environmental History, Culture and Literature ...

Dr Jonathan Willis

Dr Jonathan Willis

Associate Professor in Early Modern History

Department of History

I am interested in supervising research projects on most aspects of the social, cultural and religious history of early modern England, especially in areas relating to the reformation, theology, popular religion and belief, religious practices, puritanism, parish religion, music, the material culture of the parish church, and histories of emotion and mental illness.

I have been/am currently involved in supervising MA dissertations, MRes theses and PhD theses on the following topics: ...

Dr Hiroki Shin

Dr Hiroki Shin

Associate Professor in History of Energy and Environmental Humanities
125th Anniversary Fellow

Department of History

Dr Shin welcomes enquiries about potential postgraduate projects on all aspects of energy history, environmental history and modern economic history.

Dr Simon Jackson

Dr Simon Jackson

Lecturer in Modern Middle Eastern History

Department of History

I offer postgraduate supervision in the colonial, international and global history of modern France and its empire, on empire in the twentieth century Mediterranean and in the comparative history of European empire.

I currently supervise or co-supervise several PhD students:

Gemma Jennings (Patriarchy and Poverty? A Transnational Analysis of the Social Implications of the Oil Industry between France and Algeria)
Tomoki Yamada (The League of Nations Mandates System as a ...




Dr Shirley Ye

Dr Shirley Ye

Lecturer in Asian History

Department of History

Previous MA thesis topics that I have co-supervised include Sino-British economic relations and a comparative study of Roman imperial cults and Japanese overseas shrines.

I welcome inquiries from students on PhD supervision on China, East Asia, and the wider world in any time period. Current PhD topics I am co-supervising include postcolonial urban architecture and memory in Hong Kong (funded by AHRC Midlands 3 Cities Consortium), and the public history ...

Dr Rosie Day

Dr Rosie Day

Associate Professor in Environment and Society

School of Geography, Earth and Environmental Sciences


Dr Day welcomes enquiries from prospective doctoral researchers in her areas of interest:

environmental justice / energy justice
energy poverty
energy geography
environmental knowledges
older age, especially in relation to environmental or energy issues












Professor John Kenneth Colbourne

Professor John Kenneth Colbourne

Professor, Chair of Environmental Genomics
Director, Centre for Environmental Research and Justice (CERJ)

School of Biosciences

The Environmental Genomics group is recruiting postgraduate students to pursue PhD studies in the following research areas: 

  • Molecular mechanisms of developmental plasticity & acclimation 
  • Pioneering the use of genomic signatures for environmental health protection 
  • Forecasting environmental health threats on populations using Daphnia egg bank genomics 
  • Biostatistical and computational methods of analyzing high dimensional data and gene networks 
  • Population genomics 
  • Heritable basis of condition-associated molecular responses and adaptive tolerance to stress ...

Dr David Smith

Dr David Smith

Senior Lecturer in Environmental Archaeology

Classics, Ancient History and Archaeology

Past PhD students supervised by David have worked on analogue studies of the plants and insects from hay meadows (with Dr Pam Grinter) and the Palaeoentomology of estuarine deposits at Goldcliff, Gwent (with Dr Emma Tetlow).

At present, David is co-supervising the PhDs of:

Shelagh Norton - who is working on the archaeology and the past environments of the Berth Hillfort, Shropshire and other ‘marshforts’ in the British Isles.
Zena ...




Professor Henry Chapman

Professor Henry Chapman

Professor of Archaeology

Classics, Ancient History and Archaeology

Henry can supervise postgraduate study in the areas of later prehistory, wetland archaeology, landscape archaeology and the application of digital and spatial technologies within heritage.

He currently supervises students researching digital approaches to conflict archaeology, the landscape archaeology of European bog bodies, predictive modelling of centres of power in Bronze Age Anatolia using GIS, valuing archives in the 21st century, the landscape archaeology of Neolithic causewayed enclosures, and the archaeology ...

Professor Dominique Moran

Professor Dominique Moran

Professor in Carceral Geography

School of Geography, Earth and Environmental Sciences

Carceral Geography

Dr Archie Dunn

Teaching Fellow in Byzantine Archaeology

Centre for Byzantine, Ottoman and Modern Greek Studies

  • Late Roman and Byzantine archaeology; archaeology of the later medieval Aegean world
  • Regional histories and economic history of the Byzantine world

Find out more - our PhD Byzantine, Ottoman and Modern Greek Studies  page has information about doctoral research at the University Âé¶¹¾«Ñ¡.

Professor Chris Thornhill

Professor of Law

Birmingham Law School

Chris has supervised PhDs on many legal topics, including: Constitutional Reform in Kenya; Constitutional Reform in Egypt; the Jurisprudence of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights in National Constitutional Law in South America; the Global Right to Food; the History of International Criminal Law; Military Law and Legal Reform in China; Constitutional Law and Populism in Poland and Brazil; Constitutional Reform in Scotland; Constitutional Reform in Turkey; Constitutional Reform in ...

Dr Adnan Nadir

Dr Adnan Nadir

Honorary Associate Clinical Professor
Consultant Cardiologist and Senior Lecturer

Department of Cardiovascular Sciences

Dr Nadir has supervised cardiology and interventional cardiology fellows from around the world both clinically and mentoring them to write thesis and publish in peer-reviewed journals.

Dr Zsuzsanna Nagy

Dr Zsuzsanna Nagy

Senior Lecturer
Interim Department Head of Education

Department of Inflammation and Ageing

Zsuzsanna is interested in supervising doctoral research students in the following area:

  • The role of cell cycle related molecules in the pathogenesis of Alzheimer’s disease and related disorders.

If you are interesting in studying any of these subject areas please contact Dr Zsuzsanna Nagy directly, or for any general doctoral research enquiries, please email mds-gradschool@contacts.bham.ac.uk.

For a full list of available Doctoral Research opportunities, please visit our Doctoral Research ...

Dr Paul Nankivell

Dr Paul Nankivell

Senior Clinical Lecturer
Honorary Consultant ENT/Head & Neck Surgeon

Department of Cancer and Genomic Sciences

  • Currently co-supervising 2 PhD students
  • Has supervised BMedSc and MSc students

Professor Parth Narendran

Professor Parth Narendran

Professor of Diabetes Medicine
Honorary Consultant Physician

Department of Immunology and Immunotherapy

Parth has supervised over 10 MD and PhDs on the subject of diabetes and immunology

Dr Miguel Navarro-Cía

Dr Miguel Navarro-Cía

Reader in TeraHertz Science and Engineering
Head of the Metamaterials and Nanophotonics Group
Associated with the School of Physics and Astronomy and the School of Engineering (Department of EESE)

School of Physics and Astronomy

Current PhD students

Primary Supervisor

  • D. Feng, Surface scattering and propagation through inhomogeneous media, University Âé¶¹¾«Ñ¡, UK.
  • E. J. Magaway, Terahertz hyperspectral imaging for tribology, University Âé¶¹¾«Ñ¡, UK.
  • Y. Farahi, Terahertz medical imaging, University Âé¶¹¾«Ñ¡, UK.

Secondary Supervisor

  • E. Gaggs, Macroscopic metasurfaces for quantum systems, University Âé¶¹¾«Ñ¡, UK
  • R. Fakhteh, Reconfigurable metasurfaces using new materials and structures, University Âé¶¹¾«Ñ¡, UK.
  • C. Sumner, Nanophotonic cavities for Raman ...

Dr Aditya Nayak

Dr Aditya Nayak

Marie Skłodowska-Curie Fellow

School of Chemical Engineering

Aditya provides supervision for some Masters and PhD students within the group.

Dr Amy Naylor

Dr Amy Naylor

Senior Research Fellow
Deputy Theme Lead for Rheumatology

Department of Inflammation and Ageing

Amy currently supervisors doctoral researchers undertaking the following projects:

  • An organotypic model of the bone remodelling process
  • Targeting the novel CD248-MMRN2-CLEC14A signalling pathway in age-related bone loss
  • The ageing bone – a novel peptide as an inducer of bone repair
  • Formulation of a novel suspending medium for immobilised culture and tissue processing
  • Characterising the therapeutic potential of a novel peptide in age-related bone loss, skeletal remodelling and repair
  • Development of ...

Dr Georgiana Neag

Dr Georgiana Neag

Research Fellow in Skeletal Ageing and Inflammation

Department of Inflammation and Ageing

Georgiana is interested in co-supervising postgraduate projects (MRes, MSci, PhD) in the area of Multi-modal volumetric imaging, Ageing and Inflammation associated Bone Loss, Postnatal Bone Development. These projects will also be supervised by Prof. Adam Croft.

Professor Catherine Needham

Professor Catherine Needham

Professor of Public Policy and Public Management

Health Services Management Centre

Catherine would welcome PhD students interested in aspects of the following: 

  • Social care systems
  • Personalisation and coproduction in social care
  • Public service reform, focused on the UK, or putting the UK in comparative perspective. 

Dr Susan Neilson

Dr Susan Neilson

Associate Professor

School of Nursing and Midwifery

Sue is interested in supervising doctoral research students in the following areas:

  • Palliative and end of life care
  • Bereavement support
  • Nursing
  • Research using qualitative methodology

If you are interested in studying in any of these subject areas please contact Sue on the contact details above or for any general doctoral research enquiries, please email mds-gradschool@contacts.bham.ac.uk

Dr Sándor Zoltán Németh

Dr Sándor Zoltán Németh

Associate Professor

School of Mathematics

Sándor is supervising postgraduate students in Optimisation on Manifolds, Convex Optimisation, Equilibrium Systems, Ordered Vector Spaces and Multicriteria Decision Making.