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 Willem van Eekelen

Dr Willem van Eekelen

Honorary Associate Professor

International Development Department

Civil society, civic space, global patterns in socio-economic development, humanitarian interventions

Professor Willem van Schaik

Professor Willem van Schaik

Head of Research of the School of Infection, Inflammation and Immunology

School of Infection, Inflammation and Immunology

Professor Van Schaik is always interested in hearing from potential PhD students who want to apply genomic and metagenomic approaches to study the emergence of drug-resistance in opportunistic pathogens.

You can contact Willem by email. 

Dr. Wieske van Zoest

Dr. Wieske van Zoest

Assistant Professor
Director of Postgraduate Programmes

School of Psychology

Wieske is currently working with Claudia Bonmassar (phd-student) at the Center for Mind/ Brain Sciences at the University of Trento.

Wieske is always interested in talking to potential students (masters or phds) and postdoctoral fellows. Please do not hesitate to contact her via w.vanzoest@bham.ac.uk.

For more information see https://sites.google.com/site/wieskevanzoest

Professor Rohit Varman

Professor Rohit Varman

Professor of Marketing and Consumption

Department of Marketing

  • Four Successful PhD Supervisions
  • Served on Supervisory Committees for Several PhD Students

Professor Alberto Vecchio

Professor Alberto Vecchio

Professor of Astrophysics
Director, Institute of Gravitational Wave Astronomy

School of Physics and Astronomy

PhD projects in compact objects, gravitational wave sources and observations.

Visit http://www.sr.bham.ac.uk/phd/index.php for full details.

Professor Jet Veldhuijzen van Zanten

Professor Jet Veldhuijzen van Zanten

Senior Lecturer in Biological Psychology
Director of Graduate Research, College of Life and Environmental Sciences

School of Sport, Exercise and Rehabilitation Sciences

Jet currently supervises nine postgraduate research students exploring the links between behaviour and physical and psychological health in different populations (e.g., rheumatoid arthritis, older adults, young people).  Her PhD students have won many prestigious awards, such as young investigator awards at conferences (American Psychosomatic Society), award for best abstract in clinical science (European League against Rheumatism), best publication award (Dudley Group NHS Foundation Trust), winner of the poster award of ...

Santhilata Venkata

Santhilata Venkata

Senior Research Fellow

The Department of Strategy and International Business

  • Graduate teaching assistant, Kings College London (2013-17)
  • PG student teaching and project supervision, BITS-Pilani, Goa campus, 2009-2012

Professor Mark Viant

Professor Mark Viant

Professor of Metabolomics
Director of Phenome Centre Birmingham
Centre for Environmental Research and Justice (CERJ)

School of Biosciences

For a list of possible PhD projects offered by Professor Viant www.findaphd.com/search/customlink.asp?inst=birm-Biol&supersurname=Viant

Professor Mark Viant

Professor Mark Viant

Professor of Metabolomics
Director of Phenome Centre Birmingham
Centre for Environmental Research and Justice (CERJ)

School of Biosciences

For a list of possible PhD projects offered by Professor Viant www.findaphd.com/search/customlink.asp?inst=birm-Biol&supersurname=Viant

Dr Marco Vieira

Dr Marco Vieira

Associate Professor in International Relations

Department of Political Science and International Studies

Dr Vieira’s research interests include:

South-South relations/institutions
The reform of global governance structures
The global politics of HIV/AIDS and climate change
International relations theory
International security
Foreign policy of emerging states
Regional politics in South America and Southern Africa







Dr Darrelle Villa

Dr Darrelle Villa

Assistant Professor in Clinical Psychology

School of Psychology

Darrelle supervises projects on the Clinical Psychology Doctorate and the MRes in Clinical Psychology. She is interested in projects on/using:

  • Identity and relationships in the context of brain injury.
  • Experiences of psychological interventions.
  • Qualitative methodologies particularly interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA) and metasynthesis of qualitative research.

Dr Katia Vione

Dr Katia Vione

Assistant Professor in Psychology

School of Psychology

Dr Katia Vione welcomes inquiries from prospective PhD students interested in projects on psychological processes involved in clinical decision-making, pedagogical research on critical thinking skills, and psychometrics.