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 “law society”

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 ...

Professor Atina Krajewska

Professor Atina Krajewska

Professor of Law and Birmingham Fellow
Head of Research

Birmingham Law School

Reproductive Rights
Global, International, and Transnational Health Law
Human Rights and Health
Medical and Health Law
Comparative Law



Professor Fiona de Londras

Professor Fiona de Londras

Director of Research, College of Arts and Law
Barber Professor of Jurisprudence

Birmingham Law School

Professor de Londras currently supervises students working on (national, comparative, and international) public law and on topics as diverse as the conceptualisation of security in law, the future of the ECtHR, postcoloniality and nationality law, migrants' rights, and the regulation of abortion information. Her former doctoral students now hold academic posts at leading law schools around the world, in practice, and in regulatory and policy bodies. She has a strong ...

Professor Rosie Harding

Professor Rosie Harding

Professor of Law and Society
Deputy Dean

Birmingham Law School

Professor Harding is happy to supervise postgraduate research students in any of the following areas:

- Mental Capacity and Disability Law, especially research involving questions of everyday decision-making, dementia, intellectual disability, powers of attorney, advance directives and end of life decision making.
- Older persons rights, especially research focused on older person’s attitudes to human rights, and the arguments for and against a new international convention on the rights of ...


Professor Kate Bedford

Professor Kate Bedford

Professor of Law and Political Economy

Birmingham Law School

I am happy to read PhD proposals in the following areas:
• Law and development (especially in Latin America)
• Law and political economy
• Gender, sexuality, and law
• Gambling regulation





Professor Jean V. McHale

Professor of Health Care Law

Birmingham Law School

Health, Health Care Law and Social Care Law in particular,

Health Law and the EU and the impacts of Brexit
Covid 19 and health and social care
Health Care Privacy and Confidentiality
Legal Regulation of Cosmetic procedures
Legal Regulation of Use of Human Material
Legal Regulation of Clinical Research






Professor Lorraine Talbot

Professor Lorraine Talbot

Professor of Company Law and Company Law in Context

Birmingham Law School

I am available to supervise in the following areas. Business History, corporate law theory, critical approaches to shareholder rights and shareholder centred governance, the socio-economic and political impact of corporate activities, growth, degrowth and corporate sustainability, the visual arts and corporations, corporations and labour, corporations and social progress, business human rights, feminism, gender and corporations and the political economy of companies.

Dr Kirsty Moreton

Dr Kirsty Moreton

Associate Professor in Law

Birmingham Law School

Dr Moreton is interested in supervising Doctoral Students in the areas of healthcare law, particularly decision-making, child and adolescent healthcare, pregnancy and reproduction, and palliative care. She also has interests in criminal law relating to sexual offences, and intersections with medical law. Topics utilising feminist and care ethics are also of interest.
Previously supervised to completion:
- Wendy Suffield, ‘Reconsidering the Moral Status of the pre-conscious fetus: a multi-criterial, multi-level ...

Professor Karen McAuliffe

Professor Karen McAuliffe

Professor in Law and Language
Birmingham Fellow

Birmingham Law School

Professor McAuliffe is currently committed to work 100% of her time on the European Research Council project ‘Law and Language at the European Court of Justice’, but welcomes research proposals for future doctoral and postdoctoral research in the following areas:

The relationship between language and law
Multilingual legal systems
Legal translation/Institutional translation and its impact on law
Dynamics of language/culture/multilingualism in European Union Institutions
Proposals for empirical research projects and ...





Dr Argyro Karanasiou

Dr Argyro Karanasiou

Assistant Professor in Law and Innovation

Birmingham Law School

Dr Karanasiou’ s principal research interests are in regulatory design of emerging technologies, particularly looking at the promotion of autonomy in times of rapid automation within and beyond the digital sphere. Argyro welcomes enquiries from motivated and qualified applicants from all around the world who are interested in pursuing PhD study under her supervision.

Professor Rilka Dragneva-Lewers

Professor Rilka Dragneva-Lewers

Professor of International Legal Studies
Associate Dean Âé¶¹¾«Ñ¡ Law School

Birmingham Law School

I am interested in supervising high quality postgraduate research projects in the following areas:

Preferential trade agreements and regional blocs; Comparative regional economic integration law; Eurasian economic integration
EU Neighbourhood Policy and external relations with Eastern Europe and Eurasia; EU-Russia relations
Legal reform; Law and Development; External promotion of rule of law and good governance
Comparative Corporate Governance




Dr Peter Coe

Dr Peter Coe

Associate Professor
Director of Research Impact

Birmingham Law School

Dr Coe welcomes expressions of interest for prospective PhD students in his areas of interest, and the field of Media Law more broadly.

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.