Our PhD students and their research topics
This page provides a summary of research students in the department.
Current PhD students
| Student | Research topic | Supervisor(s) |
|---|---|---|
| Friederike Zimmermann | Is the N170 event-related brain potential to faces viewpoint sensitive? | Dr Martin Eimer |
| Pawel Matusz | The specificity of multisensory processing | Dr Martin Eimer |
| Idalmis Santiesteban | Dr Geoff Bird | |
| Saloni Krishnan | Dr Fred Dick | |
| Dean D'Souza | Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience | Dr Annette Karmiloff-Smith |
| Carina de Clerk | Victoria Southgate | |
| Yvonne Whelan | Oppositionality: Childhood predictions and outcome | Dr Edward Barker |
| James Vance | Negations in reasoning | Professor Mike Oaksford |
| Lisa Thackeray | Using IPA to explore the experience of happiness | Dr Virginia Eatough |
| Rachel Starr | How do people with congenital disorders think about selective preproduction | Professor Jonathan Smith |
| Emma Seymour | IPA study of parents of high functioning children on autistic spectrum | Professor Jonathan Smith |
| Irati Rodriguez | Developmetnal Cognitive Science | Dr Tim Smith |
| Barbara Pomiechowska | Dr Natasha Kirkham | |
| Massi Papera | Individual differences in attentional blindness | Professor Anne Richards |
| Konstantinos Papageorgiou | Genetic associations in attention | Dr Angelica Ronald |
| Manuela Mielke | Number processing in infancy | Dr Annette Karmiloff Smith |
| Susana Ihenacho | Living with female genital mutilation | Dr Belinda Brooks-Gordon |
| Kevin Hartie | IPA physiological impact of spinal cord injury | Professor jonathan Smith |
| Maria Filippetti | Investigating self-awareness and the brain default network in 5-month-old infants using NIRS | Dr Mark Johnson |
| Sara Elin | A cortical model of the processing of emotional faces | Dr Marie Smith |
| Natalia Concha | The role of community resources in supporting motherhood in Columbia | Professor Jacqueline Barnes |
| Daniel Carey | Low-level representations of auditory input and learnin | Dr Fred Dick |
| Christopher Brand | A probabilistic model of moral reasoning | Professor Mike Oaksford |
| Katarina Begus | Dr Victoria Southgate | |
| Rhys ap Gwilym | Bootstrapping informed economic behaviour in the lab to real markets.
|
Professor Mike Oaksford, Joint with Patrick Minford |
| Nick Berggen | Working memory load and emotional information processing (1+3 ESRC funded).
|
Dr Naz Derakshan |
|
Zoe Boden |
My research explores heterosexual men’s everyday guilt-experiences. My first study looked at guilt-experiences of professional men, who often struggled to articulate the details of their guilt-experience. However, findings did reveal nuanced accounts of the embodied dimension of guilt. The second study will examines how men in creative industries experience guilt within close relationships, employing an innovative interview method, which uses drawing as a starting point. The aim is to help men articulate and interpret their guilt-experiences. Contact: zoe_boden@yahoo.co.uk |
Dr Virginia Eatough |
|
Waseema Chaudhri |
My research focus is on the experiences of lone parents who have had cancer and their requirements of supportive care. I am interested in how lone parents have managed to balance everyday life whilst going through the cancer journey, and the various mechanisms they implemented to assist them through their journey. By using this information, and feeding back to existing cancer support providers I shall develop a model of supportive care that can be used in the care of future lone parents who develop cancer. Contact: wasy20@googlemail.com |
Professor Jonathan A Smith |
| Mal Christie | Minimal risk models of route finding and the representation of risk. | Professor Mike Oaksford |
| Adam Corner | A Bayesian approach to circular reasoning.
|
Professor Mike Oaksford, Joint with Ulrike Hahn (Psychology) |
| Marie de Guzman | Dr Geoff Bird | |
| Jane French | Neighbourhood, adolescent health and well-being |
Professor Jacqueline Barnes jointly with Professor Jonathan A. Smith |
|
Prunella Gee |
My PhD focuses on the psychological impact of retirement on men, an under-researched field in both quantitative and, more especially qualitative enquiry. I have completed a case study and am preparing a longitudinal study with a small number of participants beginning 6 months before retirement. My study will be viewed through aspects of various life-span models. Contact: prunella.gee@gmail.com |
Professor Jonathan A Smith
|
| Olivia Guest | Modelling Disorders of Semantic Memory |
First Supervisor: Dr Rick Cooper Second Supervisor: Dr Eddy Davelaar |
| Ji-Yeoun Kim | The perceived influences of early separation from parents: A study of Korean early study-abroad adolescents |
Principal supervisor: Dr Fiona Tasker Second supervisor: Professor Jacqueline Barnes |
| Max Owens | Working memory and attentional control in depression. Methodologies: EEG/ERPs and Eye-movements.
|
Dr Naz Derakshan |
| Xiaofei Qi | Pre-school education in China |
Second supervisor: Professor Jacqueline Barnes |
| Nick Rendell | Dr Eddy Davelaar | |
| Alan Richomme | Connectionist approaches to categorisation.
|
Professor Michael Thomas |
| Aline Scherff | Funded by The Bloomsbury Colleges.
|
Dr Angelica Ronald |
|
Johanna Spiers |
My research will focus on living kidney donors and recipients, and their experiences of decision making. The first study will hopefully be a case study of a recipient, focusing specifically on how he or she has made the decision to accept a kidney from this person. It is anticipated that further studies will look at pairs of donors and recipients in a longitudinal setting to see how their decision making took place and has panned out.
|
Professor Jonathan A Smith
|
| Germaine Symons | An investigation of actual scientific reasoning from a Bayesian perspective | Principal supervisor: Mike Oaksford; second supervisor: Richard Cooper |
| Eduardo Szaniecki | Development of a tool to aid Health Visitors in the identification of socio-emotional difficulties in young children. | Professor Jacqueline Barnes |
| Rhiannon Thomas |
Combining online and prior-knowledge in children perceptual development. Funded by the ESRC. |
Professor Denis Mareschal with Dr Marko Nardini |
| Gordon Wright | Funded by the ESRC.
|
Dr Geoff Bird |
Completed PhDs and doctorates
- Phillip Pell 'Influence of context on the neural representation of facial expressions' (MRC-funded). (Supervisor: Professor Anne Richards)
- Georgina Portelli Grammatical and conceptual categories of gender in Maltese and English. (Supervisor: Professor Michael Thomas)
- Lymarie Rodriguez My research project examines young men’s experiences of self-change and recovery from addiction in 12-Step fellowships (e.g. Alcoholics Anonymous). I am interested in understanding how young adults move into a life-structure without drug and alcohol abuse, and how participation in these fellowships influences their changing sense of self-identity. The study has a particular focus on conceptualizing self-change as the core process of any recovering journey, and employs various methodical strategies (i.e. case studies, longitudinal research) with IPA as the main analytical framework. Contact: l.rodriguez@psychology.bbk.ac.uk (Supervisor: Professor Jonathan A Smith)
- Stuart Rusby Childhood temporary separation: Long-term effects of wartime evacuation in World War 2. (Supervisor: Dr Fiona Tasker)
- Dana Shai Maternal embodied mentalisation: Nonverbal manifestions of mentalisations in mother-infant interaction. (Supervisor: Professor Jay Belsky)
- Monica Shiakou Play and learning attitudes of Greek-Cypriot parents and teachers: Their impact on 4-6 year olds. (Supervisor: Professor Jay Belsky )
- Pnina Shinebourne My Phd examines women’s experience of addiction and recovery with particular focus on metaphors and images in participants’ accounts and visual materials. I am involved in the Pluralism in Qualitative Research project (funded by Birkbeck & BPS) applying different qualitative methods to one interview to explore creative tensions resulting from a pluralistic qualitative approach. I supervise several research projects applying IPA to psychotherapy.
Shinebourne, P. and Smith, J.A. (2009). Alcohol and the self: An interpretative phenomenological analysis of the experience of addiction and its impact on the sense of self and identity. Addiction Research & Theory, 17,152-167. Contact: pnina@shinebourne.com (Supervisor: Professor Jonathan A Smith)
- Sarah Snoxall The role of prior knowledge in children's categorisation.Funded by the ESRC. (Supervisor: Professor Denis Mareschal)
- Leah Tomkins My PhD is concerned with the experience of being a carer, and with how people manage to balance their work commitments with the responsibility of caring for a relative. I have a particular interest in epistemology and in using phenomenology's broad philosophical heritage to develop different ways of conceptualising the self, and to explore new methodological possibilities, such as using IPA with focus groups.
Tomkins, L. and Eatough, V. (in press) Reflecting on the use of IPA with focus groups: pitfalls and potentials. Qualitative Research in Psychology. Contact: ltomkins746@btinternet.com (Supervisor: Dr Virginia Eatough)
- Jo Wiltshire Relational priming and analogical reasoning in children. Funded by the ESRC. (Supervisor: Professor Michael Thomas and Professor Denis Mareschal)
- Rachel Wu Learning to learn: How infants learn to use attentional cue. (Supervisor: Natasha Kirkham with Denis Mareschal)
- Kalanit Ben-Ari Adult attachment styles, parental marital relationships and romantic relationships. (Supervisor: Professor Jay Belsky)
- Cornelia Bremer 'Differences in lateralised attentional processing patterns as a function of emotion, anxiety and handedness using the dot probe paradigm' (ESRC funded). (Supervisor: Professor Anne Richards)
- Samuel Cheadle Mechanisms of visual binding. (Supervisor: Professor Marius Usher)
- Tessa Dekker Development of cortical organisation for graspable objects. Funded by the EU. (Supervisor: Professor Marty Sereno)
- Sarah Dilks Building bridges to observational perspectives: Mapping processes in psychological therapy in psychosis. (Supervisor: Dr Fiona Tasker)
- Anat Elhalal Role of PFC in memory. (Supervisor: Professor Marius Usher )
- Roberto Filippi The brain basis of bilingual language acquisition. (Supervisor: Professor Michael Thomas)
- Dr Karla Holmboe Funded by MRC/ESRC interdisciplinary postdoctoral fellowship. (Supervisor: Dr Angelica Ronald)
- Themis Karaminis The computational modelling of atypical language development (Principal supervisor: Michael Thomas; second supervisor: Richard Cooper)
- Robert King The evolutionary function of the female orgasm. (Professor Jay Belsky)
- Victoria Knowland Audiovisual integration and developmental reading deficits.( Professor Michael Thomas )
- Hanna Marno The effect of social context on object perception and memory processes. (Dr Eddy Davelaar with Prof Gergely Csibra )
- Frances Minhinnick My research is an in-depth examination of how ordinary people experience personal financial debt. This is an important issue particularly in the current economic climate. I have conducted the interviews and am currently doing the analysis. This is part of a Doctorate in family and systemic psychotherapy run jointly by Birkbeck and the Institute of Family Therapy. Contact: francesminhinnick@hotmail.com (Professor Jonathan A Smith )
- Frank Baughman Empirical and computational investigations of the relationship between intelligence and development: mental-age matching studies of cognitive variability in the normal range. (Supervisor: Professor Michael Thomas)
- Kalanit Ben-Ari Adult attachment styles, parental marital relationships and romantic relationships. (Supervisor: Professor Jay Belsky)
- Cornelia Bremer 'Differences in lateralised attentional processing patterns as a function of emotion, anxiety and handedness using the dot probe paradigm' (ESRC funded). (Supervisor: Professor Anne Richards)
- Samuel Cheadle Mechanisms of visual binding. (Supervisor: Professor Marius Usher)
- Tessa Dekker Development of cortical organisation for graspable objects. Funded by the EU. (Supervisor: Professor Marty Sereno)
- Sarah Dilks Building bridges to observational perspectives: Mapping processes in psychological therapy in psychosis. (Supervisor: Dr Fiona Tasker)
- Haiko Ballieux Infant object perception and action.( Principal supervisor: Professor Denis Mareschal; second supervisor: Richard Cooper)
- Andreas Aresti My PhD explores reformed male ex-prisoners' experiences of self-change, focusing on 'what it is like to live with the ex-offender status' & how this is negotiated in everyday life, when considering both the negative & positive implications attached to the term. Findings show ex-offender status is a binary phenomenon with a contradictory influence on the reformed offender's sense of self and suggest existing policy can be detrimental to ex-offenders who have genuinely turned their lives around.
Aresti, A., Eatough, V. and Brooks-Gordon, B. (in press). Doing time after time: An interpretative phenomenological analysis of reformed ex-prisoners' experiences of self-change, identity and career opportunities. Psychology, Crime & Law. Contact: a.aresti@bbk.ac.uk (Supervisor Dr Virginia Eatough)
- Nadja Althaus Effects of word learning on infant categorisation.Funded by the EU (Supervisor: Professor Denis Mareschal)
- Caspar Addyman Rule-based category learning in infants.Funded by the EU. ( Supervisor: Professor Denis Mareschal)
- Nadja Althaus: Investigating the role of word learning in category acquisition. (Supervisor: Dr Jennifer Aydelott)
- Tahereh L. Ansari (2006 -2010): The cognitive and neural correlates of attentional control in anxiety (MSc funded by School Studentship; and PhD funded by ESRC studentship). Methodologies: Eye-movements and ERPs. (Supervisor: Dr Naz Derakshan)
- Charlene Coore (2005 -2010 ): Exposure to violence and cognitive biases in Jamaican children (Common-Wealth studentship). Methodologies: Cognitive and Behavioural measures. (Supervisors: Professor Jacqueline Barnes and Dr Naz Derakshan)
- Pari Farzim: Children's accounts of having a parent with mental health problems. Professor Jonathan A Smith
- Sean Hammond (2010): Children's Story Authoring with Propp's Morphology (principal supervisor: Helen Pain, Edinburgh; second supervisor: Dr Tim Smith
- Maria Kakogianni: The development of autonomy among young people with learning disabilities and psychiatric disorders: The impact of gender. (Supervisor: Dr Fiona Tasker)
- Rob Leech (2005): Development of Analogical Reasoning (principal supervisor: Denis Mareschal; second supervisor: Richard Cooper)
- Robert McCandless: Facilitating reflexive abilities in family therapy
- David Pentecost: Psychiatrists' views of ADHD. Professor Jonathan A Smith
- Silvia Rigato: Interaction between emotional facial expression and eye gaze processing in adults and infants. Professor Mark Johnson
- Oliver Robinson: Crisis, development and the self. Professor Jonathan A Smith
- Nicolas Ruh (January 2007): Acquisition and Control of Sequential Routine Activities: Modelling and Empirical Studies (principal supervisor: Richard Cooper; second supervisor: Denis Mareschal)
- Haggay Seri: Jewish parents' perceptions of circumcision. Professor Jonathan A Smith
- Sue Stuart Smith: The personal experience of IVF. Professor Jonathan A Smith
- Susan Wagstaff: Depression and mothering. Professor Jonathan A Smith
