Geography and Environmental Management (PhD / MPhil) - 2012/2013 entry

Research study in geography can take a wide variety of forms across the social and physical sciences dependent on topic, but the common thread is the distinctive perspective, often interdisciplinary, that a geographical approach to research offers. Our students benefit not only from the advisory insight of specialist academics within the department, but also from a wider culture of support and advice from staff and other research students. It is this wide-ranging geographical perspective on a topic that often opens up new and fruitful avenues of work for our researchers.

We see our research students as a central part of our community, who play a key role in the vitality of the wider research process. Students are themselves involved in teaching opportunities, seminars and publications as they progress through these advanced degrees. All of these activities sit in the context of our respected national and international reputation in key areas of geographical research. Those completing our research degrees in the past have often moved on into highly skilled occupations in both the commercial and academic worlds.

Key research interests are: environmental policy, coastal geomorphology and policy, geographical information systems and geographical database development, economic geography, globalisation and development, regional planning, remote sensing, social and urban geography, and hillslope hydrology.

Our research computing laboratory has powerful geographical information system (GIS) software, provides networked PCs and is used for a range of system GIS applications and remote sensing/image processing functions.

• Find out more about the training and support you will get as a research student in our department.

The Department of Geography, Environment and Development Studies's students come from a range of geographic and professional backgrounds, many (but not all) having research interests related to their employment. There are now around 15 research students currently undertaking a PhD or MPhil, some of which are linked to staff research projects, which means students benefit from the research infrastructure built up by the department's major programmes.

The department provides excellent support for students and will do its best to help you suceed at your research. Most part-time research students only come to the department for occasional meetings with their academic supervisors or for research seminars, and those who require computing or physical laboratory equipment can also come in evenings or weekends. 

• Find out more about how to apply for this MPhil/PhD.

• Kezia Barker, MA, MSc, PhD: Environmental policy and biosecurity.
• Joana Barros, MSc, PhD: Computational models of urban systems; Latin American cities; complexity theory; urban planning in developing countries.
• Becky Briant, BA, MSc, PhD: Climate change and river behaviour.
• Susan Brooks, BA, PhD: Geomorphological processes; hydrology; hydrological modelling; soil erosion; soil development; slope stability; Holocene climate change.
• Richard Clarke, BSc, MTech, FLS: Integrated conservation and management planning; protected areas and sociopolitical change; heritage, environment and transition in south-east Europe.
• Rosie Cox, BA, MA, PhD: Social polarisation in London; paid domestic work; food consumption habits; gender and geography.
• Paul Elsner, MMM, MPhil: Remote sensing and GIS techniques used in geomorphological processes.
• Martin Frost, BA, MSc, PhD: Urban and economic geography in Europe and the UK; local economies and labour markets; transport and travel to work.
• Maurizio Gibin, MSc, PhD: GIScience; spatial analysis; geographic data analysis of socio-economic and population data; health geography; geodemographics; methods to deploy geographic information effectively; cartography and analytical design in thematic mapping.
• Jasmine Gideon, MA, PhD: Development geography; Latin America; globalisation and healthcare.
• Diane Horn, BA, MA, DPhil: Coastal geomorphology; experimental geomorphology; modelling coastal processes and sediment transport, especially waves and beaches; coastal policy.
• Professor Andrew Jones, MA, MSc, PhD: Globalisation and transnational firms; social relations of business; global work; economic geography; international voluntary work.
• Professor John Shepherd, BSc(Econ), MSc, PhD, FRICS, FRSA: Urban and regional planning; determinants of land use change.
• Shino Shiode, BA, MEng, MPhil, PhD: Quantitative interpretation of the spatial-temporal changes of urban, criminal and epidemiological phenomena.
• Sian Sullivan, BSc, PhD: Biodiversity, conservation, capitalism and social exclusion; epistemologies of human/non-human relationships; political ecology and social movements; dryland ecology, nomadism and non-equilibrium dynamics.
• Paul Watt, BA, CertEd, MSc, MPhil, PhD: Urban geography and social inequality.
• Karen Wells, BA, MSc, PhD: Cultural and social urban geography, particularly in relation to children and childhood; transnational spaces and identities.

• You can apply throughout the year.