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DRMC Fellows

Staff and post-graduate research students make up a community of DRMC Fellows from a wide range of disciplines.  Fellows meet regularly to share expertise, develop novel research methods and engage in the pedagogy of research methods training.  To support their activities, Fellows have access to small pots of DRMC funding.

Please contact us if you’d like to find out more about becoming a DRMC Fellow.  Staff can apply to be a DRMC Fellow here.  Post-graduate research students can apply to be a DRMC Student Fellow here.

Name Position Research Interests
Dr Nasima Akhter
DRMC Fellow
Assistant Professor (Research) in the Department of Anthropology
  • Health inequality
  • Nutritional assessment, Obesity
  • Evaluation of intervention
  • Bangladeshi Diaspora in the UK
  • Food security and livelihood
Professor Helen L. Ball
DRMC Fellow
Professor in the Department of Anthropology
  • Integration of evolutionary and socio-cultural perspectives on anthropology of infant sleep
  • How parents cope with infant-related sleep distruption
  • Development of sleep patterns and circadian rhythms
  • Human behaviour: parenting, infant care, infant mortality, SIDS, infanticide
  • Behaviour and physiology of infant sleep
  • Midwifery and postnatal care
  • Evolutionary medicine
Dr Ulrik Beierholm
DRMC Fellow
Department Representative, Durham Research Methods Centre
Associate Professor in the Department of Psychology
Associate Professor in the Biophysical Sciences Institute
  • Computational Neuroscience, Perception, Decision Making, Neuroeconomics, Machine Learning
 
Professor Lynda Boothroyd
DRMC Fellow
  • Attraction
  • Body size preferences
  • Evolutionary Social and Developmental Psychology
  • Facial masculinity
  • Father absence theory
  • Body image
 
Dr Alex Brown
DRMC Fellow
Associate Professor (Late Medieval and Early Modern British History) in the Department of History
Member in the Institute of Medieval and Early Modern Studies
  • The economic and social history of pre-industrial England
  • The development of agrarian capitalism
  • Social structure and social mobility
  • Rural and agricultural history
 
     
Professor David S. Byrne
DRMC Fellow
Emeritus Professor in the Department of Sociology
  • Case based methods
  • Complexity theory
  • Postindustrial social structures
  • Privatization of welfare systems
  • Quantitative methods
  • Urban systems
 
Professor Camila Caiado
DRMC Fellow
Professor of Statistics in the Department of Mathematical Sciences
Director of Interdisciplinary Postgraduate Taught Programmes in the Faculty of Science
 
  • Bayesian Statistics
  • Parametric Inference
  • Information Theory
  • Stochastic Processes
Dr Laura Channing

DRMC Fellow

Department Representative, Durham Research Methods Centre

Assistant Professor in Economic History (since 1750) in the Department of History

My research focuses on African economic development in historical perspective, particularly taxation, labour, and living standards. I am currently working on my first monograph, based on my PhD, which examines the relationship between taxation and representation in colonies in West Africa. Other research focuses on household income, labour, and wages in West African port cities and on the role of Africa and Africans in the development of humanitarian organisations.
Dr Cristina Chueca Del Cerro

DRMC Fellow

Postdoctoral Research Associate in the Department of Sociology

 
  • Social simulation
  • Protest mobilisation
  • Social movements
  • Complexity science
  • Network science
  • Social media research
Professor Frank Coolen
DRMC Fellow
  • Decision Theory
  • Imprecise Probability
  • Nonparametric Predictive Inference
  • Operations Research
  • Reliability Theory
  • Statistics
 
Tahani Coolen-Maturi
DRMC Fellow
  • Nonparametric predictive inference
  • Nonparametric statistics
  • Modeling dependence
  • Diagnostic accuracy including ROC analysis
  • Reliability and survival analysis
  • Uncertainty quantification including imprecise probability
 
Dr Helen Cramman
DRMC Fellow
Department Representative, Durham Research Methods Centre
Associate Professor (Research) in the School of Education
  • Understanding and improving teaching and learning in STEM education from the early years to higher education
  • Development of number skills in the early years
  • Educational assessment
  • Education Evaluation
 
Professor Richard Crisp
DRMC Fellow
Professor in the Department of Psychology
Richard’s research covers the full range of topics that comprise social psychology, from stereotyping to social influence, from attitudes to attraction. 
Dr Caroline Dodd-Reynolds
DRMC Fellow
Department Representative, Durham Research Methods Centre
Director of Education, Associate Professor in the Department of Sport and Exercise Sciences
  • Community-based physical activity and inequalities
  • Novel methods to explore physical activity and inequalities
Mr Paul Finley
DRMC Fellow
Department Representative, Durham Research Methods Centre
Digital Learning Advisor in the Durham Centre for Academic Development (DCAD)
Member of the Foundation Centre
College Mentor of St Mary's College
Paul has special interests in developing the usage of learning technologies especially how statistics and statistical software can be used in teaching, learning and research.
Dr Samuel Forbes
DRMC Fellow
Associate Professor in the Department of Psychology
  • Infant development
  • Early word learning
  • Developmental cognitive neuroscience
Professor John Paul Gosling
DRMC Fellow
Associate Fellow in the Institute of Advanced Study
Affiliate of the Durham Biostatistics Unit

John Paul is an applied statistician who has experience of developing and applying novel statistical methods over a number of disparate areas including the reduction of animal testing, climate change, and criminal sentencing. As an applied statistician, his research work is often done in interdisciplinary teams, and he has collaborated with criminologists, engineers, environmental scientists amongst others. He has also worked outside of academia in both the civil service and the flood risk industry.

His two principal areas of research are:

  • expert knowledge elicitation, which aims at capturing knowledge in a repeatable and robust manner for use in quantitative models,
  • uncertainty quantification for complex models, which aims at understanding the uncertainty in results coming from computer-based models that are expensive to run.
Professor Rosalie Hall
DRMC Fellow
Department Representative, Durham Research Methods Centre
Professor of Management in the Business School
  • Leadership perceptions
  • Work socialisation
  • Applications of structural equation modelling and related techniques in quantitative management
 
Professor Steve Higgins
DRMC Fellow
Emeritus Professor in the School of Education
  • Classroom Interaction and Discourse in Primary Schools
  • Digital technologies and Learning
  • Meta-analysis and Research Evidence in Education
 
Karen Jones
DRMC Fellow
Senior Evaluation and Monitoring Manager in the SASD: Student Recruitment & Admissions
  • Assessment
  • School inspections and accountability
  • Value added and school effectiveness
  • Quasi-experimental designs
  • Secondary data analysis
 
Dr Jeremy Kendal
DRMC Fellow
Associate Professor in the Department of Anthropology
Associate Fellow in the Institute of Advanced Study
  • Social transmission and population dynamics
Dr Dimitra Kokotsaki
DRMC Fellow
Department Representative, Durham Research Methods Centre
Associate Professor in the School of Education
  • Creativity
  • Music Education
  • Teacher Education
  • Pupil Engagement
 
Professor Patrick M Kuhn
DRMC Fellow
Department Representative, Durham Research Methods Centre
Professor in Comparative Politics in the School of Government and International Affairs
  • Comparative Politics
  • Comparative Political Economy of Development and Conflict
  • Econometrics
  • Formal Theory
 
Ms Andrea Lambell
DRMC Fellow
Post Doctoral Research Associate in the Department of Anthropology
  • Complementary therapies
  • Neurodegenerative conditions
  • Palliative care
  • Participatory action research
Dr Zhiyu Li
DRMC Fellow
Department Representative, Durham Research Methods Centre
Associate Professor in Chinese Law in the Durham Law School
  • Chinese Law and Society
  • Comparative Law
  • Legislation and Statutory Interpretation
  • Administrative Law
  • Law and Policy
 
James Liley
DRMC Fellow
Assistant Professor (Research) of Biostatistics in the Department of Mathematical Sciences
  • Predictive modelling
  • Model updating
  • High-dimensional methods
  • General research methodology
Professor Jonathan Long
DRMC Fellow
  • Literary theory
  • Photography in the Weimar Republic
  • Theory of photography and visual culture
  • Twentieth-century German literature
  • Writers and photography
Victoria Menzies
DRMC Fellow
Assistant Professor in the School of Education

The projects I lead use randomised controlled trial methodology with an associated implementation and process evaluation (IPE) for the programme. The IPE often integrates qualitative and quantitative research methods using interviews, focus groups and surveys to gather stakeholder feedback and data on how well the programme has been implemented.  I also have some experience in conducting systematic reviews, and intervention programme development for implementation at scale. I have a background in psychology and psychology research methods and have developed many different survey instruments as part of different projects as well as conducting research in many different educational settings.

Research Interests:

  • Educational Evaluation
  • Experimental Methodology
  • Pilot Trials
  • Development and Evaluation of Mathematical Interventions
Dr Andrew R Millard
DRMC Fellow
Department Representative, Durham Research Methods Centre
  • Bayesian statistical methods in archaeology, including dating, isotope analysis and predictive modelling
  • Developing new approaches to Bayesian chronology building for application to any dating methods
  • Statistics in human osteology, including age estimation
  • Chemical and biochemical methods in archaeology
  • Elemental and isotopic analysis of bones and teeth to investigate diet and migration, including weaning
  • Bone diagenesis
  • Chronology of hominid evolution
 
Dr Adrian Millican
DRMC Fellow
Associate Professor of Comparative Political Science in the School of Government and International Affairs
Deputy Executive Dean, Education and Student Experience in the Faculty of Social Sciences and Health
  • British Politics
  • Comparative Political Participation
  • Electoral Participation
  • Quantitative Methods
  • Social Media
 
Professor Catherine Montgomery
 
DRMC Fellow
Professor in the School of Education
Deputy Executive Dean (Global) for the Faculty of Social Sciences and Health

 
  • Catherine’s research focuses on internationalisation of higher education and she has a particular interest in transnational higher education in China and East Asia.
  • Catherine’s recent work focuses particularly on mobilities and immobilities in international higher education and the internationalisation of curriculum and knowledge.
  • Catherine is also interested in flows of international students and what these can tell us about the changing landscapes of global higher education.
 
Dr Philip Nathan
DRMC Fellow
Associate Professor & Head of MA Programmes in the Durham Centre for Academic Development (DCAD)
  • Research Writing
  • Genre Studies
  • Corpus Linguistics
  • Teaching and Learning Research (especially in relation to the teaching of writing and 1:1 consultations and conferences)
  • Student Writing Across the Disciplines 
Dr Thuy-vy Nguyen
DRMC Fellow
  • Solitude
  • Self-regulation
  • Motivation
  • Well-being
 
Dr Andrew Orton
DRMC Fellow
Department Representative, Durham Research Methods Centre
Associate Professor in the Department of Sociology
  • Andrew's research interests focus on issues of faith, dialogue and diversity in professional practice, with a particular interest in how practitioners and others decide what is 'good practice' within related work.
  • His work is often interdisciplinary in nature, including particular collaborations with practical theology to explore forms of Christian community and youth work.
  • He is also interested in a range of related issues, including professional community work practice, community and voluntary organisation management, and social exclusion, especially in relation to public policy and faith-based social action in these field
  • Whether working with practitioners, policy-makers, or others, Andrew's research builds in impact from the outset by actively involving people within the research process.
 
Professor Marcus Power
DRMC Fellow
Department Representative, Durham Research Methods Centre
Professor in the Department of Geography
  • Critical geographies and genealogies of (post)development
  • Energy geographies and low carbon transitions
  • Post-colonialism, Portugal and Lusophone Africa
  • Post-socialist transformations in Southern Africa
  • China-Africa engagement
  • Vision, visuality and 'popular' geopolitics
 
Professor Deborah Riby
DRMC Fellow
Professor in the Department of Psychology
Associate Pro-Vice Chancellor for Postgraduate Research Students
  • I am a developmental psychologist interested in typical development and developmental disorders.
  • My research predominantly focuses on syndrome-specific signatures of typical / atypical development in neurodevelopmental disorders. My primary research area is social perception and social cognition in Williams syndrome (WS) and Autism (ASD). Within this area I have used a variety of eye tracking and innovative experimental tasks to explore areas of relative proficiency or deficit (exploring syndrome-specific signatures or cross-syndrome overlaps and having theoretical implications). I have used face perception and the interpretion of social cues from faces as a method of exploring communication strategies and social behaviours / tendancies associated with these disorders. I have more recently become interested in issues of social vulnerability associated with Williams syndrome - such as increased approach to unfamiliar people and awareness of stranger danger. Therefore the work that I conduct has both theoretical and applied relevance.
  • Linking to the above area of interest I am focusing on the links between social behaviours and other facets of these neurodevelopmental disorders, such as anxiety, sensory processing and executive functions. A large focus of my recent research has also been on supporting families of individuals with WS, especially in relation to anxiety.
  • Linking the two aforementioned areas of research activity I am particularly interested in understanding the needs of the 'whole' individual and how we need to encompass areas of cognition, behaviour and psychopathology in developing theory, but also in providing support and interventions for individuals with these disorders of development. Understanding the 'whole' also extends to understanding the family system.
 
Dr Nikki Rutter
DRMC Fellow
Assistant Professor in the Department of Sociology
  • Parent-carer well-being
  • Child-parent violence
  • Neurodivergence
  • Participatory research methodologies
Dr Akansha Singh
DRMC Fellow
Assistant Professor (Research) in the Department of Anthropology
  • Mathematical Demography
  • Public Health Statistics
  • Social Statistics
  • Survey and RCT Data Analysis
 
Professor Brett Smith
DRMC Fellow
Director of Research, Professor of Disability and Physical Activity in the Department of Sport and Exercise Sciences
  • Brett’s extensively funded research focuses on disability, physical activity, sport, and health. It combines thinking from psychology, sociology, public health, and critical disability studies.
  • Brett is also internationally recognised as a methodologist in qualitative research. He has a particular interest in narrative inquiry, rigor, and arts-based research. Brett is the co-founder and President of the International Society of Qualitative Research in Sport and Exercise. He is also the founder and former Editor of Qualitative Research in Sport, Exercise and Health
 
Dr Alice Stefanelli
DRMC Fellow
Assistant Professor in the Department of Anthropology
  • Civil society and participation
  • Expertise
  • Heritage
  • Intersection between anthropology and architecture
  • Mobility and infrastructure
  • Space, place and time
  • The state
  • Urban governance
Dr Edward (Jed) Stevenson
DRMC Fellow
Associate Professor in the Department of Anthropology
Chaplain (Quaker) in the Chaplains
  • Child development
  • Hunger and thirst
  • Mixed methods and epistemologies
  • Socio-ecological change
  • Social inequality
  • Ethiopia
  • Horn of Africa
 
Dr Sally Street
DRMC Fellow
Department Representative, Durham Research Methods Centre
Assistant Professor in the Department of Anthropology
  • Macro-evolutionary anthropology
  • Phylogenetic comparative methods
  • Technical skill: music, tool use, construction
  • Human/animal interactions
 
Professor Carolyn Summerbell
DRMC Fellow
Professor of Nutrition in the Department of Sport and Exercise Sciences,
Theme 3 (improved food consumption and health) Lead for Durham University for the N8 AgriFood research programme.
Durham University Lead for 2 of the 7 research programmes (Prevention; Children) of the NIHR (National Institute for Health Research) funded ARC NENC (Applied Research Collaboration for the North East and North Cumbria)
Deputy Director of Fuse, the NIHR funded Centre for Translational Research in Public Health which is a member of the School for Public Health Research (SPHR)
Member of the Cochrane Collaboration.
  • Systematic reviewing and meta-analysis
  • Randomised controlled trials
  • Evaluation of complex interventions
  • Natural experiments
  • System science
  • Implementation science
  • Public involvement and engagement in research
  • Ethical issues associated with the use of secondary data
  • Food, physical activity, obesity, inequalities and public health.
Mr Nicholas Syrotiuk
DRMC Fellow
Research Data Manager in the University Library and Collections
  • Data management
  • Data citation
  • Indexing
  • Bibliographic control
  • Authority control
 
Professor Jonathan Tummons
  • Actor-Network Theory
  • Communities of Practice
  • Further, Higher and Adult Education
  • Modes of Existence
  • Professional learning and development
Professor Peter Tymms
DRMC Fellow
Emeritus Professor in the School of Education
  • Monitoring
  • Assessment & testing
  • Educational standards
  • Primary schools
  • ADHD
 
Mrs Germaine Uwimpuhwe
DRMC Fellow
Statistical Officer in the Department of Mathematical Sciences
 
Professor Nick Vivyan
DRMC Fellow
  • British Politics
  • Legislative Politics
  • Political Economy
  • Public Opinion and Elections
  • Quantitative Methods
 
Dr Janelle Wagnild
DRMC Fellow
Assistant Professor (Research) in the Department of Anthropology
  • Advanced quantitative methods
  • Sedentary time
  • Physical activity
  • Pregnancy
  • Gestational diabetes
  • Medical anthropology
  • Evolutionary medicine
  • Human reproductive ecology
  • Evolutionary biology
 
Dr Jia Wang
DRMC Fellow
Associate Professor in the Durham Law School
  • Artificial Intelligence
  • IP and Creative Industries
  • IP and Sustainability
  • Intellectual property law
  • Law and technology
Dr Mario Weick
DRMC Fellow
Professor in the Department of Psychology

Much of my basic research focuses on social hiearchies - how hierarchical relations are formed, and how being at the top or at the bottom of a hierarchy impacts people's thoughts, feelings and actions. On the more applied end, I help organisations and stakeholders make use of behavioural insights to tackle the challenges that they face.

The word cloud below illustrates some of the topics I have been working on. I welcome expressions of interest from prospective students, researchers, and organisations wishing to work with me on these and related topics.

 
Dr Sarah Wieten
DRMC Fellow
Assistant Professor / Delta Co-ordinator in the Department of Philosophy
  • Philosophy of Medicine
  • Philosophy of Epidemiology
  • Philosophy of Economics
  • Philosophy of Science
  • History of Science
  • Meta-Research
  • Bioethics
  • Clinical Bioethics