
Current PhD students
We are home to many postgraduate research students working on a wide range of sustainability-related research projects.
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Zarina Ahmad
Zarina will work with Sherilyn, Nafhesa and Catherine on the Leverhulme sponsored project on Environmental Sustainability in Immigrant Households. Zarina was listed at Number 18 in the Women’s Hour Power List in 2020 for her work on increasing participation in environmentalism in Scotland.
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John Andrews
John is a doctoral researcher at Alliance Manchester Business School working on sustainable food system transitions, with a focus on veganism and 'alternative proteins'. He is particularly interested in the intersection of sustainability transitions and social movement studies.
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Soham Banerjee
Soham is a PhD student in Politics at The University of Manchester, where he currently investigates the spatial politics of international climate finance. More specifically, he is interested in understanding the extent of partisan alignment in distribution and allocation of international climate funds in India and its impact on the overall climate policy narrative in the country. His broader research interests include politics of climate change, climate finance, climate negotiations and Indian politics.
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Chantal V. Bright
PhD candidate in Human Geography. Research entitled “Water Security, Peace and Fragility in Liberia: An African Ecofeminist Approach”. Supervised by Dr Alison Browne (Primary), Dr Jonathan Huck and Dr Laura Mcleod. MA, University of Pennsylvania in Environmental Management and BA, Seton Hall University in English Literature and Political Science (Dual Course).
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Caroline Cornier
Caroline Cornier is a doctoral researcher at the Global Development Institute of the University of Manchester. Her research is located at the intersection of Global Political Economy and Postcolonial Theory focusing on economic, political and financial North-South relations. Her doctoral thesis concerns the unsustainable intersection of commodity dependence and financial subordination in the West African Cocoa Sector.
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Anowyesha Dash
Anowyesha is a PhD researcher associated with Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research and Sustainable Consumption Institute. Her research explores a circular business model framework for the seafood sector in India. This follows on from her research study on coastal marine fishing communities in Odisha (India) wherein she conducted a challenges-mapping exercise for institutional strengthening and livelihood development. Through her research, Anowyesha aims to identify innovative business models for micro and small enterprise development for socio-economic wellbeing in the Global South.
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Yeqi Jin
Yeqi is a first-year PhD candidate in the Department of Politics. Her research focuses on the influence of international bureaucrats on the climate policies of intergovernmental organisations.
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Guyeon Kang
Guyeon is a PhD researcher in Sociology, affiliated with the Sustainable Consumption Institute. Working closely with Dr. Daniel Welch and Dr. Luke Yates, she is here to understand the roles of culinary intermediary organisations in the transition towards environmental sustainability in the eating out trade. Along with this, ‘the changing practice of ethical consumption’ is another project she takes care of with her supervisory team.
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Paul Anthony Knowles
Paul Anthony Knowles is a PhD student in the English and American Studies department and his research is focused on the short story and ecocriticism. He is concerned with how literature can expose the anthropocentric violence inflicted on the past, present, and future of a landscape and his research promotes an ecocentric reconceptualization of human relationships with the more-than-human world.
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Anna-Maria Köhnke
Anna-Maria completed both her MA in Political Economy (Research Route) and her BA (Hons) in PPE at the University of Manchester.
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Wangshu Liu
WangShu is a PhD student in the Sociology Department, supervised by Luke Yates and Dan Welch, examining how consumer boycotts transition from intentional resistance to everyday routines.
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Dongyang Mi
Dongyang is a President's Doctoral Researcher at The University of Manchester. He is completing the PhD research project examining sustainable transitions of practices, infrastructures, and dynamic socio-material patterns of cleanliness, hygiene and sanitation across Chinese cities.
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Topo Mokokwane
Topo is a PhD candidate in the Sociology department. His research explores sustainability and environmental crises through the lens of language, particularly its role in constructing worldview and its deeply intimate relation with the material environment.
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Teodora Noszkay
Teodora is a PhD candidate in English Literature, supervised by Dr. Anke Bernau and Dr. Robert Spencer. Her research examines how aesthetic representations of vegetal matter provide imagined modes of resistance to the conscription of plants and people in processes of capital accumulation.
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Leilai Immel-Parkinson
Leilai is a PhD student in The Tyndall Centre supervised by Alison Browne, examining future water demand challenges in England in collaboration with Northumbrian Water.
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Tanya Solovey
Tanya is a PhD student in Sociology supervised by Helen Holmes, working on the ‘affective aspects of upcycling of post-consumer textiles’.
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Pawan Kumar Srikanth
Pawan Kumar Srikanth joined AMBS and the SCI as a fully funded PhD student in January 2022 researching pathways to circulating critical metals. He holds an M.E. in Environmental Engineering and a B.E. in Civil Engineering.
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Abhirami Sumam
Abhirami is a fully funded (by The University of Manchester School of Social Sciences) PhD student at the Department of Sociology, supervised by Dr. Richie Nimmo. She is working on the socio-ecological crisis in Indian agriculture by specifically looking at alternate farming practices adopted by the spice farmers of Kallar Pattom, a village in Kerala’s Idukki district which is closer to the neighbouring state of Tamil Nadu.
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Alice Swift
Alice Swift is undertaking a PhD in Sociology at the University of Manchester’s School of Social Sciences funded by the Economic and Social Research Council.
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Samuel Toscano
Sam's current research focuses on how sustainability communications influence the ways that consumers imagine climate action.
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Heather Urquhart
Heather Urquhart began her PhD with the University of Manchester in September 2021 after completing a MRes in Human Geography at the University of Glasgow and a BA (Hons) In Human Geography at Durham University.
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Stanley Wilshire
Stanley is a political economist and PhD student interested in the relationships between the political, economic and technical challenges involved in driving rapid and just transitions within capitalist societies.
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Linqing Xia
Linqing Xia is a Sociology PhD student under the supervision of Dr. Daniel Welch and Alison Browne. Her doctoral research mainly focuses on the teleoaffective formations of sustainable consumption in relation to China’s postmodern consumer culture.
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Mingwei Zhang
Mingwei is undertaking a PhD programme in Science, Technology & Innovation Policy, fully funded by the Alliance Manchester Business School.
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Yixiao Zhang
Yixiao is a PhD student in the Department of Politics supervised by Dr Paul Tobin and Professor Matthew Paterson, examining global climate governance and US-China climate leadership.