Annabel Howell
'Evaluating Affordances of Digital technologies to manage socially distanced, death-related practice. Learning From COVID and shaping future practice'
Annabel trained as a medic in Paediatric Intensive Care, GP and adult palliative care before becoming Medical Director of Children's Hospices Across Scotland -CHAS. She was palliative care lead and associate medical director (AMD) for an acute hospital and AMD for clinical governance for the health board during Covid. Unfortunately, she acquired Covid in the first few weeks of the pandemic and subsequently had Long Covid. As a reflector and in response to facing her own potential death, she completed her Masters in Creative Writing at Hull University earlier this year. This process was key to her recovery.
Her doctoral thesis looks at the time of the pandemic, when she and many other clinicians were providing end of life care supporting socially distanced goodbyes and grief. Her experience as an AMD in clinical governance, overseeing complaints, highlighted the impact of poor deaths on those left behind. Having lost both parents, a friend in the Lockerbie disaster and other good friends to illness and suicide, she wants a positive to come out of the pandemic, learning to truly co-design with the bereaved, future digital technology support that empowers and enables those who are bereaved, including bereavement service providers.
Supervisors: Bell, McCahill and Westoby
Saira Mian
‘Place, Death and Inequalities’
Saira has a master’s degree in Sociology from the University of Copenhagen (2007). She has worked extensively on gender and labour issues in global value chains and in the area of UN Sustainable Development and UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights in both private and public sectors in Pakistan and Denmark.
Having spent her childhood, adolescence, and adulthood in three different continents, Saira has a keen, personal interest in migration and ageing studies. Her academic research is rooted in the experiences of older Muslim migrants in Europe and cuts across disciplines of sociology, social work and elder care policy and practice. Her research interests include intergenerational relations, transnational ties, elder care, end-of-life and death rituals of ethnic minority, Muslim migrants in Europe.
Her doctoral research furthers her master’s thesis on elder care and Intergenerational care-giving relations and explores how changing family patterns, social and economic disparities and in particular, covid-19 disease and safety measures have impacted the health and mental wellbeing of aged ethnic minorities in Europe.
Her research goal is to present systematic, disaggregated data on ethnic minorities in Europe and to position intersectionality as a tool for gauging health inequalities in minority elder care policy and practice.
Supervisors: Robson, Jonas and Likupe
Sarah Kearsley
‘Dealing with death under social distancing’
Sarah is a postgraduate researcher with a background in education. In her professional practice, Sarah has taught Health and Social Care within the secondary and further education sectors, as well as working in pastoral support roles within secondary education.
Sarah has an MA in Education (University of Hull), a BA (hons) in Education and Learning (University of Hull), and a Certificate in Education (University of Huddersfield).
Academically, Sarah has interests in sociological perspectives, teaching and learning, and social inequality. Her research focuses on qualitative, human lived experiences. For her BA (hons), Sarah researched staff perceptions of bereavement support for further education students. This was inspired by the work of Shirley Potts, on the capacity of primary school teachers to support bereaved children in their care. For her Master’s degree, Sarah investigated the impact of school toilet policies on the health and well-being of secondary school students. This was borne out of her personal experience of having a bladder disease (interstitial cystitis), alongside concerns arising from teaching practice.
For her PhD research project, Sarah is enthusiastic to be returning to the topic of bereavement. Her research aim for the project is to provide an insight into the lives of the invisible ‘key workers’ working within healthcare throughout the pandemic. From this, it is hoped that these essential workers can be empowered and can be supported effectively following the distress ignited by the pandemic.
Supervisors: Walker, Johnson and Bravington
Lucyl Harrison
'Language in Corona times'
Lucyl Harrison (she/her) has a master's degree in English from the University of Hull (2019). She enjoys a wide range of literary interests spanning literature, theatre, and visual culture with a particular focus on creativity, intertextuality and interdiscursivity.
Her primary area of research interest during her postgraduate studies included Isabella Whitney and Shakespeare alongside other topics including the Gothic and Victorian theatre, techniques of imitation and the concept of genre. Her master’s thesis focused on women of the 'middling sort' in the Early Modern complaint.
Borne out of her experiences as a young adult carer and her background in education and outreach, Lucyl’s personal interest with social inclusion and fair access spur her passions for impact and public engagement. She has taught English in schools, colleges, and Adult Education and has worked on outreach programmes with vulnerable communities in the UK and India, particularly working with women and children/youth.
Her research aim for the ‘Language in Corona times’ research project is to explore how COVID-19 writers have created new, original texts to deploy their socio-economic commentaries and idiosyncratic experiences of loss and grief. Lucyl is adopting intersectionality as a critical lens to the COVID-19 pandemic as a way of understanding differences in lived experiences and the multiple, intersecting forms of oppression and inequality in the twenty-first century.
Please see The Conversation article on '5 books about the Covid pandemic to look out for in 2024': https://theconversation.com/five-books-about-the-covid-pandemic-to-look-out-for-in-2024-221183
Supervisors: Wynne, Jones and Hunter
Ryan Clarke
‘Learning from historical disease pandemics about strategies for memorialising remote death’
Ryan Clarke is a keen teacher, historian, and PhD researcher with a particular academic interest in Public History, Military and Social History, and Memory Studies.
Ryan has a BA (hons) degree in Theology and Ethics with History (Bishop Grosseteste University, 2017), an MA in Public History and Heritage (University of Derby, 2021) and a PGCE in Secondary Education (Nottingham Trent University, 2018). His academic research has largely centred around Public History and remembrance of conflict. His recent MA thesis: ‘A Century of Commemoration: Public History and Remembrance of the First World War’ focussed on the effects and legacy of remote death resulting from WWI. Part of his Masters thesis included researching the de-facto memorialisation of the Spanish Flu pandemic which occurred concurrently with the latter stages of the war.
In his professional practice, Ryan has spent three years working in the education sector as a teacher of History and Religious Education. During this time, he has supervised relevant History and RE modules at both GCSE and A Level. Since 2014, he has been a voluntary member and advisor on the Mansfield Woodhouse Remembrance Planning Committee. In this role, he has taken the lead in organising remembrance events to commemorate those killed in conflict and dealing with the multiplicity of matters resulting from remote death. Furthermore, for over seven years he has also served as a Special Constable (volunteer police officer). Ryan looks forward to combining his academic experience and professional practice to make a valuable contribution to the scholarly development of this important research on learning from pandemics of the past.
Supervisors: Spicksley, Evans and Robson