PhD students

I am an experienced supervisor of PhDs, and have with worked with approaching 50 PhD students as supervisor, external examiner, internal examiner/ independent chair. Below you can see some information about each of these roles.

My supervisory interests broadly cover popular music, cultural and media studies, cultural politics, and include practice-based research. You can get a sense of my specific interests by looking at my publications and projects elsewhere on this website. Do get in touch with serious ideas.

Current PhD students

• Robbie McDermott (2016-) Music and Disability: A Critical Investigation into Popular Musicians with Limbs and/or Digits Which are Absent.
• Sarah Sharp (2019-) Mental Ill-Health in the Popular Music Industry.
• Kate Cooper (2019-) We Wear The Trousers: Generational Attitudes to the Clothing Life Cycle.
• Philipp Schmickl (2020-) The Improvisation of Resilience: Global Networks and Local Practices of a Jazz Festival at the Borders (external advisor, University of Music and Performing Arts, Graz candidate).

Completions, and a glimpse of their careers

• Nahid Bashatah (Salford, 2017). Framing Analysis of British Newspaper Representation of Saudi Women from 2005-2013. Dr Bashatah is a well-known journalist and author working on and in the Saudi media world.
• Harvey Igben (Salford, 2016). Public Relations and Peace Negotiations in the Niger Delta. Dr Igben works in the Department of Mass Communication at Delta State University, Nigeria.
• Annabelle Waller (Salford, 2015). Meta-TV in Practice: A Study of the Re-Use of Television Texts Within Contemporary Television Programmes (PhD by Published Work: portfolio of reality television programmes as director / producer. Staff candidate). Dr Waller is Director of Broadcast Media at University of Salford.
• Nick Katuszonek (Salford, 2014). Jazz, Pop, Improvisation, and the Role of the Contemporary Musician. Dr Katuszonek is an improvising drummer who has performed across the UK and Europe for the past 15 years. He is a Senior Lecturer in Drumkit at Leeds College of Music, and has been Visiting Lecturer at Stavanger Conservatoire.
• Lloyd Peters (Salford, 2014). Media Practice and New Approaches to Mise-en-Scène and Auteur Theory in Broadcast Radio (PhD by Published Work: portfolio of BBC Radio 4 plays as author + critical thesis. Staff candidate). Dr Peters is Senior Lecturer in Media and Performance at Salford.
• Deborah Gabriel (Salford, 2014). Blogging While Black and British: An Exploratory Study on the Use of Blogs as Social, Cultural and Counterhegemonic Practice. Dr Gabriel is founder of Black British Academics. She joined the Media School at Bournemouth University in 2014. She is co-editor of Inside the Ivory Tower: Narratives of Women of Colour Surviving and Thriving Inside British Academia (2017). In 2020 Dr Gabriel was a keynote speaker at the annual MeCCSA conference.
• Tom Sykes (Salford, 2014). Jazz for the iPod Generation: Digital Media and Jazz in the UK. Dr Sykes is Lecturer in Music at City of Liverpool College, where he leads the BA Popular Music degree. He is also a violinist and piano player.
• Everette Ndlovu (Salford, 2014). The Role of Diasporean Media in Facilitating Citizen Journalism and Political Awareness in Zimbabwe. Dr Ndlovu currently teaches media theory and production in several Manchester Further and Higher Education institutions.
• Mary Oliver (Salford, 2013). The Digital Performer: Performance, Technology, and New Performance Paradigms (PhD by Published Work: portfolio of live performances as performer + critical thesis. Staff candidate). Dr Oliver was Reader in Performance at Salford, and took up a new Chair as Head of Media at Manchester Metropolitan University shortly after her PhD viva. Now Professor Oliver is Dean of Media and Performance at the Arts University in Bournemouth.
• Ira Yusof (Salford, 2013). The English Premier League in Malaysia: The Symbiotic Relationship Between the Media Industry and Football Fandom. Dr Yusof is a Lecturer in Media at Universiti Teknologi MARA, Malaysia.
• Jack Harbord (Salford, 2012). The Minstrelising Discourse of 21st Century Rap Music (MPhil target award). Dr Harbord is Senior Lecturer in Postgraduate Studies at Leeds College of Music, and recently completed a PhD at Salford developing his MPhil work, Representations of Blackface and Minstrelsy in 21st Century Popular Culture, which I co-supervised the early stages of prior to leaving Salford.
• Shara Rambarran (Salford, 2011). Innovations in Contemporary Popular Music and Digital Media, and Reconstructions of the Music Industry in the 21^st Century. Dr Rambarran is currently Visiting Fellow, teaching popular music, culture and theory, at Queen’s University Canada’s UK campus, the Bader International Study Centre, Sussex. She is editor of Journal of the Art of Record Production, and co-editor of the collection Handbook of Music and Virtuality (Oxford University Press, 2015). This candidate, as well as Drs Smith, Spelman, and Peter below, I took over during the later stages of their PhDs when previous supervisors left Salford.
• Nicola Smith (Salford, 2010). Performing Fandom on the British Northern Soul Scene: Competition, Identity and the Post-subcultural Self. Dr Smith went on to be a Lecturer in Sociology and Popular Culture at Cardiff Metropolitan University.
• Nicola Spelman (Salford, 2009). All the Madmen: Anti-Psychiatry, Popular Music and the Myths of Madness. Dr Spelman is Senior Lecturer in Popular Music at Salford. As well as publishing a book drawing on her doctoral thesis (right), she has co-edited The Arena Concert: Music, Media and Mass Entertainment (2015) and Resonances: Noise and Contemporary Music (2013).
• Beate Peter (Salford, 2009). Jung on the Dancefloor: The Phenomenology of Clubbing. Dr Peter is now a Lecturer in the Institute for Performance Research at Manchester Metropolitan University.
• Diane Fare (UCLan, 2002). The Edges of the Unsaid: Transgressive Practices in the Fiction of Kathy Acker. Dr Fare went on to be a Temporary Lecturer in English and American Studies at UCLan.
  

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External examinerships

I have acted as external examiner for PhD and research degree candidates, as follows.

• 2019: American Studies, Nottingham University, on Hendrix, race, categorisation (MRes)
• 2018: Music, King’s College, London, on 1950s British jazz and Ottilie Patterson.
• 2017:  Literature, King’s College, University of London, on theory, ‘race’ and jazz (re-examination).
• 2016:  Media Studies, UCLan, on underground press and poetry (MRes).
• 2016:  Sociology/Media, King’s College, University of London, on politics of art activism.
• 2016:  Media Practice, Plymouth University, on participatory film-making, and practice.
• 2015:  Literature, King’s College, University of London, on theory, ‘race’ and jazz.
• 2014:  Music, Durham University, on jazz composer and bandleader Mike Westbrook.
• 2013:  Media Studies, University of West of England, on activist documentaries of 21^st century.
• 2013:  American and Canadian Studies, Nottingham University, on US counterculture.
• 2012:  Music, Leeds University, on Burning Man and festival culture.
• 2009: American and Canadian Studies, Nottingham University, on American jazz and racial discourse.
• 2008:  Sociology, University of Cardiff, on US counterculture and alternative media.
• 2004:  Media Studies, University of Sussex, on Viv Stanshall and popular music constructions of English eccentricity.
• 2004:  American and Canadian Studies, Nottingham University, on jazz in 1950s British film.
• 2002:  Sociology, Monash University, Australia, on protest culture in contemporary Britain.
• 2000:  American and Canadian Studies, Nottingham University, on monochrome media and advertising.
• 1998:  Media Studies, Napier University, on alternative media in contemporary Britain.
• 1998:  Sociology, Bristol University, on new travellers and the impact of the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act, 1994.
  

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PhD internal examinerships/independent chairs

• 2016:  Media (UEA)
• 2015:  Media (UEA)
• 2013:  Art and Design (and all below, Salford)
• 2012:  Computing
• 2011:  Computing
• 2011: Nursing
• 2009:  Creative Technology
• 2009:  Built and Human Environment (2)
• 2007:  Popular Music.