PhD students

I am an experienced supervisor of PhDs, and have with worked with around 60 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 and portfolio / publications submissions. You can get a sense of my specific interests by looking at my publications and projects elsewhere on the website. Do get in touch with serious and relevant ideas.

Current PhD students

• Sarah Sharp (2019-) Mental Ill-Health in the Popular Music Industry.
• Kate Harper (2019-) Reduce, Repair, Reuse, Rewear: Human-Scale Fashion Communities. Transferred to NUA 2023.
• 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).
• Chris Spinks (2021-) Popular Musicians, Social Change and the Politics of the Past in the UK Post-Punk Era, 1978-86.
• Rachel Trevor (2022-) Punks and Class in the UK, 1977-87. (MA by Research candidate). Intercalating.
• Asa Williams (2022-). Rimbaud as Rockstar, Rebel, Saint and Pop Icon: The Influence of Rimbaud upon Counterculture Songwriting and Poetry. Transferred 2023.

Completions, and a glimpse of their careers

• Robbie McDermott (UEA, 2023). Music and Disability: A Critical Investigation into Popular Musicians with Limbs and/or Digits Which are Absent. 
• 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. Along with Drs Alamoudy and Igben below, I supervised the majority of Dr Bashatah’s PhD, although I left Salford during their final stages.
• Saeed Alamoudy (Salford, 2017). Urban Transformation Through Creativity: Applying the Creative City Concept to Makkah. Dr Alamoudy is now Assistant Professor in Media at the Islamic University in Madinah, Saudi Arabia. 
• 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). Today Dr Waller is Head of the School of Media and Performing Arts at Coventry University.
• Nick Katuszonek (Salford, 2014). Jazz, Pop, Improvisation, and the Role of the Contemporary Musician. (PhD by Portfolio: a set of new original music recordings and associated critical text.) Dr Katuszonek is an improvising drummer who has performed across the UK and Europe for the past two decades. He is Principal Lecturer in Popular Music at Leeds Conservatoire, 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 today an Honorary Senior Lecturer in the School of Arts and Media 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. Among her books, 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 Performance at Liverpool Hope University. He is also a  jazz violinist and piano player, as well as leader of St Helens Sinfonietta.
• Everette Ndlovu (Salford, 2014). The Role of Diasporean Media in Facilitating Citizen Journalism and Political Awareness in Zimbabwe. Dr Ndlovu is currently a lecturer in media at York St John Unversity.
• 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 went on to be Head of Media at Manchester Metropolitan University, then Professor and Dean of Media and Arts at Bournemouth University of the Arts. Now Prof Oliver is Vice Principal (Academic) of Rose Bruford College.
• 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 a Senior Lecturer at Leeds Conservatoire, 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 Assistant Professor of Music at Queen’s University Canada’s UK campus, the Bader International Study Centre, Sussex. She is author of Virtual Music: Sound, Music, and Image in the Digital Era (Bloomsbury, 2021), 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 Watchman Smith is currently Head of Teaching Excellence awards at Advance HE. She is co-author of The Northern Soul Scene (Equinox, 2020).
• Nicola Spelman (Salford, 2009). All the Madmen: Anti-Psychiatry, Popular Music and the Myths of Madness. Dr Spelman is Senior Lecturer in 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 today Senior Lecturer in German at Manchester Metropolitan University, where she is also Director of Music and Sonic Studies.
• Diane Fare (UCLan, 2002). The Edges of the Unsaid: Transgressive Practices in the Fiction of Kathy Acker. Dr Fare is today the Audience Development Officer (Outreach) for Brontë Parsonage Museum, in Haworth, Yorkshire.
  

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External examinerships

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

• 2024: Creative Media Practice, Monash University, Australia, on street music.
• 2023: Music, UCLan, on composition and improvisation in practice.  
• 2022: Music, Royal Northern College of Music, on Britten and disability.
• 2021: Art, RMIT, Melbourne, Australia, on public gardens and creative arts practice.
• 2021: Music, University of Groningen, NL, on European music festivals. 
• 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

• 2024: Media (UEA) 
• 2021: Media (UEA)
• 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.