Annabelle Somers
Annabelle is second year PhD Student in the School of Biological Sciences in Southampton. She splits her time between the University of Southampton and the NIAB Research Station at East Malling, where she is researching how to improve micronutrient food security in the UK, from farm to fork. Although she is interested in all aspects of food security and nutrition, she has a particular focus on school meals and food in care settings, where policy plays a particularly important role. She is excited to learn more about integrating research and policy to improve policy decisions across the board.
Chloe Dixon
Chloe is a first year PhD student who is funded by the SCDTP at the University of Southampton. Her research explores the work hour preferences of economically advantaged, full-time workers in the UK to assess the feasibility of a working-time reduction policy. Prior to starting her PhD, Chloe achieved a BSc in Sociology and an MSc in Social Research Methods. She is interested in a career in policy making and is excited to learn more about the policy making process while working at Public Policy|Southampton.
Tom Wardle
Tom is a doctoral research student based in the department of Modern Languages at the University of Southampton, having studied here since his undergraduate. His research project examines memory activists’ efforts to lobby the Spanish government to attend to the needs and demands of victims of repression during the Spanish Civil War and Francoist dictatorship, principally through a new ‘Democratic Memory Law’. Tom is particularly interested in the interaction between activism and policymaking and seeing the converse perspective of those designing and administering policy.
Luke Chandaman
Luke is a second year SCDTP-funded PhD student and member of Southampton University’s Centre for Research on Self and Identity. His thesis is investigating the Death Positivity Bias which describes the phenomenon of people evaluating the dead more favourably than equivalent living targets. He is also engaged in research investigating the effects of goals on meaning in life, moderators of competitive victimhood and factors that differentiate between political factions beyond their professed views. Last year, Luke completed a rapid research project for Public Policy Southampton (PPS) to develop a mixed methods approach to enable PPS to better map and evaluate the needs of their internal and external stakeholders. This year he will be working with PPS on the MELD-B project which seeks to understand when multiple long-term conditions become ‘burdensome’ and the best opportunities for intervention.
Daniel Birungi
Daniel is a first year PhD Student in the Southampton Business School. His research focusses on sustainability, particularly on finding avenues to reduce the barriers to uptake of sustainability practices among small and medium enterprises in the global South. Prior to undertaking his PhD Daniel headed the largest business membership organization in his home country, Uganda, the Uganda Manufacturers Association, for five years.
Daniel is excited to be part of this year’s cohort of Policy Associates due to the opportunity the scheme presents for a deeper understanding of policy development and policy advocacy. He hopes the opportunity can equip him to better contribute to a greater linkage between academic research and public policy.
Dora Vrkic
Dora is a third-year PhD student in History at the University of Southampton. She completed her MA in the same discipline at UCL’S School of Slavonic and East European Studies in 2019. Her research interests include British foreign policy towards Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia, the history of fin-de-siècle Habsburg Empire, and right radical movements in interwar East Central Europe. Outside of academia, she enjoys walking her dog, baking, and learning new languages.
Elizabeth Wimborne
Elizabeth is a second-year PhD student in the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Southampton. Her research focuses on understanding the metabolic changes associated with early life undernutrition and their impacts on future health and development. From her work, she has noted the importance of integration between research findings and policy outcomes, with the potential for these to impact the quality of life of communities. She hopes this opportunity will provide a greater understanding of this from a policy, rather than research-based, perspective. This will be beneficial for her future goals of a career in public or global health.
Dr Florentin Bulot
Florentin is an EPSRC Research Fellow at the Faculty of Engineering. His research focuses on using low-cost sensors for air pollution monitoring and how networks of these sensors can improve our understanding of air pollution and impact change. During his PhD at the University of Southampton, awarded in 2022, he deployed a network of hundreds of sensors around the city and published the results widely. He participated in, designed and led different outreach projects. Previously, he worked as a consultant in an environmental engineering consulting firm, in Morocco and Nigeria, with various institutions, including the World Bank and the UNDP. He graduated in 2013 as a generalist engineer from the French engineering school Ecole Centrale Paris. His research interests revolve around improving the quality of life and well-being in urban areas, with a recent interest in nature-based solutions. He holds a Permaculture Design Certificate.
India Cook
India is a PhD student in the school of Physics and Astronomy, researching nanotechnology for application in healthcare. The primary focus of India’s work is the development of antimicrobial nanomaterials to combat the rise of antibiotic resistant infectious diseases. She is also engaged in projects working on novel drug delivery mechanisms for cancers and genetic disorders. Her research is inherently interdisciplinary and involves working across departments of Physics, Chemistry, and Clinical and Experimental Sciences. Outside of her scientific interests, India is a passionate advocate for combatting global health inequalities by improving health resources and outcomes in the Global South. India is a keen advocate of adventure travel, having independently travelled to over 80 countries.’
Dr Jack Pink
Jack is an archaeologist specialising in the study of shipwrecks and the development of maritime technology. He is currently a Research Fellow at the University of Southampton’s Centre for Maritime Archaeology working on the Unpath’d Waters project funded by the UKRI. His focus in that project is on the deployment of Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning, enhancing and enriching Maritime Heritage Data as Open Linked Data. His PhD studied the development of British shipbuilding in the 19th century by combining archival resource from the Lloyd’s Register of Shipping with a series of shipwreck sites around the coast of the UK.
Jacqueline Nightingale
Jacqueline is a first-year PhD student at Southampton Law School and a recipient of the Leverhulme Studentship for “Intelligent Oceans” through the Southampton Marine and Maritime Institute.
She holds a BSc in Marine Biology with Oceanography from the University of Southampton and an LLB in English and French Law from the University of Kent at Canterbury. Her professional focus has been leadership for non-profit organisational development, with expertise in strategic planning, international risk management and multi-entity decision making.
Jacqueline’s current research in ocean governance will consider the extent to which the latest climate science is incorporated into decision making around the ocean commons and what that means for social justice in the process. Her review will examine the infrastructure that translates science into policy and action for marine areas beyond national jurisdiction.
Josette Crispin
Josette is an ESRC-funded first year PhD student interdisciplinary with Southampton Education School and the Faculty of Medicine. Her research focuses on widening participation in medicine, In particular designing, implementing and evaluating resources to support students from underpresented groups with their social support networks. Prior to this, Josette completed her BSc and MSc Education, also at the University of Southampton. Alongside her studies, she has worked as School-University Partnership Coordinator sitting between the Public Engagement with Research Unit and the Widening Participation and Social Mobility Directorate at the university. Josette is looking forward to joining the Policy Associates team and to learn more about policymaking practices and how research can have an impact in policy.
Clare Halliday
Clare is a first year PhD student looking at the landscape and biodiversity implications of future bioenergy scenarios. She worked as an ecologist for the previous ten years and is particularly interested in exploring novel ways of providing spaces for nature. The policy space is dynamic in the area of environment and she’s keen to explore policy and stakeholder analysis further as a policy associate.
Natalie Nickells
Natalie is a PhD student on the INSPIRE DTP at the University of Southampton, based at the British Antarctic Survey in Cambridge. Her PhD research focuses on baleen whales’ foraging interactions with krill, specifically in the Scotia Sea, and how this can be used to inform krill fisheries management. Natalie has an MRes in Ecology, Evolution and Conservation from Imperial College London, and a First Class BA in Human Sciences from the University of Oxford. In addition to fisheries management, her research interests include blue carbon, marine noise pollution, and the UN30-by-30 ocean protection goals. She joins Public Policy Southampton to learn more about working directly with stakeholders and gain experience in ‘speaking the policy-maker's language’.
Kiran Meka
Kiran is from Faculty of Social Sciences (Business School), whose PhD title is How can UK govt learn from the 'Whole Systems Approach' and implement it in the local authorities.