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Dr Alice Borchi
Lecturer in Creative Industries, School of Performance and Cultural Industries
Her research interests include the study of the cultural commons and cultural value, with a focus on participatory practices and shared governance in cultural policy and management. She is also interested in interdisciplinary approaches to the safeguard of the commons that bring together environmental and cultural perspectives.
Professor Anamik Saha
Professor of Race and Media, School of Media and Communication
I am a professor of race and media with a particular interest in race and cultural production. I welcome PhD students interested in these issues, particularly those exploring questions of inequality, representation and power. I am especially keen to support projects that take critical, interdisciplinary or practice-based approaches. I am committed to mentoring students from underrepresented backgrounds in building meaningful academic and professional futures.
Anna Zoellner
Associate Professor in Media Industries, School of Media and Communication
I am inspired by my professional background in television production, my research centres on screen industries with a focus on production and labour and on media production research as an academic field. I invite PhD proposals investigating screen production and industries including questions of labour in relation to production conditions and processes.
Professor Beth Johnson
Professor of Television and Media Studies, School of Media and Communication
I am Professor of Television and Media Studies at the University of Leeds. My research examines television production and representation, with a particular focus on intersectional inequalities across class, gender and race in the screen industries. I lead the AHRC-funded project What’s On? Rethinking Class in the Television Industry (2023–26), in partnership with the BBC and Channel 4. I welcome PhD proposals exploring television, screen industries, and questions of equity, diversity and inclusion.
Professor Kristyn Gorton
Professor of Film and Television, School of Performance and Cultural Industries
I am Professor of Film and Television at the University of Leeds. My research examines television representation and production, with a particular focus on intersectional approaches to class, gender and race and emotional engagement in the screen industries.
My research expertise is primarily in emotion and affect, melodrama, and memory based approaches to film and television history. I have worked in the television industry, and continue to collaborate with colleagues in the screen industries in my academic research.
I welcome PhD proposals exploring television and the screen industries.
Dr Joanne Armitage
Associate Professor in Critical Digital Practice, School of Media and Communication
Joanne Armitage is Associate Professor in Critical Digital Practice and a Faculty Associate at the Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society. A digital media researcher, practitioner, and artist, she works with activist groups and communities to question how technologies are built, used, and governed. Her approach emphasises slowness, play, and everyday practices as ways to surface questions of power, agency, and expertise.
Hosam Al-Samarraie
Associate Professor in Digital Innovation Design, School of Design
My research lies at the intersection of human–computer interaction (HCI), user modelling, and technology utilisation in different contexts and institutions. By exploring the relationship between the science of human interaction and the digital technologies that drive the use and design of intelligent systems, services, and interfaces, I aim to develop and investigate new ideas and concepts to maximise the performance of digital communication systems. These systems should be well-situated around specific individual needs, behaviours, cultures, and intentions, rather than based on what we want or assume them to be.
I have been involved, as Principal Investigator and co-researcher, in several research projects related to the development of digital solutions for various challenges. I am currently investigating cultural and social aspects of immersive technology utilisation and their relationship to users, interactions, and certain behavioural changes.
Professor Scott Palmer
Professor of Light and Performance, School of Performance and Cultural Industries
My expertise in design for performance and audience experience in both live and mediated contexts.
I have a longstanding interest in relational performance and the creative application of technologies in audience experiences, most recently with XR in 360 degree interactive films and site-specific performance delivered via mobile phone. I have supervised 6 PhD candidates to completion.
Dr Cindy Ma
Lecturer in Race and Media, School of Media and Communication
Cindy is a Lecturer in Race and Media and faculty affiliate at the University of North Carolina’s Center for Information, Technology, and Public Life (CITAP). Her research examines how sociotechnical systems, political discourse, and racial inequity intersect. She employs qualitative and critical methods to advance conversations taking place within the fields of political communication, critical race and digital studies, and cultural studies. She is interested in supervising dissertations on discourses of race/racism, digital politics, and/or critical approaches to studying disinformation.
Professor David Hesmondhalgh
Professor of Media, Music and Culture, School of Media and Communication
My main current research interests are in how technologies such as digital platforms and artificial intelligence are, or are not, transforming media production, circulation and consumption, including their implications for dynamics of class, race, gender, especially (but not only) in the realms of music, video and publishing; also any issues relating to public policy relevant to the cultural and creative industries.
Dr David Lee
Associate Professor, Media and Communication, School of Media and Communication
My research examines the screen industries with a focus on creative labour, cultural policy, and factual media. I am particularly interested in questions of inequality, diversity, and regional development in UK television and film, and have published widely on freelance work, production cultures, and public service media. I welcome PhD projects that critically explore screen work, cultural infrastructures, and the politics of representation, especially those that link industry change to broader social transformations.
Dr Jez Coram
Lecturer in Digital Media Practice, School of Media and Communication
I am an artist filmmaker, lecturer in digital media practice at the University of Leeds and have been a creative practitioner for twenty years. I am interested in co-supervising research projects that relate to digital practices and praxis in the creative and cultural sectors, with an emphasis on inclusion, accessibility and sustainability.
Dr Stephen Dobson
Associate Professor in Creativity and Enterprise, School of Performance and Cultural Industries
Steve is an Associate Professor of Creativity and Enterprise at the University of Leeds and Director of the Centre for Cultural Value where he provides strategic and research leadership for the Centre, develops its profile and builds partnerships with the academic and cultural sectors. His research explores cultural planning and tourism, entrepreneurial identity and creative enterprise, the creative workplace and leadership for fostering innovation and creativity and evaluation in the cultural and creative sectors. He routinely works with global partners, advising on leadership in the arts and cultural industries and creative enterprise ecosystems.
Previously supervised PhD themes have included – investigating theories of risk as they apply to audience’s decision making in theatre going; art production through the lens of value creation and NFTs; fashion influencers in UK and China; scene marketing in live music; participatory management of rural heritage sites; identity and textual analysis of Letterboxd film reviewing.
Professor Simon Popple
Professor of Digital Media Cultures, School of Media and Communication
I am the academic lead for the Digital Creativity and Cultures Hub (DCCH) at the University of Leeds and Professor of Digital Media Cultures. I have a background in archival research focussed on media histories and particular specialisms in Digital Archives, Immersive Cultural Heritage, Generative AI, Early Cinema and Photographic History. I worked in the Museum and Archives sector before becoming an academic and have a strong interest in practice based research. Over time my focus has developed to explore how digital historical and archival sources can be used to allow communities and organisations to develop collaborative practices to facilitate storytelling, campaigning, and support social advocacy. I am primarily concerned with the relationships between individuals, communities, institutions and the potential for cultural collections and archival sources to inform history making.
Professor Catherine Johnson
Professor of Media and Communication, School of Media and Communication
I am a Professor of Media and Communication and my research focuses on the transformation of screen media by platforms and streaming through analysis of policy, regulation, industry, interfaces/platforms and audiences.
I led the Public Service Media in the Age of Platforms (www.psm-ap.com) project that examined the impact of platformisation on public service media in six countries and am currently researching the social, industrial and policy impacts of changes to the distribution of TV, with an emphasis on social inclusion and cohesion. I work closely with policymakers, regulators and industry and am particularly interested in supervising projects interested in having real-world impacts. I am committed to supporting students from underrepresented backgrounds in developing meaningful careers in, and beyond, academia.
Professor Joanne Garde-Hansen
Professor of Culture, Media and Communication
I am Professor of Culture, Media and Communication and Head of School of Media and Communication. My research and teaching focus upon media histories, memories and archives. This is manifest in three strands of research. The first, relates to my collaboration with television researchers on television history, heritage and memory and the co-founding of the Centre for Television Histories at the University of Warwick. The second, is in my collaboration with geographers, water scientists and UWE’s Centre for Floods, Communities and Resilience the relationship between culture and water, rivers, flooding and drought. The third is in my collaboration with computer science and data justice research on women, ageing and screen archives. I have published on popular culture, media and memory, television, archives, water memories, and mediations of flood and drought. I am a Fellow of the HE Academy and was nominated for a National Teaching Fellowship, and have won awards for outstanding module design and public engagement.
Professor Chris Paterson
Professor of Global Communication, School of Media and Communication
I am professor of global communication. I’m interested in how media production shapes the representation of underrepresented groups. Much of my career has been devoted to facilitating and advocating research into the media production process, especially for international journalism. Following work in TV news, those efforts began with research in the newsrooms of news agencies. I also write about the representation of Africa and the communication of climate change, and the ways we can keep journalists safer.
Dr Leslie Meier
Associate Professor in Media and Communication, School of Media and Communication
Dr Leslie Meier’s research focuses on the intersections of media industries, promotional culture, and the environment, using critical cultural approaches. Her current work explores environmental implications of media in three areas: online advertising, video streaming, and film promotion and merchandising.
Meier’s research interests include environmental impacts of: digital media and infrastructures; media and consumer culture; and music industries. She is interested in supervising projects on sustainable screen production and distribution, especially questions regarding the resource-intensiveness of platforms and infrastructures.
Dr Maitrayee Basu
Assistant Professor in Race and Media, School of Media and Communication
Maitrayee Basu (she/her) is an Assistant Professor in Race and Media in School of Media and Communication, University of Leeds. Her research is at the intersection of postcolonial queer and feminist theory, cyber-feminist theory and diasporic mediated intimacies. She is interested in supervising projects in the areas of postcolonial femininities, the digital repurposed within ‘older’ media forms like films, diasporic media and queer identity-formation, as well as research projects that question what ‘diasporic media production‘ means today within the context of digital convergence, albeit uneven, partial and with notable exceptions.
Professor Melanie Bell
Professor of Film History, School of Media and Communication
I am Professor of Film History at the School of Media and Communication, University of Leeds (UK). My research draws together oral histories with media practitioners, archival records and screen “ephemera” to understand how creative teams work together to produce media content, past, present and future. I do this through a feminist lens, exploring questions of collaboration, authorship and value, and the sustainability of craft specialisms in freelance screen economies.