Accepting PhD Students

PhD projects

I am currently open to supervising PhD students who are interested in exploring critical approaches to human-environment geographies, with a focus on development challenges in the global South, particularly in relation to climate change, water governance, and urban development. In my supervision, I emphasise political ecology and climate and water justice as lenses through which to examine environmental issues, focusing on the power dynamics, inequalities, and justice dimensions that shape human-environment relations.

Potential research topics include:

• Urban water governance and climate change: Investigating how access to water, sanitation, and other essential services is shaped by climate-related challenges in cities in the global South. Projects could use the lenses of political ecology and water justice to critically examine everyday risks and urban disasterscapes in the global South.

• Adaptation to Climate Extremes: Examining the social and environmental impacts of extreme climate events, with an emphasis on how power relations and inequalities shape adaptive capacities. Research could draw on the climate justice lens to explore uneven vulnerabilities and the role of policy and governance in addressing these issues.

• Political Ecologies of Climate Futures: Utilising the lens of political ecology to critically analyse how climate futures are imagined and constructed. PhD projects could focus on the role of power and justice in shaping future climate scenarios, as well as developing participatory and pluralistic approaches to envisioning just climate futures.

• Hydrological Modelling and Power: Investigating the intersection of hydrological modelling and political ecology to explore how models can capture the influence of power relations, policy decisions, and uneven development trajectories. This research could focus on creating power-sensitive models that address the justice implications of climate extremes and their uneven distribution.

Students are encouraged to propose projects that integrate these lenses to explore the intersection of social, climate, and/or hydrological sciences. Potential methodologies include qualitative and ethnographic approaches, participatory research methods, normative future visioning, and interdisciplinary approaches. These interdisciplinary methods could range from case studies that integrate social and climate and or hydrological data, to more complex approaches that involve repurposing hydrological or climate models with social science insights, or scenario-based approaches for envisioning alternative climate futures.

I maintain strong national and international collaborations, providing PhD students with opportunities to engage with interdisciplinary networks across the UK, Europe, Africa, and beyond.