Our people
Core team
Professor Clare Holdsworth
SURF Director
Professor of Social Geography
I am a social geographer who uses innovative and varied methods (from creative autoethnography through to quantitative analysis of longitudinal data) to study different aspects of everyday life. Potential projects for SURF include youth transitions in the rural and responsibility and everyday practices (e.g in relation to noise, access or light pollution).
Dr Ben Anderson
SURF Co-Director
Reader in Environmental History
I am an award-winning environmental historian with research interests that keep coming back to the rural. My research encompasses histories of outdoors leisure in Britain and Europe, technological infrastructure in rural places, and late-twentieth century environmental crises. I often employs creative or participatory research methods alongside traditional historical research, and I would love to supervise any projects on anything related to the above.
SURF staff
Dr Emma Allen
I am a Lecturer in Keele Law School. I specialise in public international law, but other areas of expertise include climate law and environmental law. I would be keen to be involved in the supervision of PhD students looking to explore the legal aspects (broadly defined) of sustainable rural futures.
Dr Daniel Allen
Senior Lecturer in Animal Geography
Dr Daniel Allen is an Animal Geographer with interests in human-animal relations in policy and practice. His research on otter conservation and animal companionship has informed evidence-based animal advocacy, science-policy communication, government and non-government decision-making, and educational practice and innovation
Dr David Amigoni
Professor of Victorian Literature
I have research interests in the lived experience of ageing in rural and urban locations, as well as rural space as a route to improved health and wellbeing. I am also researching the cultural history of rural heritage and its complex historical relationship to industrialisation through work on L.T.C. Rolt and the Ironbridge Gorge Museum Trust.
Professor James R Bell
James is a quantitative ecologist and entomologist. He is an expert on hemipteran vectors that transmit plant diseases, with a focus on Myzus persicae (Aphididae) and more recently the planthopper Pentastiridius leporinus (Hemiptera: Cixiidae) that together pose a combined bacterial and viral infection threat to sugar beet and potatoes. Both species have the potential to reach epidemic levels; this will be researched in the new ‘E-Prep’ project funded by UKRI.
Dr Pawas Bisht
Senior Lecturer in Media, Communications and Creative Practice
My expertise lies in the fields of environmental communication, cultural memory and creative storytelling. Methodologically, I am interested in inter-disciplinary approaches bringing together qualitative social science and collaborative arts-based research. As part of SURF, I am interested in supervising projects exploring cultural pathways to inclusive and just rural futures.
Dr Toby Bruce
Professor of Insect Chemical Ecology
My research seeks new, sustainable ways to protect crops from damage by pests. We study insect-plant interactions to discover how to enhance plant defence and improve biological control. There is a need for innovation to find new ways to manage pests that have fewer off target effects than current pesticides.
Dr Alix Cage
Senior Lecturer in Environmental Change
My research interests lie in high-resolution (centennial to millennial-scale) shelf-sea palaeoceanography, marine palaeoecology and geochronology during the Holocene (last ~ 11,500 years) and late-Holocene (last ~ 2,000 years). Shelf-sea and marginal marine environments can provide an important link between deep ocean and terrestrial records and could help us understand land-ocean interactions and how our climate is modulated by the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation.
Dr Philip Catney
My interests are in local governance, political economy (particularly regeneration/levelling-up), environmental policy (particularly land, air and water pollution), energy policy and governance, and the intersection of British politics and rural politics. I'm happy to supervise SURF projects in any of these areas.
Dr Christian Devinish
Lecturer in Ecology and Environment
My research involves measuring biodiversity, especially species' occurrences and abundances, using technology such as audio recorders, as well as more traditional survey methods. I am interested in linking biodiversity to wider landscape and habitat characteristics, including human impacts, often derived from remote sensing, using statistical models and GIS. Peatlands and solar farms have been part of my research recently.
Professor Mark Featherstone
Professor of Social and Political Theory
I am particularly interested in peri-urban communities, sprawl, rural suburbia, and the experiences of those living on the edge of urban spaces, and I would be delighted to supervise projects in these areas.
Professor Jim Grange
Professor of Cognitive Science
The mission of my lab’s work is to conduct fundamental research to understand cognitive control processes, and to then use this knowledge to tackle applied and clinical questions. I utilise behavioural measures together with computational modelling to address my research questions.
Dr Ellie Harrison
My research encompasses a diverse array of topics spanning environmental toxicology to ecology. I focus on exploring anthropogenic impacts on biodiversity, employing various techniques from audio detection to traditional survey methods like mark-release-recapture. My interests lie in
Dr Emma Head
My research interests are in the fields of sociology of the family, motherhood, the home, care, paid and unpaid work, poverty and social exclusion. I have taught introductory sociology, sociology of gender and the history of British social policy. My work has been concerned with developing a sociological approach to the study of the lives of lone mothers to complement the policy focus which has dominated research in this area.
Dr Tom Kingstone
Senior Lecturer in Mental Health and Wellbeing
Tom is a social scientist by background and brings a mix of perspectives from psychology, sociology and critical gerontology. His research expertise lies in exploratory qualitative methods and the application of novel techniques (e.g. mobile interviews, ‘go-alongs’, photo-elicitation). He is a strong advocate for patient and public involvement and engagement in research.
Dr Dmitry Kishkinev
Lecturer in Animal Behaviour and Behavioural Neuroscience
I am an ecologist doing research at Keele's renewable energy (RE) site (12.5k solar panels and 2 wind turbines), and studying a long-term impact of RE on biodiversity and the behaviour of animals. Our study focusses on birds, mammals, and bumblebees, and offers excellent doctoral training using visual observations, bioacoustics, cutting-edge radio tracking, and advanced data analysis.
Dr Rosa M Fernandez Martin
Senior Lecturer in Economics and Finance
Dr Rosa M. Fernandez Martin is an applied economist specialised in sustainability related topics, including renewable energies economics and policies, food security and food sustainability, education for sustainable development, or corporate social responsibility, among others.
Professor Deirdre McKay
Professor of Sustainable Development
My projects explore the social and cultural aspects of sustainability. I work with ethnographic and arts-based methods. My current interdisciplinary projects investigate how communities can lead the design of biodiversity uplift, how laundry is contributing to textile fibres pollution, and how marine litter and coastal clean-ups reshape community economies.
Dr Adam Moolna
Lecturer in Environment and Sustainability
As a Lecturer in Environment & Sustainability, I am an experienced practitioner outside of academia aspiring to integrate understanding with action in scholarship transcending the boundaries between science and society. My scholarship has become focused on Blue Economy approaches to integrating sustainable development, climate action and conservation linked to coasts and the ocean.
Professor Ceri Morgan
Professor of Place-writing and Geohumanities
I am interested in: (a) contemporary ('new') nature writing and environmental humanities writing, thinking about hybrid forms, critical-creative writing and multi-modal writing and (b) via literary and cultural geographies, reflecting on understandings of the 'rural' and its margins, at a time when most urban growth occurs on the peripheries of cities.
Dr Masi Noor
Senior Lecturer in Social and Political Psychology
After over a decade studying political forgiveness, my current research focusses on the psychology of political lies. Using mixed-method research, I study what count as political lies among rural communities, how such lies are detected, perceived and experienced by rural communities, how such lies affect rural communities psychologically, and how people in these communities resist, challenge, or tolerate and forgive political lies.
Dr Ian Oliver
Senior Lecturer in Environmental Science and School Internationalisation Director
One of my favourite research topics is the use of recovered waste materials (water treatment residuals, biochar from agricultural wastes, paper pulp, etc) as soil conditioners for fertility enhancement and remediation. I evaluate the effects of this process on plant yield, earthworm abundance and biodiversity, microbial function, soil's physical and chemical properties, and the mobility and ecotoxicity of contaminants.
Professor Mariangela Palladino
Professor of Postcolonial and Cultural Studies
My research interests lie at the intersection of Postcolonial and Cultural Studies. My current work centres on a study of representations of contemporary migration between Africa and Europe and the idea of a postcolonial Mediterranean. Traversing postcolonial studies and cultural studies, this work also addresses questions concerning identity, space culture and the environment.
Dr James Peacock
My research focusses on literary engagements with gentrification in a range of places. Alongside recent developments in geographical and sociological accounts of gentrification in rural settings, I am interested in supervising research on how literary texts are representing gentrification in rural areas, as well as the gentrifying urban neighbourhoods that have for many decades been of interest to writers.
Professor Simon Pemberton
I am a Professor of Human Geography at Keele. I have 25 years worth of research experience on rural issues and have published extensively on issues relating to rural development and regeneration, rural governance, rural enterprise, rural migration, rural poverty and social exclusion and rural planning. I can offer supervisory expertise in all of these areas.
Professor Zoe Robinson
Professor of Sustainability in Higher Education
Zoe is a Sustainability Scientist with 20 years of experience around sustainability transformations, working across the natural and social sciences boundaries, and with a background of working in sustainability and climate change education, community engagement and supporting Local Authorities and other organisations around climate change and energy transitions.
Dr Steven Rogers
For much of my career I worked in "traditional" geological sciences. More recently, I have focused on human, social and pedagogical elements of geology. My interests in SURF focus on how the geology around us shapes our lives, and how geology is essential to understanding society's Grand Challenges, such as extraction and extinction. Work in this area doesn't require a geology or STEM background, but does rely on an inter- and trans-disciplinary approach.
Professor Ghulam Sorwar
Professor of Finance and Head of Economics, Accounting and Finance Group
Amongst other areas, I specialise in Green and Sustainable Finance. As my background is also quantitative, my research focusses on the modelling aspects of sustainability. I welcome PhD applications from candidates who are interested in exploring the financial and economic aspects of Sustainable Rural Futures. I also have an interdisciplinary background which allows me to provide supervision across multiple disciplines.
Dr Ian Stimpson
Over thirty years of research into natural and induced earthquakes and related anthropogenic hazards, with a broad background in near-surface geophysics, structural geology, geocomputing and geoconservation. Wide-ranging current interests include geothermal energy, geophysics applied to glacial deposits, geologically-related industrial heritage and archaeology, Staffordshire geology, geocomputing, rock mechanics and geological education.
Dr John Taylor
Alongside my primary research on measuring the properties of planets and multiple-star systems, I have interests in liaising with amateur astronomy groups, public outreach and sonification, connecting me to the rural sky at night.
Dr Angie Turner
Lecturer in Geography and Environment
Angie is Principal Investigator at Keele for Nature in your Neighbourhood, a 5-year project centred around community groups making their local greenspaces better for nature. Led by Staffordshire Wildlife Trust and in partnership with Moorlands Climate Action (MCA), OUTSIDE, Staffordshire Moorlands District Council (SMDC) and Staffordshire Council of Voluntary Youth Services (SCVYS) the project began in 2024.
SURF
William Smith Building
Keele University
Keele
Staffordshire
ST5 5BG
Email: surf@keele.ac.uk
