Current PhD students
View research profiles and thesis themes for some of our PhD students in Criminology.
Sebastian Acevedo
Sebastian originally came to Manchester from Chile. Through different tools from Quantitative Criminology, his PhD research is based on the unequal distribution of public safety in Chile, analysing crime surveys and administrative records at the municipal level. His research interests are related to fear of crime, policing, local government, decentralisation, inequality in Latin America and Sociological Theory.
Vicki Beere
Vicki's PhD focuses on researching the impact of a decade of neo liberal comissioning on the drug treatment sector, in particular how the gender blind changes have affected womens ability to engage with them. She aims to codesign her research with women in a comparative case study design and conduct this in a trauma informed way. Her research interests include harm reduction policy and womens access and ensuring that people who use drugs have a voice and are represented in policy and research.
Diana Bociga Gelvez
Diana’s ESRC funded PhD research aims to explore the nature and organisation of the phenomenon of professional money laundering facilitation in the UK building on an on-going collaboration between The University of Manchester and Police Scotland. Diana´s broader research interests cover: illicit finance, AML regulations, white collar and organised crime. She is interested in criminal networks, ego-networks and the use of social network analysis for understanding and tackling illicit finances.
Pamela Bong
Pamela is funded by the Government of Malaysia and interested in the research area related to drug policy, particularly on the relationship between international drug policy, national drug policies and criminal justice practices. Her research project focuses on understanding the processes involved in international drug policy-making through the study of interaction of intergovernmental systems in the international drug policy debates.
Allysa Czerwinsky
Allysa is a President’s Doctoral Scholar whose research is on understanding personal narratives and identity-based harm discussed within misogynistic incel forums through netnographic immersion and qualitative analysis. Her research interests include intersections of technology, harm, and violence; extremist groups operating within digital society; and ethics in sensitive subjects research.
Pete Duncan
Pete’s ESRC-funded PhD research investigates the nature, organisation, and control of variably illicit tax minimisation in UK professional football. Pete’s research interests include financial, white-collar, organisational, and cyber-enabled crimes, and drug policy. Pete is a founding member of the Manchester Organisational Non-compliance Initiative (MONI) and is Early Career Associate at the European Society of Criminology Working Group on Organisational Crime (EUROC).
Nicola Fox
Nicola's PhD is focussed on the identification of harm and vulnerability experienced by children who go missing in England, using both quantitative and qualitative methods. Her work is interdisciplinary, involving the evaluation of the use of natural language processing and machine learning to identify the concepts of missing, harm and vulnerability in text data on a large scale. Previously Nicola has conducted research on the detection of hate speech against women and immigrants on Twitter.
Megan Hadfield
Megan's research is funded by ESRC. Her research interests focus on the impact of immigration policies on non UK nationals who have experienced/are experiencing homelessness and how this affects their vulnerability to exploitation. Her research developed during years of volunteering at a homeless charity, where she began to notice the inequalities and issues faced by non-UK nationals in Greater Manchester whilst seeking homeless support, as a result of their immigration status.
Sophie Henderson
Sophie is funded by the Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) and is interested in the impact of drug policies on people. Her PhD research examines Canada’s drug policy on cannabis and its impact on how people who use and sell illicit drugs are represented, both in Canada and internationally. Previously, Sophie has conducted research on drug trafficking and other illicit economies in Central Asia and North Africa.
Monira Jahan
Monira Nazmi Jahan is a law academic from Bangladesh and is currently pursing a PhD in Criminology at the University of Manchester. She received the prestigious School of Social Sciences Criminology PhD Studentship. The PhD research is based on technology facilitated sexual extortion and exploitation. Her research interests include gender-based violence, analysis and application of criminological theories, terrorism, international criminal law and international human rights law.
Ezra Lampesberger
Ezra’s PhD focusses on the impact of illicit and illegal money streams on the rise of right-wing extremism, both in terms of political parties and policies. This follows the journal format, allowing them to explore different aspects of the topic. Ezra is a quantitative researcher currently focussing on social network analysis. Their broader research interests include crimes of the powerful, systematic misconduct against marginalised groups, white collar crime, and crimes against LGBTQ+ people.
Matt Rive
Matt's ESRC funded PhD research is exploring multi-agency safeguarding responses to cuckooing (i.e., home takeovers). His research will be drawing on the experiences of people with lived experience of cuckooing and professionals from various public sector organisations to consider how institutional responses to this form of criminal exploitation can be improved. Matt is a registered social worker, a practice educator, and a lecturer in social work.
Korry Robert
Korry’s ESRC-funded PhD research investigates the construction and management of anti-money laundering compliance within the financial sector. Her broader research interests include white collar crime, financial crime, regulation, and compliance.
Heather Smith
Heather's interdisciplinary PhD research is funded by the Medical Research Council (MRC). Her project uses realist methodology to gain a deeper understanding of how, why, for whom and in what circumstances knife crime interventions work to prevent knife carrying amongst adolescents. Her research interests include underlying causes of youth offending, violence against women and girls, wrongful convictions and juror decision making.