Our people
More about the researchers, lecturers and honorary staff that make up our Sociology department.
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Head of Sociology
Professor Alice Bloch
Professor of Sociology
Research specialisms: forced migration, refugees, migration, undocumented migrants, second-generation refugees.
Deputy Head of Sociology
Dr Kevin Gillan
Senior Lecturer in Sociology
Research specialisms: social movements, protest, neoliberalism, globalisation, corporations.
Teaching and research staff within Sociology
Dr Owen Abbott
Lecturer in Sociology
Research specialisms: self, sociology of morality, social practice, relational sociology.
Professor Claire Alexander
Professor of Sociology
Research specialisms: race/ethnicity and identity, youth/gangs, migration/diaspora, south Asians/Muslims in Britain.
Dr Roaa Ali
Research Associate (Cultural production and consumption)
Research specialisms: race/ethnicity and identity, politics of representation, cultural production, Arab American drama/theatre, Islamophobia.
Dr Andrew Balmer
Senior Lecturer in Sociology
Research specialisms: secrecy, lying, lie detection, science and technology, dementia.
Neema Begum
Research Associate
Research specialisms: race/ethnicity and identity, ethnic minority voting behaviour, political participation and representation, intersectionality, whiteness.
Dr Elisa Bellotti
Senior Lecturer in Sociology
Research specialisms: social network analysis, mixed methods, criminal networks, scientific networks, gender and social networks.
Dr Wendy Bottero
Senior Lecturer in Sociology
Research specialisms: inequalities, subjectivity, social identities, social practices, pragmatism and social inquiry.
Dr Tine Buffel
Senior Lecturer
Research specialisms: ageing and urbanism, social exclusion/inequality, neighbourhood and community, co-production and participatory research methods, age-friendly communities.
Professor Bridget Byrne
Professor of Sociology
Research specialisms: race/ethnicity, class, citizenship, gender, nation.
Dr Karis Campion
Research Associate
Research specialisms: (mixed) race/ethnic identities, intersectional inequalities, post-colonial identities, categorisations of race, institutional racism in education.
Professor Nick Crossley
Professor of Sociology
Research specialisms: social networks, culture, relational sociology, music, embodiment.
Dr Luke De Noronha
Simon Research Fellow
Research specialisms: deportation, racism, borders.
Professor Fiona Devine
Director of Alliance Manchester Business School and Professor of Sociology
Research specialisms: social stratification and mobility, politics and participation, space mobility and lifestyles, gender, work and family.
Dr Patricia Doran
Research Associate
Research specialisms: ageing and urbanisation, social exclusion and inequality, health, lifecourse, age-friendly communities.
Dr Jill Ebrey
Research Associate
Research specialisms: culture, cultural participation, inequality, towns and peripheral places, socio-cultural infrastructures.
Dr Gemma Edwards
Senior Lecturer in Sociology and Undergraduate Director
Research specialisms: social movements, protest, social networks, participation, historical sociology.
Professor Martin Everett
Chair in Network Analysis
Research specialisms: social networks, analytical sociology, methodology, new media.
Dr Simin Fadaee
Lecturer in Sociology
Research specialisms: social movements and activism, environmentalism and environmental politics, global south, inequality.
Professor Colette Fagan
Professor of Sociology and University of Manchester Vice-President for Research
Research specialisms: gender, work and care; employment, job quality and working conditions; international comparative analysis.
Dr Laura Fenton
Research Associate
Research specialisms: lifecourse, gender, life history/ oral history, creative methods.
Dr Jacopo Galimberti
British Academy Postdoctoral Research Fellow
Dr Matthijs Gardenier
Newton International Fellow
Research specialisms: social movements, vigilantism, anti-migrant groups, security studies.
Dr Leah Gilman
Research Associate
Research specialisms: family and personal life, reproductive technologies, sociology of donation.
Professor Brian Heaphy
Professor of Sociology
Research specialisms: sexualities, gender, personal life, social change.
Professor Anthony Heath
Professor in Sociology
Professor Sue Heath
Professor in Sociology
Research specialisms: housing, home, shared living, intergenerational relations, creative methods.
Dr James Hodgson
Research Associate
Research specialisms: sexualities, queer visual culture, loners, loneliness and social isolation.
Dr Helen Holmes
Lecturer in Sociology
Research specialisms: materiality, everyday, sociology of consumption, temporality, creative methods.
Dr Ajmal Hussain
Research Fellow
Dr Remi Joseph-Salisbury
Presidential Fellow
Research specialisms: race/ethnicity, (anti-)racisms, mixedness, education, decoloniality.
Dr Dharmi Kapadia
Lecturer in Sociology
Research specialisms: race/ethnicity, mental illness, mental health services, stigma, advanced quantitative methods.
Professor Graeme Kirkpatrick
Professor of Social and Cultural Theory
Research specialisms: technology, aesthetics, culture, games, art.
Dr James Laurence
ESRC Research Fellow
Research specialisms: ethnic diversity and immigration, social cohesion, social and civic engagement, inter-group relations, macro/micro-economic hardships.
Professor Yaojun Li
Professor of Sociology
Research specialisms: social mobility and stratification, ethnic integration, socio-economic inequalities, international comparison, social capital.
Professor Vanessa May
Professor of Sociology
Research specialisms: belonging, self, temporality, ageing, families.
Dr Peter McMylor
Senior Lecturer
Dr Robert Meckin
Presidential Fellow
Biotechnology, automation, robotics, interdisciplinarity, responsible innovation, science and emerging technologies.
Professor Andrew Miles
Professor of Sociology
Research specialisms: social class, cultural participation and policy, social mobility, inequalities, mixed methods research.
Dr Nadim Mirshak
Lecturer in Sociology
Research specialisms: authoritarianism, sociology of education, political sociology, state-civil society relations, social movements and alternative resistance.
Professor James Nazroo
Professor of Sociology, Fellow of the British Academy
Research specialisms: inequality, race/ethnicity, ageing, health, mental health.
Dr Richie Nimmo
Senior Lecturer in Sociology
Research specialisms: animals and human-animal relations, Actor-Network Theory (ANT), posthumanism and biopolitics, environmental sociology, historical and archive methods.
Dr Petra Nordqvist
Senior Lecturer in Sociology
Research specialisms: gender, sexuality, kinship, family relationalities, reproductive donation.
Dr Filippo Oncini
Marie Curie Fellow
Research specialisms: food consumption, cultural stratification, social inequalities, social class, health stratification, school meals
Dr Tugba Aydin Ozturk
Research Associate
Research specialisms: sociology of music, media, culture and technology, social networks and social capital, semiology, gender, music and art policy.
Professor Christopher Phillipson
Professor of Sociology and Social Gerontology
Research specialisms: ageing societies, age-friendly cities, work and retirement, urban sociology, social policy.
Dr Elisa Pieri
Lecturer in Sociology
Research specialisms: security and biopolitics, pandemics, Science and Technology Studies (STS), urban sociology, media and discourse.
Professor Hilary Pilkington
Professor of Sociology
Research specialisms: youth, social activism, extremism, post-socialist societies, comparative qualitative research methods.
Professor Debora Price
Professor of Social Gerontology
Research specialisms: ageing and ageing societies, pensions and finance over the lifecourse, poverty and inequality in later life, gender, couples and families across the lifecourse.
Dr James Rhodes
Lecturer in Sociology
Research specialisms: racism and ethnicity, urban depopulation and deindustrialisation, urban inequalities.
Dr David Schoch
Presidential Fellow
Research specialisms: social network analysis, network science, computational social science, network centrality, social stratification.
Dr Djordje Sredanovic
Newton International Fellow
Research specialisms: citizenship, migration, rights, legal status, media.
Dr Nicholas Thoburn
Senior Lecturer in Sociology
Research specialisms: publishing and the book, Marx, Marxism and Communism, social housing and architecture, social and political theory, material text.
Professor Penny Tinkler
Professor of Sociology and History
Research specialisms: gender history, girlhood, life-course, creative and photographic methods, memory.
Dr Meghan Tinsley
Presidential Fellow
Research specialisms: race/ethnicity, nationalism, postcolonial theory, collective memory, cultural production.
Professor Alan Warde
Professor of Sociology
Research specialisms: consumption, food and eating, culture, stratification, sustainability.
Dr Daniel Welch
Research Fellow
Research specialisms: consumption, sustainability, practices, social theory, economic sociology.
Dr Sophie Woodward
Senior Lecturer in Sociology
Research specialisms: materiality, gender, consumption, fashion, creative methods.
Dr Luke Yates
Lecturer in Sociology
Research specialisms: social movements, protest, consumption, practices, sharing.
Professor Gary Younge
Professor in Sociology
Research specialisms: social movements (especially the civil rights movement), inequality, race, immigration, identity and politics.
Honorary staff
Dr Gaelle Aeby
Honorary Fellow, Morgan Centre
Dr Resto Cruz
Honorary Research Associate
Dr Katherine Davies
Honorary Fellow, Morgan Centre
Professor Dame Janet Finch
Honorary Professor
Professor Jennifer Mason
Professor Emerita of Sociology, Fellow of The British Academy
Research specialisms: personal life, affinities, socio-atmospherics, qualitative methods, mixed methods.
Professor William Sharrock
Professor of Sociology
Research specialisms: choice, rules, analytic sociology, experimental philosophy, computerised visualisations in astrophysics research.
Professor Carol Smart
Professor Emerita, Morgan Centre
Dr Nina Teasdale
Honorary Research Associate