IoE Doctoral Supervisors
As a PhD student at the University of Reading’s Institute of Education (IoE), you will be part of a vibrant and diverse research community, working alongside leading experts within the research field of education.
Below you will find a list of IoE potential PhD supervisors and their research interests. You can also learn more about research projects of some of our staff here.
If you would like to learn more about pursuing your PhD research at the IoE, please click here. If you would like to learn more about our graduated and current PhD students, please click here.
(Please note that if you are applying to do an EdD, a supervisor will be allocated to you by the programme.)
IMPORTANT NOTE:
If you are interested in pursuing your PhD research with us, the initial step to make would be to apply online using the application system, and for this application to include a research proposal. It is important that you take a look at the supervisors and their research interests listed below before making an application, so that you can see whether we are able to provide supervision in your area of interest. You are welcome to contact a potential supervisor before applying but we need a formal application before we can interview you or offer you a place. Please follow the link for all the relevant information on how to apply online.
If you need any further assistance, please contact the Postgraduate Research (PGR) Administrator (Gaby Burford) at g.burford@reading.ac.uk in the first instance.
| Supervisors | Research interests |
| Dr. Rebecca Berkley | music education, creative musicianship and choral education; leadership in music education including conducting training and music teacher education; music in schools with a focus on the creative learning environment and problem solving as a mode of learning |
| Prof. Helen Bilton | outdoor teaching and learning environment, in particular in relation to the early years, gender and oral language development; playtime; roles and responsibilities of teaching support staff |
| Dr. Fiona Curtis
(Please note that this member of staff is not taking on any new PhD student in the 2023/2024 academic year) |
mathematics education; learning processes; mentoring |
| Dr. Maria Kambouri | learning through play in the early years; parent-practitioner partnerships in early years and primary education; gender, identity and LGBTQ+ issues in early years and primary education; teaching and learning science in early years education |
| Prof. Yota Dimitriadi | technology; disability |
| Prof. Alan Floyd | career trajectories; distributed leadership; higher education leadership; leadership development; perception and experiences of being in a leadership role; professional identity |
| Prof. Naomi Flynn | English as an additional language; pedagogy in multilingual classrooms; migration and education; policy and practice for the teaching of English; research-informed teaching |
| Dr. Catherine Foley
(Please note that this member of staff is not taking on any new PhD student in the 2023/2024 academic year) |
mathematics education; initial teacher education |
| Prof. Carol Fuller
(Please note that this member of staff is not taking on any new PhD student in the 2023/2024 academic year) |
gender; confidence; empowerment; identity; social inequality; self-efficacy; left-behind children |
| Prof. Suzanne Graham
(Please note that this member of staff is not taking on any new PhD student in the 2023/2024 academic year) |
foreign/second language learning in schools; foreign language reading and listening comprehension; language learning motivation; vocabulary |
| Prof. Richard Harris
(Please note that this member of staff is not taking on any new PhD student in the 2023/2024 academic year) |
action research; curriculum; history education; LGBT issues; teacher decision making; teacher development; agency |
| Dr. Jo Anna Reed Johnson | education for sustainable development; comparative and international education; science education; leadership and management in education |
| Dr. Karen Jones
(Please note that this member of staff is not taking on any new PhD student in the 2023/2024 academic year) |
women’s careers and leadership; diversity and inclusion in leadership, especially related to gender, ethnicity and intersectionality, identity; career capital, feminist and critical perspectives; leadership learning and development through informal and formal mechanisms; learning transfer and impact |
| Prof. Holly Joseph | reading development; reading difficulties; dyslexia; reading development in multilingual children; adolescent reading, learning words through reading; reading for pleasure; family literacy |
| Dr. Rowena Kasprowicz | game-based learning; grammar teaching and learning; language analytic ability; second language acquisition; young learners |
| Dr. Daguo Li | second language motivation; knowledge management in L2 teachers’ professional development; transnational education (TNE)/international education |
| Dr. Nasreen Majid
(Please note that this member of staff is not taking on any new PhD student in the 2023/2024 academic year) |
climate and sustainability education; primary mathematic education; identify constructs in the field of mathematics education; diversity and inclusion |
| Prof. Elizabeth McCrum
(Please note that this member of staff is not taking on any new PhD student in the 2023/2024 academic year) |
teaching and learning in Higher Education; history education; teachers’ knowledge, beliefs, lives and careers; qualitative methods, narrative and life history |
| Dr. Daisy Powell | typical and atypical development of reading and writing skills; social and environmental factors (e.g., the home literacy and language environment; socio-economic status) in literacy acquisition; rapid serial naming and its link to reading development; the role of modern technology in literacy acquisition; literacy development in bilingual populations |
| Dr. Rachel Roberts | mentorship; discourse in education; initial teacher education; L1 English pedagogy |
| Dr. Geoff Taggart
(Please note that this member of staff is not taking on any new PhD student in the 2023/2024 academic year) |
early years education |
| Prof. Cathy Tissot
(Please note that this member of staff is not taking on any new PhD student in the 2023/2024 academic year) |
autism; disability; sexual identity |
| Dr. Natthapoj Vincent Trakulphadetkrai | all aspects of mathematics education; comparative education; international educational development; international schools |
| Dr. Anna Tsakalaki | literacy difficulties in different languages; SEN |
| Dr. Billy Wong | identities of race/ethnicity, social class & gender; higher education |
| Dr. Anthony Zhang | second language vocabulary teaching and learning; second language listening comprehension; language learning through multimedia |