IoE Doctoral Supervisors

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 (Please note that this member of staff is not taking on any new PhD students in the 2024/25 academic year)	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 Arts Based Educational Research methodologies.
Dr Suzy Tutchell	Gender, art education, creative education, identity, restorative pedagogies and visual methods for areas of research interest.
Prof. Rebecca Harris (Please note that this member of staff is not taking on any new PhD students in the 2024/25 academic year)	LGBTQ\|+ issues; history education; action research; teacher agency.
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	Two substantive areas: Educational leadership and doctoral education. Specific areas of interest include: Academic leadership, School leadership and Multi Academy Trusts (MATs), How people perceive and experience being in a leadership role, Distributed and collaborative leadership, Leadership development, Career trajectories, Leadership Identity, Insider research and associated ethical issues, Supporting doctoral researchers.
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	Mathematics education; initial teacher education.
Prof. Carol Fuller	Gender; confidence; empowerment; identity; social inequality; self-efficacy; left-behind children.
Prof. Suzanne Graham (Please note that this member of staff is accepting students who are researching technology in relation to second language education and not technology for general education. She only supervises students using mixed methods but not purely qualitative studies)	Foreign/second language learning in schools; foreign language reading and listening comprehension; language learning motivation; vocabulary.
Prof. Richard Harris	Action research; curriculum; history education; LGBT issues; teacher decision making; teacher development; agency.
Dr. Jo Anna Reed Johnson (Please note that this staff member will only be considering new PhD student applications for 2026/27 in the field of ESD)	Education for sustainable development (ESD); comparative and international education; leadership and management in education.
Dr. Karen Jones	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	Topics: reading development and difficulties; multilingual language development; learning words through reading; reading for pleasure; learning to read in adverse circumstances; family literacy. Methods: eye tracking, secondary data analysis (administrative data), participatory methods, community-led research.
Dr. Rowena Kasprowicz	Classroom-based language learning and teaching; young learners; instructed second language acquisition; grammar teaching and learning; individual differences (including language aptitude and language analytic ability); computer-assisted language learning (including digital game-based learning); experimental studies and intervention studies.
Dr. Daguo Li	Second language motivation; transnational education (TNE)/international education; second language teacher professional development; intercultural communication.
Dr Sarah Marston	Second language acquisition, climate and sustainability education, educational leadership and management, secondary, primary and Early Years education, mentoring and coaching, initial teacher education.
Prof. Elizabeth McCrum	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 accepting new applications for the 2025/26 academic year)	Values education Mindfulness and education Religious education Creative approaches to educational research Post-humanism
Prof. Cathy Tissot	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, sociology of education.
Dr. Anthony Zhang	The use of technology in second/foreign language learning; Vocabulary teaching and learning; Advanced quantitative methods.
Dr. Alison Silby	English pedagogy across the key stages English and inclusion Children’s literature Developing English through the creative arts Special Educational Needs and Disabilities English and SEND in Initial Teacher Education Qualitative research methodologies.
Dr. Kari Sahan	Second language learning; English medium instruction; Global Englishes; multilingual pedagogies; L1 use and translanguaging practices; internationalisation of higher education; international and transnational higher education; multilingual pedagogies; language policies in education.
Dr. Ilan Dwek (Please note that this member of staff is only available for 2^nd supervision)	Policy of inclusion within mainstream education and social life/media Mental Health in primary/secondary school children Impact of mainstream education on deaf linking to employability, social and mental wellbeing Linguistics of BSL and its evolution over the years Deaf-blind communication strategy and tactics [including Haptic method].