Psychology Research Degrees
Psychology PhD Study
Are you facinated by people and why they behave the way they do?
Psychology is the scientific study of experience and behaviour - why we do what we do, how we interact with other people and the emotional significance we attach to this. These studies have gained increasing importance across a wide range of professional activities, including human resources, education, sport, social care and the creative industries.
We have a growing number of PhD students who are conducting innovative and original research across a variety of topic areas, including message framing in various health contexts, workplace integration, using cognitive restructuring to improve school performance, and many more.
For research queries specific to the Department of Psychology please contact Dr Roy Spina on r.spina@chi.ac.uk.
Our Supervisors
Browse our staff profiles to explore our research specialisms
Dr Esther Burkitt
BA, MSc, PhD, CPsychol, CSci
Children’s use and benefits of expressive devices to communicate through their drawings, factors which facilitate artistic development, and the influences of colour on children’s memory and learning.
Professor Nik Chmiel​
BSc (Eng), BSc (Pysch), DPhil, CPsych, AFBPS
Psychology in the workplace, including the psychology of safety at work, job stress and work engagement.
Dr Antonina Pereira
BSc, MSc, PhD, CPsychol, FHEA, AFBPsS
Neuropsychology and neuroscience, including memory, aging and the early neurodegenerative process, language, and cognition.
Dr Roy Spina
BSc, MA, PhD
Individual and cultural differences in social cognition, including research on decision making, judgment, attention, curiosity, and other aspects of social cognition.
Dr Ian Tyndall
BA, PhD
Examining cognitive verbal processes that may underlie the development and maintenance of clinical anxiety disorders, such as Specific Phobia, from a behaviour-analytic perspective.
Dr Moitree Banerjee
PhD
Engagement in mindfulness-based interventions, effectiveness of mindfulness-based interventions, measurement of engagement in psychological therapies and self-help versions of psychological interventions.
Dr Stephanie Jane Bennett
BSc, MSc, MSc. PhD, CPsychol, FHEA, AFBPsS
I am interested in supervising projects that are in the broad areas of Forensic Psychology, Criminology, Quantitative Criminology, Children and Young People (CYP), Police Investigation and Rehabilitative culture in Prisons.
Dr Karen Rodham
BSc (Hons), PhD, CPsychol, SFHEA, FBPsS
My research focuses on understanding how people cope with difficult physical health-related conditions. I am especially interested in how we can help people cope well when living with persistent pain conditions. The questions I am interested in answering require a qualitative approach to data collection. Therefore, I have both expertise and interest in supervising qualitative research.
Dr Valentina Canessa-Pollard
BSc (Hons), PhD, CPsychol, FHEA
I am interested in supervising projects in two broad areas: 1) non-verbal vocal communication, including voice cues eliciting stereotyping processes, and facilitating empathy and well-being; 2) sexual and domestic violence and abuse.
Our PhD Students
Meet our research degree students
Lorena Covington
PhD Student in Psychology
Jasmine Afaily-Zadeh
PhD Student
Gillian Docherty
PhD Student
Psychology and Counselling Research
We have an active and thriving research culture focused into a number of different research laboratories across various subdisciplines.
