Oliver is interested in the transition of East Asian graduates into the workforce and their subsequent career trajectories.
His doctoral research is multidisciplinary, drawing on the political economy of skill formation, higher education policy, and English medium instruction. His academic background is in political behaviour and applied linguistics. He was awarded a Centenary Scholarship from St Anne’s College and is a Doctoral Teaching Fellow in the department.
Supervisors
Heath Rose and Gene Thompson
Claire is passionate about breaking down the historical and spatial boundaries between higher education institutions and the communities excluded from these establishments. She is a Talloires Network Next Generation Leader and hopes to orientate her research and practice towards the construction of a more just education system in South Africa.
Claire holds a MSt in Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, and MPhil in Economics. She previously worked at the Rhodes University Community Engagement Division, responsible facilitating an engaged research group and a community engagement short course for high schools. Her research interests include community/public engagement, African higher education, feminist and engaged research methods, and community histories.
Claire is eager to hear from anyone thinking about pursuing doctoral study in education, and especially from those with similar research interests.
Supervisors
Dr David Mills and Dr Aliya Khalid
Warda Arif is a doctoral student at the Department of Education. Her research aims to operationalise Critical Realist conceptions and methods to study Cultures of Higher Education in select Indian universities.
She completed her Master’s in Education and International Development from University College London’s – Institute of Education (UCL-IOE) as a Commonwealth Scholar and holds a B.Sc. in Biochemistry form Aligarh Muslim University (AMU).
Over her brief career, Warda has worked in the social development and impact sector in South Africa, India and Saudi Arabia, in teaching, research and advisory roles.
Supervisors
Dr Steven Puttick and Dr Aliya Khalid
Zak Devey is a passionate advocate for youth-led educational advocacy and equity – both within academia and in his work as co-founder of charitable trust Youth Arts New Zealand. In 2024, Zak continues to explore community conceptualisations of educational equity and their intersections with present and historic educational policy.
Zak also holds a deep care for youth-wellbeing, and its systemic determinants in the 21st century. His first publication, in the New Zealand Journal of Sociology, interrogates the ‘2021 World Happiness Report’ and that ways in which it constructs what it means to be happy.
Zak would be happy to hear from anyone looking to undertake a research journey in the Department, as well as scholars interested in educational equity, community-based participatory research, sociologies of well-being, and education in the political context of Aotearoa New Zealand.
Having a background in political science, international relations and history, Alina obtained an MA in Developmental Psychology. Alina is a DPhil student and intends to research prosocial behaviour.
Supervisors
Liam Gearon and Maia Chankseliani
Pippa is a first-year DPhil student, whose research interests focus on vulnerable students’ outcomes and experiences of secondary school English education.
In 2023, Pippa completed an MSc in Learning and Teaching at the University of Oxford, researching pedagogical strategies for the teaching of emotionally challenging literature to students with experiences of trauma. Her DPhil research will build on this project, exploring looked after children’s engagement with English education, and their outcomes in the subject.
Alongside her research, Pippa continues to teach English in a secondary school; she is therefore passionate about collaborations between practice and research. Her project seeks to develop our understanding of looked after children’s experiences in English classrooms, in order to facilitate the development of strategies to support these vulnerable learners.
Supervisors
Nicole Dingwall and Julie Selwyn
Yunfei Ma is a doctoral student in the Department of Education conducting research in the field of international higher education.
Following his B.A. (First Class) at the University of Durham, Yunfei was awarded with MSc (Distinction) from the Department of Education, University of Oxford prior to his DPhil studies. He has also worked as a research assistant on the project Transnational academic mobility to global south: an exploratory study of international faculty in China.
Yunfei’s DPhil research focuses on global academic publishing and its relationship with knowledge formation, codification and dissemination. His research interest primarily lies in the geo-politics of knowledge production, global epistemic governance, China’s Humanities and Social Sciences research, and the philosophy of power.
Supervisors
Ariel Lindorff and Xin Xu
Amy is a DPhil student, funded by an ESRC Grand Union DTP Studentship.
Her doctoral research focuses on the educational provision for separated asylum-seeking and refugee children within the UK context. Alongside her DPhil, she also works for a London local authority’s Virtual School for Looked After Children and Care Leavers, as an ‘Unaccompanied Asylum-Seeking Children Advisory Teacher/Caseworker’.
Prior to starting the DPhil, she completed an (ESRC funded) MSc in Sociology at Oxford University, a MPhil in Development Studies at Cambridge University, and a BA in International Development and Portuguese at Leeds University. She also spent a year studying Social Work at Rio de Janeiro’s PUC University.
Supervisors
David Mills and Ellie Ott
Ling is a third-year PhD student in the School of Chinese as a Second Language at Peking University in China and also a recognised student in the Department of Education at Oxford. My research focuses on teacher education and development, with a specific emphasis on teachers who teach Chinese language worldwide.
Supervisors
Laura Molway and Robert Woore