Max Dixon

University of Portsmouth

I am a PhD candidate at the University of Portsmouth researching British foreign policy towards Taiwan following Taiwan’s democratisation in the 1990s. I hold an undergraduate degree in Politics and Sociology from the University of Warwick, a Masters’ degree in International Relations from the University of Portsmouth and a Masters’ degree in Social Research Methods from the University of Southampton. Beyond academia I undertook research on China, Hong Kong and Taiwan for the former chair of the Foreign Affairs Select Committee Alicia Kearns MP, I currently lead a research project charting the development of Taiwan Studies in Europe and North America for the European Association of Taiwan Studies and I have vast previous experience in education and the international education industry in the United Kingdom, Hong Kong and mainland China.

Emma Levy

University of Brighton

I am a first-year PhD student at the University of Brighton, researching a harm reduction model for hazing and initiations in UK university sport. I did my undergraduate degree in Criminology and Criminal Justice at Swansea University, where I started my research of hazing and initiation culture, which included hegemonic masculinity in male initiation culture. I continued similar research for my MSc in Social Research Methods at Swansea University, where I researched the overlap of male initiation culture in female sport. My hope in my current research is to bridge the gap between university regulation and student sport culture, that I have found in my previous research.

Alice Bell

University of Southampton

I am a first-year PhD student in Economics. I am studying cooperation around common pool resources with tipping points. I previously completed a BSc and an MRes in Economics at the University of Southampton. I hope to use experiments to examine the underlying mechanisms for coordination around common pool resources with tipping points. I am particularly interested in their application to climate change and cooperation around avoiding uncertain and risky tipping points that will cause irreversible damage to our environment.