We are pleased to announce that the ESRC SCDTP has been awarded four Postdoctoral Fellowships for the 2024/2025 academic year. These prestigious fellowships offer an excellent opportunity for early-career researchers to further develop their independent research careers and enhance their skills in a supportive environment.
For more detailed information about the scheme, please visit our ESRC SCDTP Postdoctoral Fellowship Scheme page, where you’ll find all the relevant criteria, deadlines, and application guidelines.
We are excited to introduce our current cohort of Postdoctoral Fellows for the 2024/2025 year, which you can view below. You can also explore the achievements and research projects of our previous fellows by visiting the 2022/2023 cohort page and the 2023/2024 cohort page.
Should you have any questions or require further information, please don’t hesitate to get in touch. We’re here to help and look forward to supporting the continued success of our fellows.
Ellie is an ESRC Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Southampton within the Department of Sociology. Her research looks at the intersection between religion and veganism with the specific objective of exploring the understandings and experiences of Muslim, Jewish, and Christian vegans in the UK.
Her fellowship will build on her PhD and disseminate her findings. In particular, she plans to publish several journal articles and write a monograph on the topic of ‘faith veganism’ in order to make her findings accessible to academics and advocates alike. Ellie also intends to extend the impact of the methodology she developed during her PhD, social media-based diary methods, which proved an excellent technique for engaging participants and gaining insight into their everyday lived experiences.
Thinking of the next stage of her career, Ellie will also seek to broaden her knowledge in the area of sustainability, as well as attend trainings on creative methods. She will utilise this knowledge to design and plan her next research project.
Monica is an ESRC Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Southampton, School of Psychology. Her research seeks to augment recommended psychological treatments for psychosis, a leading cause of disability globally, via incorporating principles from attachment theory (a theory about interpersonal relationships). Cognitive behavioural therapy is a first-line recommended treatment for psychosis, though clinical and recovery outcomes are poor; it is crucial to improve current treatments to support quality of life. Given that many people with psychosis experience early interpersonal adversity and feel insecure in their relationships, incorporating interpersonal processes in therapeutic tools is likely to be useful to reduce psychotic experiences and support recovery.
Through this fellowship, Monica will disseminate the impact from her PhD research via several pathways including: (a) developing intervention tools to reduce psychotic experiences and improve quality of life in the general population and clinical groups with psychosis, (b) increasing public awareness of how interpersonal processes impact psychotic experiences and mental wellbeing, and (c) organising events for the public, people with lived experiences of psychosis, and key stakeholders, including the NHS and third sector mental health organisations, to foster engagement with non-academic partners.
Monica will participate in renowned international and national conferences to present her innovative research to diverse academic and professional audiences, including social and personality psychologists, clinical psychologists and therapists, and statisticians and research methodologists. She will undertake advanced statistical training, lecture and supervise undergraduate, Masters, and Doctorate students, and publish her work in leading psychology journals and on publicly accessible platforms, broadening the reach of her research to a wide academic and general audience.
Read Monica’s published work here.
Olivia Caskey is an ESRC Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Portsmouth. Her fellowship builds on her doctoral research, which explored the media representation of women associated with terrorism. Her doctorate involved gathering a large quantitative dataset of over 20,000 news articles and sentencing outcomes from six English-speaking countries, all covering individuals linked to terrorist organisations and activities. Using a novel mixed-methods approach, she investigated how certain gender stereotypes influence and drive the quantity of news coverage.
During her Postdoctoral fellowship, Olivia will continue to explore interdisciplinary approaches that combine criminology, gender studies, and media studies. She will expand her previous work by updating the original dataset and applying new methodological and analytical approaches to the data. Throughout her fellowship, she plans to disseminate her findings through publications and conferences. Social impact is central to her work, and her fellowship will involve engaging with media NGOs and other external stakeholders. Her goal is to enhance both academic and societal knowledge on the role of media in shaping socio-political responses to global security and its impact on gender stereotyping and public perceptions of women associated with terrorism. Finally, she aims to curate the dataset into a shareable format, thus providing a valuable resource for fellow researchers.
I am an ESRC postdoctoral fellow based at the University of Portsmouth’s Centre for the Advancement of Equality, Gender and Inclusion Studies (AEGIS).
My thesis revealed, in the context of Zimbabwe, that despite growing global evidence, many of my participants did not regard the cultural practices of FGM, bride-price, child marriage and polygamy as harmful. My research also found that the medical data revealing the high risk of women being infected with HIV once married was normalised by my female participants. The normalisation of harmful cultural practices and HIV transmission are linked to the necessity for marriage. My thesis exposed a lack of recognition across development stakeholders and female participants that bride price and FGM, by enforcing the notion of subservience, it increases women and girls’ vulnerability to intimate partner violence. Equally, the sanctioning of harmful gender norms operates to limit the agency of women and girls in negotiating safe sex exposing them to HIV. My research generated new evidence that the link between these forms of violence and HIV risk needs to be better addressed in development practice. HIV interventions do not go far enough in challenging the risky sexual behaviour of men and the norms that legitimise it. My research focused on generating evidence to support gender transformative interventions that address the ideology sustaining women and girls’ vulnerability to violence and HIV infection.
I will use this fellowship to develop a number of applied outputs. I will design and deliver bespoke training raising awareness locally into the link between gendered norms and cultural practices for stakeholders including solicitors, social workers, educators, civil society actors and families from affected communities locally.
I intend to publish my thesis as a monograph, and a journal article focused on the role harmful practices play in socialising norms into the mindsets of young girls limiting their agency to challenge the unjust structures that increase their vulnerability and the implications for development policy and practice.
I will attend the Sexual Violence Research Initiative conference in Cape Town and will host a research symposium locally to disseminate my research findings. This fellowship will help me to fill gaps in my experience and expertise and give me time to showcase the applied value of my research.
