Museum Studies at Leicester
Completed PhD research
Our postgraduate researchers come from all over the world and they research and write about museums from all over the world. Many of them have gone on to become professors and leading academics in a range of disciplines. Others are senior museum professionals. The following list includes past research students and links to their thesis. Browse the list and explore the links, to get a flavour of the range of doctoral research that takes place in the Museum Studies at Leicester, and be inspired for your own doctoral journey.
2025
- Gemma Cantlow - The Secret Lives of Digital Museum Resources and Collections: Pedagogical Practice and Interactions with the Smithsonian's Learning Lab
Supervisor: Giasemi Vavoula - Elizabeth Gray - An Invitation to ‘Play’: Interpreting Performing Arts History in the Museum
Supervisor: Suzanne MacLeod - Yuqiao Hu - Investigating the opportunities and challenges of museums’ use of social media to engage Chinese audiences
Supervisor: Richard Sandell - Han Jiang - Human-Centred Digitisation: Contextualising museum digitisation in collaborative and socio-technical environments
Supervisor: Giasemi Vavoula - Isabelle Lawrence - Hidden Revealed: Investigating Representation and Narratives of Disability in the British Museum
Supervisor: Richard Sandell - Camila Plaza Salgado - Reimagining University Museums: A Reflexive History of Museum Practice in Science University Museums in Chile
Supervisor: David Unwin - Xiangnuo Ren - The Construction of “Chineseness’ in Avant-Garde Art during the Last Decade of the 20th Century
Supervisor: Simon Knell - Jiayi Chang - In Pursuit of the China Dream: The Communist Party of China and its Uses of Heritage
Supervisor: Simon Knell
2024
- Rachel Adams - Military Museums at a Time of Change: Investigating the impact of organisational values and workplace cultures on the process of change management in military museums of the United Kingdom
Supervisor: Richard Sandell - Miranda Chavis - Museums, Resilience, and Public Service: The Organizational Implications of Socially Purposeful Practice
Supervisor: Richard Sandell - Rachael Sarah Cooksey - Archive Services and the Changing Role of the Professional, 1945 – 2015: A Study into Local Authority Archive Services
Supervisor: Simon Knell - Mingshi Cui - Displacement Revisited — Rethinking the Social Role of Digitisation in Museum Practice
Supervisor: Giasemi Vavoula - Laura Dudley - From Re-Construction to Co-Production: remembering and restaging past participatory exhibitions
Supervisors: Isobel Whitelegg - Wael Dugdugi - To visit or not to visit? Visitor motivations and non-visitor perceptions of museum visitation in Riyadh, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia
Supervisor: Sarina Wakefield - Tom Eaton - Meditative Museum Texts & Allegorical Artefacts: A Curatorial Investigation into the Strategies of a Documentary-Fiction Film-Essay as a Source of Innovative Approaches to the Interpretation and Narration of Artefacts in the History Museum
Supervisor: Suzanne MacLeod - Niki Ferraro - Mounting Empire: The National Gallery and British Imperialism, 1824-1900
Supervisor: Stacy Boldrick - Eleni Ganiti - Collecting the contemporary, defining the museum of contemporary art: the case of the Museum of Contemporary Art, Roskilde
Supervisor: Isobel Whitelegg - Lucrezia Gigante - The Spatial Politics of Art Organisations: Public Programmes as Sites of Cultural Citizenship
Supervisor: Nuala Morse - Emily Levick - Feminine Fabrications: Textiles and the Representation of Women in Museums
Supervisor: Sandra Dudley - Pelin Lyu - Exploring the Concept and Institution of Contemporary Chinese Art Museums in Shanghai from 2000 to 2023: Case Studies of Rockbund Art Museum and Power Station of Art
Supervisor: Stacy Boldrick - Lijia Ma - Developing community museums in urban China
Supervisor: Katherine Bunning - Jianan Qi - Within and Beyond Classrooms: Academically Trained Artists in the Era of the ’85 New Wave
Supervisor: Stacy Boldrick - Ava Salzer - Presenting the Unknown: infrastructure, influence and information in the management of uncertain objects in museums and galleries
Supervisor: Sandra Dudley - James Shallow - Changes in memory and meaning in the retention of conflict-related material culture within domestic space
Supervisor: Sheila Watson
2023
- Yang Chen - Exhibitionary Spaces in Japanese Art, 1860s-1970s: Models, Terminologies and Territories
Supervisor: Isobel Whitelegg - Thomas Duncan - Developing museum and exhibition design through practice-centred study and application of narrative theory and film
Supervisor: Suzanne MacLeod - Yanrong Jiang - How can creative museum-based learning activities improve children’s wellbeing in the Chinese context?
Supervisor: Nuala Morse - Sofia Katharaki - Emotional Narratives at Holocaust Exhibitions in the UK: Exploring Visitors’ Engagement and Experience
Supervisor: Sheila Watson - Sheng-Yen Lin - Designing Evaluation of Museum Digital Technology for Visitors: A Focus on School Groups
Supervisor: Giasemi Vavoula - Louise Macul - Decolonising Museum Notions of Authenticity in the Sarawak Museum: The Lepo’ Tau Kenyah, Kayan, and Berawan paintings
Supervisor: Sandra Dudley - Blaire Moskowitz - Exploring the Expert Web Understanding Interactions Between Museums and Online Communities
Supervisor: Ross Parry - Minju Oh - 'Registers of Empathy' of Visitors towards the 'Painful History' of South Korea within South Korean National Museums
Supervisor: Nuala Morse - Eloisa Rodrigues - Mapping Brazilian art in public collections across the UK
Supervisor: Isobel Whitelegg - Torhild Skatun - Science, Identity and Belonging: Engaging through co-design with young people at a science museum: a qualitative study of process
Supervisor: Giasemi Vavoula - Yanpeng Song - From Moral Indoctrination to Moral Experience: An Experiential Model for Promoting Middle School Children’s Moral Education in China’s Museums
Supervisor: Simon Knell - Rachel Teskey - Rewriting the script: towards a new ethos of writerly practice for museums
Supervisor: Ross Parry - Anna Tulliach - Art and War – Anglo-American Troops in Italy (1943-45)
Supervisor: Stacy Boldrick - Kristy Van Hoven - Museo-Medical Partnerships and their Impact on Health and Wellbeing
Supervisor: Richard Sandell - Brendon Wilkins - Digging the Crowd: the future for archaeology in the digital and collaborative economy
Supervisor: Giasemi Vavoula - Gina Wouters - The Relativity of Relevance: How Artists Are Serving as a Catalyst for Organizational Change in Historic House Museums
Supervisor: Stacy Boldrick - Lingling Xie - Design and enterprise in contemporary China: A new role for museums and heritage
Supervisor: Simon Knell - Stefania Zardini Lacedelli - The Museum as a Platform for Sound Culture
Supervisor: Ross Parry
2022
- Blanca Jove Alcalde - Thinking institutional frameworks with care: The relation between participation and authorship in discursive public programmes
Supervisor: Isobel Whitelegg - Olatunde Barber - Modernity and Identity: The National Gallery of Modern Art Lagos (NGMAL) and the Politics of Nation Making
Supervisor: Simon Knell - Cesare Cuzzola - Materiality in the Socially Engaged Museum: The role of collections within socially purposeful museum practice at Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery
Supervisor: Richard Sandell - Jennifer Durrant - Disposal from Museum Collections: Navigating the ethos, ideals, and practice of transparency
Supervisor: Janet Marstine - Abbey Ellis - 'The Castness of the Things': A Visitor’s-Eye View of Value in the Cast Gallery of the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford
Supervisor: Sandra Dudley - Gee Sun Hahn - Korean Museums, Intangible Heritage and the formation of national identity
Supervisor: Sheila Watson - Jennifer Hunt - Beyond the Stereotype: Representing Disability in the National Museums of Great Britain
Supervisor: Richard Sandell - Wen-Yi Liu - Dark Heritage Sites and Impacts on Visitors’ Engagements with the Past in Taiwan
Supervisor: Sandra Dudley - Lanzhou Luo - Museums and Heritage in the People’s Republic of China, 1949-1979
Supervisor: Simon Knell - Chiara Marabelli - Original Copies? Readdressing the Value of Classical Cast Collections in Contemporary Museum Practices
Supervisor: Sandra Dudley - Mari Moystad - Lived experiences in museums: Engaging visitors’ hearts and minds
Supervisor: Richard Sandell - Daniel Turetsky - Ritual objects, spiritual heritage and the museum space between: Examining the curatorial formation of intangible heritage narratives for faith-based exhibits in Israel museums
Supervisor: Lisanne Gibson - Yahao Wang - Representing ethnic minority cultures in China: Museums, heritage, and ethnic minority groups
Supervisor: Stacy Boldrick - Kristina Wright - Transcultural Encounters between Asia and Africa: Experiencing ‘otherness’ through the arts in Seoul and Nairobi
Supervisor: Simon Knell
2021
- Dana Saif Almazrouei - UAE Museums Integrating Female Empowerment Approaches to Capture Marginalized Emirati Women’s’ Voices For Preserving Intangible Cultural Heritage
Supervisor: Nuala Morse - Aisha Almisnad Almohannadi - Museum Silences on Wartime Rape: The Case of the Imperial War Museum
Supervisor: Nuala Morse - Sophie Kazan - Dialogues of tradition and modernity: The development of contemporary art in the United Arab Emirates
Supervisor: Simon Knell - Sumi Kim - Curating Culture, Exhibiting Nation: The Development of South Korea’s Cultural Diplomacy and Korean Exhibitions in ‘Universal’ Museums
Supervisor: Lisanne Gibson - Kuan-Yin Liu - Understanding the Organisational Hybridity of Cultural and Art Organisations: The Case of Contemporary Art Spaces in Taiwan
Supervisor: Janet Marstine - Jingyu Peng - How Did That Interactive Make You Feel? Towards a framework for evaluating the emotional and sensory experience of next generation in-gallery technology
Supervisor: Ross Parry - Ainul Wahida Radzuan - The Roots of Intangible Cultural Heritage amongst the Malays of Negeri Sembilan, Malaysia: The Customary Law of Adat Perpatih
Supervisor: Sandra Dudley - Amornchat Sermcheep - London Transport posters: from publicity materials to museum exhibits
Supervisor: Sandra Dudley - Chanin Suriyakul Na Ayudhya - Interpretive Synergies Between Science And Intangible Cultural Heritage: A Case Study Of Communicating Knowledge About Thai Rice Farming In A Science Museum
Supervisor: Giasemi Vavoula - Aikaterini Vlachaki - Towards Participation in Museum Architecture
Supervisor: Suzanne MacLeod
2020
- Armand De Filippo - Outside and beyond: the manuscript as object and the implications for interpretive settings
Supervisor: Sandra Dudley - Samantha Fabry - Protecting the protected: World Heritage Sites and collections; defining, recognising and protecting Outstanding Universal Value in its entirety
Supervisor: Suzanne MacLeod - Yeung Fok - Cultural Heritage Policy, Civil Society and Identity in Hong Kong
Supervisor: Lisanne Gibson - Louisa Kramer-Weidenhaupt - Management Practice Supporting Sustained Development In The German Art Collection
Supervisor: Lisanne Gibson - Peter Lester - Reshaping the Archive: Exhibition as a mechanism for change
Supervisor: Suzanne MacLeod - Kyle McPhail - Feminist Art Histories and Masculinity: Reading the Mainstream Art Museum
Supervisor: Suzanne MacLeod - Martina Santillan - The Conflicting Relationship between Socially Engaged Art Practice and Museums through the Eyes of Mexico City Artists
Supervisor: Simon Knell - Elena Settimini - Cultural landscape and living heritage in the Vineyard Landscape of Langhe-Roero and Monferrato
Supervisor: Lisanne Gibson - Naomi Terry - ‘Betwixt and Between’: Exploring Invisibility and Narrating Mixed-Race Identity in UK Museums
Supervisor: Richard Sandell