Niamh Thornton, University of Liverpool (PI) is Reader in Latin American Studies at the University of Liverpool. She is a specialist in Mexican Film, Literature, and Digital Cultures with a particular focus on War Stories, Gendered Narratives, Star Studies, Cultures of Taste, and Distributed Content. She has published widely. Her books include Revolution and Rebellion in Mexican Cinema (Bloomsbury, 2013), International Perspectives on Chicana/o Studies: This World is My Place (Routledge, 2013), and Memory and Trauma in Mexican Visual Culture (Bloomsbury, forthcoming 2018). This project grew out of her research in the Mexican film star María Félix and she hopes that this project will provide a way of discussing micro-gestures in film performance. Find out more about Niamh on her personal page and her University page.
Liz Greene, Liverpool John Moores University is a researcher and practitioner at LJMU whose main interests are in the theory, history and practice of film sound. Other research centres on videographic criticism, archival studies, production studies, documentary studies, and Irish cinema. Her recent publications include: a co-edited anthology The Palgrave Handbook of Sound Design and Music in Screen Media: Integrated Soundtracks (2016); a special co-edited issue of Music, Sound and the Moving Image on “Breath and the Body of the Voice in Cinema” (2016); and an article “About Silence” in SEQUENCE: Serial Studies in Media, Film and Music (2016). She is currently making a feature length video essay on the role of sound design in cinema, which is an accompaniment to my forthcoming monograph on Alan Splet and Sound Design: An Archival Study. Find out more about Liz on her personal page and her University page.
Caroline Wilkinson, FaceLab, Liverpool John Moores University is Director of the Face Lab, a LJMU research group based in Liverpool Science Park. The Face Lab carries out forensic/archaeological research and consultancy work and this includes craniofacial analysis, facial depiction and forensic art. Craniofacial analysis involves the depiction and identification of unknown bodies for forensic investigation or historical figures for archaeological interpretation. This may involve post-mortem depiction, facial reconstruction, craniofacial superimposition and skull reassembly. Forensic art also involves witness interviews to produce facial sketches/composites, age progression images and facial image comparison. Find out more about Caroline and FaceLab, here.
Sarah Shrimpton, FaceLab, Liverpool John Moores University is a research assistant and PhD candidate in the Face Lab at the School of Art and Design, Liverpool John Moores University. Sarah’s research interests mainly focus on recognition of faces from facial depictions for forensic scenarios. Her PhD research entitled, ‘Facial Avatars and Familiar Face Recognition’, focuses on ‘composite’ faces – those faces made up of features/facial parts from other faces. Psychological experiments are being used to assess how much and which parts of a donor face are needed in a ‘composite’ face to render the donor face recognizable – or rather unrecognisable for donors that wish to remain anonymous. Find out more about Sarah and her work in FaceLab, here.
Catherine Wilkinson, Edge Hill University is a lecturer in Children, Young People and Families at Edge Hill University. Catherine completed her PhD in Environmental Sciences at University of Liverpool, funded by an ESRC CASE award. Undertaking 18 months of ethnographic research, Catherine adopted a participatory mixed-methods approach to explore the ways in which young people use community radio as a platform to find and realise their voices, build stocks of social capital, and create their own communities and senses of belonging. Find out more about Catherine’s research, here.
Samantha Wilkinson, Manchester Metropolitan University is a lecturer in Human Geography at Manchester Metropolitan University, assisting with the delivery of a variety of undergraduate units. She is also Principal Investigator on a project funded by Manchester Geographical Society, into the impact of Airbnb on communities in Greater Manchester. Prior to this, Sam was a research Fellow in the School of Sociology and Social Policy at the University of Nottingham, working on the BOUGH project, which aims to broaden understandings of good home care for people with dementia. Before this, she completed a Human Geography PhD, Environmental Governance MSc, and Human Geography BA (Hons), at The University of Manchester. Her diverse research interests include: dementia, qualitative methods, alcohol, young people, friendship, care, intergenerationality, mobilities, atmospheres, the sharing economy, and animal geographies. Find out more about Samantha’s research, here.
Jacqui McAssey is a lecturer in Fashion Communication at Liverpool John Moores University. Her research interests focus on photography and styling within the wider subjects of fashion, fandom and sport. Her visual project ‘Girfans’ investigates the lives of female football fans through photography and the traditional fanzine form to give them visibility, a voice and a sense of belonging in football culture. Girlfans Zine has been exhibited at The Whitworth, Manchester and featured in GQ Style and The Guardian. Jacqui is currently writing the second edition of Fashion Design: Styling for Bloomsbury. Find out more about Girlfans, here and follow Jacqui’s work here: Twitter @jacquimcassey and Instagram @girlfanszine
Post-Graduate Student Associates
For our event at FACT we have PG students working alongside us.
Emma Copestake began her PhD in October 2017 at the University of Liverpool after securing funding from the North West Consortium Doctoral Training Partnership. Her thesis is titled ‘Laughing through the Pain? Occupational Wellbeing on the Waterfront in Liverpool and Glasgow 1964-89’. This research is focused on the humour, emotions and wellbeing of dock communities in both cities. Emma’s interests include the history of emotions, labour history, class, gender and occupational health. She is particularly concerned with the use of oral history to explore the ways in which agency and structure interact to define historical experience. The emotional dimension of experience, on the part of historical subjects and the historian, is essential to this process and to her ongoing research. Find out more about Emma’s research, here.
Emily Gibbs is currently completing her Ph.D., funded by the NWCDTP, at the University of Liverpool. Her research seeks to explore the ways that urban communities experienced life in the British nuclear nation state, specifically looking at the emotional and psychological histories of nuclear weapons, to understand experiences of ‘nuclear anxiety’ during the Cold War. Her research utilises oral history to build a comparative history of everyday life in the Cold War era, and contribute to emerging scholarship on nuclear cities, history of emotions, and the British nuclear experience. Find out more about Emily on her personal page and her university page.
Kerrie McGiveron is a first-year PhD student of history at the University of Liverpool. Her research interests include New Left activism, second-wave feminism and specifically the left-wing radical group Big Flame. She is interested in gender, class, ‘history from below,’ and the use of oral history. Her MA thesis explored the role of Big Flame in Kirkby, Merseyside and their involvement in the Kirkby Rent Strike 1971-72. She started her PhD in 2017. Funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council her project will explore further the role of Big Flame in Liverpool and East London. Prior to undertaking her PhD, she achieved an MA with distinction in Twentieth Century History from the University of Liverpool and a first-class degree in History from the Open University. Find her on Twitter @mardykerrie
Holly Saron is a second year PhD student and Graduate Teaching Assistant at Edge Hill University in Ormskirk. Her current research interests focus on seeking children’s (mostly hidden) voices and experiences of clinical procedures, specifically X-ray procedures. She is experienced in non-participant observation and has spent time observing children’s verbal and non-verbal methods to communicate assent and dissent. She has also designed and utilised participatory arts-based methods to promote inclusion of participants in research. Prior to undertaking her PhD in Health, Holly has a Geography and Demography background with an undergraduate degree from the University of Dundee, Scotland and a Masters from the University of Liverpool. Find her on Twitter @holly_saron
Isabel Taube is a writer, editor and researcher, based in Manchester. She is a PhD candidate in History at Manchester Metropolitan University exploring the cultural and historical legacies of Granada Television from the 1950s to 1970s. Work-in progress chapters examine the company’s reputation as a socially-conscious ‘radical’ broadcaster, its relationship to visual arts in the North-West and the influence of Eastern European and Soviet culture on its early development (AHRC Scholarship 2016-2019). She has presented her work at the Edinburgh Sculpture Workshop and The Anthony Burgess Foundation in Manchester. In collaboration with writer Beth Bramich, she co-edited the website ‘Of and For Turner Contemporary’, a collection of new essays on the Turner Contemporary in Margate, developed alongside the building’s architects, David Chipperfield Architects. She is employed as a writing assistant to artist Alice Kettle and is an assistant editor at FEAST Journal, an online platform deploying food as a framework to explore cultural history, literary narratives and contemporary art. She tutors in Critical and Contextual Studies in the School of Arts and Media at the University of Salford. Find out more about Isabel’s research and practice, here.
Ekaterina Tarnovskaya is a PhD student in Sociology at the University of Essex. Currently, she is working on her PhD research project which relates to investigating social inequalities in cultural work in the British documentary film production. Her research interests include the sociology of cultural production, the sociology of art and cultural politics, and the sociology of work.
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