Current research students

The majority of our PhD students continue to academic posts, whilst a smaller number have gone on to enjoy careers in other fields.  Of the fifty four PhD students who graduated between 2016 and 2022, forty two have proceeded to either post-doctoral research or teaching fellowships, or to permanent academic appointments.

Most of those with permanent academic appointments are working in departments of Social Anthropology, though our PhD students have, in the past, also gone on to work in departments of Geography and Archaeology. These permanent posts are at Edinburgh, Cambridge, Oxford, Kent, Manchester, SOAS, Goldsmiths, Bristol, Aberystwyth and UCL. Others have appointments at the University of Hong Kong, Bogazici University in Turkey and the Marino Institute of Education in Dublin.

Post doctoral teaching and research fellowships, held at institutions across the world, are the first destination for the great majority of our PhD students.  These include fellowships at the following universities and centres: LSE; Princeton University, USA; Oxford; Ghent University, Belgium; Edinburgh; Kent School of Anthropology and Conservation; Rotterdam International Institute of Social Studies, the Netherlands; European Research Centre on Contemporary Taiwan, University of Tübingen, Germany; Manchester; Southern University of Science and Technology, Shenzen, China; University of Bern, Switzerland; Centre for Indigenous and Intercultural Research, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile; University of Vienna, Austria; The Emerging Technologies Research Lab, Monash University, Melbourne; Cambridge; the Centre for Energy Ethics at St Andrews. Named fellowships include the Evans-Pritchard Fellowship at the Oxford School of Global and Area Studies and the Smuts Research Fellow at the University of Cambridge.

Non Academic Careers: Not all PhD students wish to pursue an academic career. Our graduates have gone on to work in publishing, in development (for example, co-ordinating gender programmes for the UN) within business and corporations, as freelance writers and as tutors in mental health trusts. 

Acholonu, Ikenna (in the field)
Area of interest: Nigeria
Thematic interests: anthropology of citizenship, post-colonial nationalisms & development, African youth studies, black studies, embodiment, affect and emotions
I.Acholonu1@lse.ac.uk

Åndahl, John Erik (in the field)
Area of interest: Panama, the Caribbean
Thematic interests: climate change, indigenous studies, anthropology of development
J.Andahl@lse.ac.uk

ap Gwilym, Cai (post-field)
Area of interest: Alberta, Canada
Thematic interests: anthropology of taxation, oil and gas extraction, conservative politics
C.J.Ap-Gwilym@lse.ac.uk

Balan, Maria (post-field)
Area of interest: Santa Cruz de la Sierra, Bolivia
Thematic interests: adolescents and the street, drugs and addiction, responsibility
M.Balan@lse.ac.uk

Civil, Selin (pre-field)
Area of interest: Azerbaijan
Thematic interests: truth/post-truth; alternative healing and spirituality; anthropology of epistemology
S.Civil@lse.ac.uk

del Gallo, Marco (post-field)
Area of interest: Indonesia
Thematic interests: urban ecology, labour, infrastructure, small-scale fisheries
M.del-Gallo@lse.ac.uk

Fleck, Micah J. (he/him) (in the field)
Area of Interest: Rural Appalachia (United States)
Thematic interests: group empathy, community religious praxis, and emergent post-capitalist sociality
M.J.Fleck@lse.ac.uk

Gitsham, Honor (she/her) (in the field)
Area of interest: United Kingdom
Thematic interests: queer kinship, anthropology of ethics, sensory ethnography, creative writing and poetic forms
H.O.Gitsham@lse.ac.uk

Gribling, Nina (in the field)
Area of interest: Caribbean (Aruba and Curaçao)
Thematic interests: Environmental anthropology, de-industrialisation, energy infrastructures and plantation
N.Gribling@lse.ac.uk

Hirchberg, Alon (pre-field)
Area of interest: Colombian Amazon
Thematic interests: ontology, exemplarity,  historicity
A.Y.Hirchberg@lse.ac.uk

Hardman, Grace (she/her) (pre-field)
Area of interest: United Kingdom
Thematic interests: Adolescence, temporality, affect and psychological anthropology
G.Hardman@lse.ac.uk

Hudson, Hol (they/them) (in the field)
Area of interest: Britain
Thematic interests: radical herbalism, health justice, human-non-human relations, neoliberalism 
H.G.Hudson@lse.ac.uk

Jaede, Riccardo (post-field)
Area of interest: West Bengal, India
Thematic interests: anthropology of ethics, urban anthropology
R.Jaede@lse.ac.uk

Jiang, Jiarong (post-field)
Area of interest: Tibetan region in China
Thematic interests: interspecies and multispecies (or multi-entities) studies, pastoralism, political ecology and environment, practicing religion and Tibetan Buddhism
J.Jiang12@lse.ac.uk

Kalandadze, Mariam (in the field)
Area of interest: Georgia
Thematic interests: political protests, affect theory, anthropology of place
M.Kalandadze@lse.ac.uk

Kirshner, Sarai (she/her) (pre-field)
Area of interest: Palestine/Israel, Middle East and North Africa
Thematic interests: anthropology of violence and war, environment and the climate crisis, race/racism, critical theory
S.Kirshner1@lse.ac.uk

Knight, Benjamin (pre-field)
Area of interest: United Kingdom
Thematic interests: Epistemic difference, theological diversity and intrareligious difference, religious speech
B.B.Knight@lse.ac.uk

Kong, Pengyin (post-field)
Area of interest: China, Tibet
Thematic interests: infrastructure, labor, ethnic identity
P.Kong@lse.ac.uk 

Li, Yue (in the field)
Area of interest: China
Thematic interests: migrant labour, gender, political and economic anthropology
Y.Li324@lse.ac.uk 

Madden, Rhys (post-field)
Area of interest: UK, Guyana, Mauritius
Thematic interests: ambivalence, uncertainty and doubt, migration histories, flooding, coastal habitat restoration, material culture 
R.A.Madden@lse.ac.uk

Mandal, Apala (in the field)
Area of interest: Indian Diaspora in the UK 
Thematic interests: motherhood, reproduction, migrant experiences, faith
A.Mandal1@lse.ac.uk

Marner, Joane (post-field)
Area of interest: Jharkhand, India
Thematic interests: time and space, hunter-gatherers, development, alcoholism, relational personhood, alternative economies
J.D.Marner@lse.ac.uk

Mohd Nizal, Sarah (post-field)
Area of interest: Sarawak/Malaysian Borneo
Thematic interests: memory and affect, houses, temporal landscapes, material culture
S.B.Mohd-Nizal@lse.ac.uk

Navarrete Zur, Sofía (she/her) (pre-field)
Area of interest: Mexico
Thematic interests: Migration, borders and gender, Digital anthropology, Political subjectivity and citizenship
S.Navarrete-Zur@lse.ac.uk

Nizharadze, Nino (pre-field)
Area of interest: Georgia
Thematic interests: recognition, non-recognition, elites, political dissidents
N.Nizharadze@lse.ac.uk

Osborn, Nick (post-field)
Area of interest: Guatemala
Thematic interests: christianity, ethics, memory and migration, anthropology of plantations
N.Osborn@lse.ac.uk 

Pradhan, Sagarika (post-field)
Area of interest: India
Thematic interests: disability, schooling, self-Identity and personhood
S.Pradhan1@lse.ac.uk

Rowlands, Mattie (pre-field)
Area of interest: United Kingdom
Thematic interests: Sex hormones (testosterone); the body, care and the welfare state; neoliberalism, the self, and political subjectivity
M.A.Rowlands@lse.ac.uk

Seagrave, Jacob (post-field)
Area of interest: Andalucía, Spain
Thematic interests: agricultural cooperatives, rural trade unionism, ecology, politics of land
J.L.Seagrave@lse.ac.uk

Sollie, Kaia (post-field)
Area of interest: Europe
Thematic interests: migrant labour, seasonality, Europe and the EU
K.B.Sollie@lse.ac.uk

Stanley, Isaac (post-field)
Area of interest: West & Central Africa, especially Senegal and DR Congo
Thematic interests: economic anthropology, social reproduction and gender, intellectuals and intellectual history, popular culture, migration and diaspora, religion
I.M.Stanley@lse.ac.uk

Tavasoli, Atieh (pre-field)
Area of interest: Iraq
Thematic interests: nationalism, anthropology of religion, materiality
A.Tavasoli@lse.ac.uk

Tiilila, Taru (post-field)
Area of interest: Kenya
Thematic interests: mentalization / theory of mind, psychological and cognitive anthropology
T.T.Tiilila@lse.ac.uk

Urrego Diaz, Juanita (pre-field)
Area of interest: Colombia
Thematic interests: trauma and armed conflict; sorcery; healing rituals
J.Urrego-Diaz@lse.ac.uk

Wyatt, Benjamin (in the field)
Area of interest: Australia
Thematic interests: Labour and work, trade unions, pragmatic linguistics, community organising
B.P.Wyatt@lse.ac.uk

Yan, De (post-field)
Area of interest: China
Thematic interests: political anthropology, urban bureaucracy, formalism
D.Yan2@lse.ac.uk

Yang, Peter (post-field)
Area of interest: Cuba; the post-Soviet world
Thematic interests: mobilisation, consciousness, Leninism, passion, hurricanes, the state
Y.Yang51@lse.ac.uk

Ye, Yutong (she/her) (in the field)
Area of interest: Southwest China/ China-Myanmar border
Thematic interests: Politics of the self, indigenous Christianity, gender
Y.Ye19@lse.ac.uk

Zohar, Daniel (post-field)
Area of interest: Ecuadorian Amazonia
Thematic interests: animism, ontology, multispecies ethnography, anthropology of Nature
D.Zohar@lse.ac.uk