Meet Your Community

Your PhD Programme and Delivery Manager, Emily Crook, is your key administrative contact throughout your studies. She works closely with academic colleagues to support your programme and is here to answer questions, provide guidance, and help with:

• Supervision arrangements.
• Advice on regulations, deferrals, interruptions and withdrawals.
• PhD studentships, scholarships, in-course funding and other financial matters (can signpost advice to the Financial Support Office or PhD Academy where appropriate).
• Examinations and assessment, upgrade and viva arrangements.
• Staff-Student Liaison Committee/Academic Reps.
• Careers, job market and alumni relations.
• Pastoral advice and support.
• Student handbooks and online learning environments/materials.

If you have any questions, you can contact the Emily at gov.phd@lse.ac.uk.

The post of Doctoral Programme Director is currently held by Dr Pavithra Suryanarayan, who also oversees the admissions process.

Dr Suryanarayan is available during her advertised office hours and otherwise by appointment (via email).

The role of the Doctoral Programme Director is to:

• Oversee relations between students and their supervisors/ advisors, and to advise on whatever matters cannot be settled within the normal student/supervisor relationship.
• Organise the admissions, MRes upgrade and annual review processes.
• Represent the interests of the department’s PhD programme with the relevant School committees and administrators.

The Doctoral Programme Director is supported in this work by the department’s Doctoral Programme Committee (DPC), which oversees all aspects of the doctoral programme and is actively involved with deciding which students to admit to the MRes/PhD programme.

Each research student in the department has a lead PhD Supervisor or two co-supervisors who monitor and assist with the student's academic progress.

When you embark on your PhD thesis, your supervisor assists by offering academic advice, holding regular meetings with you about your plan of work, and encouraging you to take full advantage of the range of advice and specialist knowledge available in the department and in the School as a whole.

Your supervisor can also help you to identify potential skills or knowledge gaps and refer you to additional LSE courses (for example, in the Department of Methodology) that you could attend to address these.

In addition to a lead supervisor, the department’s arrangements ensure that each student has either a second supervisor, an advisor or a supervision team involving more than two individuals by the time they upgrade to PhD.

More information about the duties of supervisors and advisors can be found in the Research Degree Regulations.

Some students may have an advisor in addition to a lead/co-supervisors and instead of a second supervisor or supervision team. Advisors are not joint supervisors and will not see students with the same regularity as supervisors.

Unlike supervisors (whether single or joint), they are not necessarily specialists in the student’s thesis area. Advisors will also normally take part in the end-of-year Review Panel.

The role of advisor is a flexible one, but in general includes:

• Acting as a substitute in administrative matters in the absence of a single supervisor.
• Providing a supplementary source of advice and encouragement on the broad direction of the research.
• Constituting a second point of contact in the wider departmental network on which students can draw (for example, for references and general academic contacts).
• Providing expert advice on specific research methods and techniques. Giving supplementary advice on how to organise work, and should receive copies of whatever substantial written work is submitted to the supervisor. However, their role in relation to such work will be to give general strategic advice rather than detailed commentary on the text.

The Head of Department is Professor Sara B Hobolt, assisted by the Department Manager, Imran Iqbal.

Professor Hobolt is available during her advertised office hours and otherwise by appointment (via email), if questions arise which cannot be settled through normal Supervisor/Doctoral Programme Director channels. 

Your feedback helps shape the student experience in the Department.

Student Academic Representatives (Academic Reps) are elected each year to represent their peers, raise suggestions for improvement, and work with staff to enhance teaching, learning, and student life.

Elected early in the Autumn Term, Academic Reps represent students at Departmental and School-level committees, ensuring that student views are heard and acted upon.