Ph.D. Research

Using a range of practice and theory based methods the group is concerned to make apparent evidence of human desire and cultural imperatives as they are manifested in the way that science and technology is practiced, innovated by entrepreneurs and interpreted by its users. Informed by transdisciplinary approaches, current research engages with burning questions in Film and Cinema Studies, Media Philosophy, Digital Media, History of Science and Technology, Media Anthropology, Design Theory, Interaction Design and Human Cognition.

Many doctoral research projects begin with a conversation, and if you are considering a research degree there are a number of ways of engaging with us in order to find out more about the process and developing your application. Our monthly seminar sessions are open to the public. We also encourage potential applicants to contact us about making a visit to our offices for a meeting and the opportunity to meet other researchers in the group.

For further information prospective Ph.D. candidates are advised to contact Prof. dr. Michael Punt (michael.punt@plymouth.ac.uk) or Dr Hannah Drayson (hannah.drayson@plymouth.ac.uk) in the first instance.

All supervisory teams include members with substantial track records of practice in the arts, design or filmmaking who also have significant publishing profiles in at least one other academic discipline. Previous students have held full doctoral research grants from AHRC, EPSRC, Plymouth University and Brazilian and Portuguese Research Councils. Current researchers are funded as part of the Marie-Curie funded ITN CogNovo, and 3D3 consortium. Transtechnology Research also holds and oversees doctoral and post-doctoral research grants from the EU.

Completed PhD Theses 

Begum, T. (2015) A Postcolonial Critique of Industrial Design 

Cachão, R. (2015) An Ontology of Space: Methodological Recursiveness and the Diagram

Doove, E. (2017)Laughter, inframince and cybernetics – Exploring the Curatorial as Creative Act

Drayson, H. (2011) Gestalt Biometrics and their Applications; Instrumentation, Objectivity and Poetics 

Edmonds, G. (2014-2020) Early Cinema and Cognitive Creativity

Egbe, A. (2017) Notions on a radical moving image archive practice as a problematic, MPhil.

Griffin, J. (2014) Experience and Viewpoints in the Social Domain of Space Technology

Haines, A. (2014-2020) Ideas exchange: Design and the Post-Biotech Body

Hutchinson, J. (2014-2022) A Media-archaeology of Technology and Enchantment

Jackson, A. (2014-2019) Creative balance between expressive movement and technology: for the autistic child

Knight, J. (2012-2020) A Relational Ecology of Photographic Practices: towards a non-anthropocentric approach to photography.

Op den Kamp, C. (2015) The Go-Between. The Film Archive as a Mediator Between Copyright and Film Historiography

Rocha, M. (2015) New Routes to HCI – A transdisciplinary approach

Stamboliev, E., (2014-) The social robot between social, surveying and digital media: A media-ethical perspective on a contemporary tracking device

Thompson, S. (2008) Artefacts, Technicity and Humanisation: Industrial Design and the Problem of Anoetic Technologies 

Vines, J. (2011) Aging Futures: Towards: Cognitively Inclusive Digital Media Products 

Woodward, M. (2014 ) The Multidimensional Depth of the Image: Body, Environment, Artefact

Current Doctoral Research Projects

Alsaad, A,. (2015- ) Creative Psychotherapy including Art (working title)

Brodskis, B,. (2016-) Post-digital scribing: valuing the point of intersection

Finnegan, P., (2018-) The digital image according to its hieroglyphic and animistic capacities

Gerhardt, F., (2023-) Experienceable Neurodiversity: or Film’s potential to render diverse experiences of sensory perception

Guy, L.. Artist designed systems in Community Radio. (2018-)

Moran, S., (3D3 Scholarship) Symbiont Encounters: Ecological Fictioning and Networked Media. (2018-)

Pan, E. (2022)  How embodied interactive design can enhance the visitor’s second-person narrative experience in the museum exhibition space.

Peres, N. (2014-) Immersive cinematics in medical simulation: interfaces for the patient voice

Richardson, J., (2018-) Bringing forth an economics of well-being in everyday life

Salvadori, C., (2022-)

Schneider, J., (2018-) How can a culture of spontaneity be sustained from within the imperatives of goal/outcome-oriented human endeavour? (working title)

Sweeting, J. (2015-) The Impact of Nostalgia on Videogame Form

Turton, S.,  (2018-) Technologies of Soul

Wang, Z. (2022) The Mission of Knowledge in Curatorial Studies

Welsman, L. (2019-) Sublime onto-aesthetics: quantum qualities of art across media

Zhang, L., (2019-) The Social Construction of Pandemic Knowledge.