Postgraduate Research

The Unit for the Social Study of Thalassaemia and Sickle Cell has a lively and enthusiastic postgraduate culture with a dedicated Graduate School, on hand to support both research students and staff in ensuring that students can achieve their potential whilst studying at DMU.

Sickle Cell Disease (SCD) and Thalassaemia are the world’s leading “single gene” chronic conditions and constitute major public health challenges in West, East, and Central Africa, in the Mediterranean and the Middle East, on the Indian Sub-Continent and in South China and South-East Asia. To date, such chronic conditions have mainly been restricted to childhood, but with improving social conditions, medical advances and, in the case of SCD, newborn screening programmes, globally hundreds of thousands are now living into adulthood. However, whilst much has been written within a biomedical framework on Sickle Cell and Thalassaemia, the equivalent research programme in social sciences remains underdeveloped. As SCD and/or Thalassaemia comprise the major chronic illnesses in most countries outside North America and Europe, knowledge of the social dimensions of these conditions will be of considerable global importance in the 21st Century.The research area is likely to be drawn from one or more of the following fields of study: the sociology of health and illness, the social study of science and technology; the social model of disability; the sociology of ethnicity and racism; social theory and health. However, applications would be welcome from any established or emerging topic area within sociology that could be applied to SCD/Thalassaemia, and where the researcher is committed to achieving public impact through research.

Applications are invited from UK or EU students with a good first degree (First, 2:1 or equivalent) in a relevant subject. International students will need to meet the university’s requirements for admission for PhD study.

To receive an application pack, please contact the Graduate School Office via email at researchstudents@dmu.ac.uk. Completed applications should be returned with two supporting references.

For further information please contact the supervisor: Professor Simon Dyson sdyson@dmu.ac.uk