Current postgraduate research

We have a diverse community of current PGR students, all of whom are actively involved in the life of the Centre.

• Bert Vanderhaegen
  Bert is a Catholic Chaplin in Leuven, Belgium, and his doctoral work is exploring quality and consistency in Empirical Bioethics research. Bert is supervised in the Centre by Jonathan Ives and Richard Huxtable
• Shengyu Zhao
  Shengyu's project is exploring ethical issues in palliative care in China. She is supervised in the centre by Richard Huxtable and Giles Birchley.
• Pam Cairns
• Ffion Fox (MSc by research student)
  Ffion's project title is 'To what extent is, and should, in-vitro fertilisation (IVF) be de-prioritised in order to cut costs?' The aim is to challenge the de-prioritisation of IVF and argue the economic gains in de-prioritising it do not outweigh the right to reproductive autonomy.
• Jordan Parsons
  Jordan is undertaking a PhD exploring ethical issues in nephrology, with a focus on dialysis decisions concerning permanently mentally incapacitated patients. This ties in with work he is doing with the International Society of Nephrology on the monitoring of end-stage kidney disease. His PhD is supported by the Wellcome Trust as part of the BABEL project. Jordan is supervised by Jonathan Ives and Emanuel Valenti in the Centre, and by Fergus Caskey, also based in Population Health Sciences at the Bristol Medical School.
• Harleen Johal
  Harleen's PhD aims to explore conflict resolution in the adult intensive care unit (CRITICAL), specifically focusing on disagreements that arise in ‘best interests’ decision-making. She graduated as a doctor in 2017 and has since completed her Foundation training. Her PhD is supported by Wellcome Trust as part of the BABEL project. Harleen is supervised by Richard Huxtable and Giles Birchley. Harleen also leads the Being Black and Brown in Bioethics (BBBB) study - a qualitative study into the experiences of postgraduate researchers in different racial groups—which is supported by generous funding from the Institute of Medical Ethics.
• Rachel Davies
  Rachel is a Palliative Medicine Doctor undertaking a PhD exploring how primary care clinicians should approach decisions regarding hospital admission for frail, elderly patients. She is supervised by Jonathan Ives in the Centre and Alyson Huntley and Matthew Booker in the Centre for Academic Primary Care.

• Max Griffiths
  Max's PhD focuses on building machine learning algorithms to measure human trust in automation and assist appropriate trust calibration. Max is supervised by Jonathan Ives and Arianna Manzini in the Centre for Ethics in Medicine, and Jonathan Rossiter, in the Bristol Robotics Laboratory.
• Matimba Swana
  Matimba is undertaking a PhD exploring the ethical and regulatory complexity of what the first-in-human nanoswarm cancer clinical trials should look like through the SWARM project study (SWARM – Small robots With collective behaviour as AI-driven cancer therapies; building Regulations for future nanoMedicines). Matimba is supervised by Sabine Hauert (Swarm Engineering) and Jonathan Ives (Centre for Ethics in Medicine). Matimba is also on the research team of the Being Black and Brown in Bioethics (BBBB) study - a qualitative study into the experiences of postgraduate researchers in different racial groups—which is supported by generous funding from the Institute of Medical Ethics.
• Lydia Ariffin
  Lydia graduated as a medical doctor and worked as a general practitioner for ten years before deciding to go into teaching in medical school. Lydia's PhD project is to develop an educational framework for informed consent in clinical practice in Malaysia. Lydia's supervisors are Prof Jonathan Ives and Dr Jane Williams.
• Molly Nobes (MSc by research student)
  Molly is a junior doctor and a bioethics graduate. She is researching how IVF is currently delivered by the NHS, whether change should be implemented for a more ethically justifiable service and, if so, how change could be implemented for a more equitable service delivery for patients with sub-fertility.
• Katherine Murdoch (MSc by research student)
  Katherine is a junior doctor and intercalated bioethics degree graduate whose project considers what approach should be adopted by clinical ethics support services for advising on urgent decisions in healthcare. Katherine is supervised by Richard Huxtable and Dani O'Connor.
• Rasheed O. Taiwo (MSc by research student)
  Rasheed’s project focuses on multi-layered ethical issues in primary care in the UK as well as the UK’s clinical ethics support services in this healthcare sector. Supported by the Wellcome Trust, he is supervised by Richard Huxtable, Gemma Lasseter and Lucy Potter.
• Paul Teed
  Paul is an Accident and Emergency doctor, whose research is a qualitative study exploring the doctor/patient relationship within clinical encounters which involve a patient requesting a medical report or medical records to enable an assisted suicide abroad.
• Saba Faisal
  Saba's project focuses on Optimising understanding for informed consent: evaluation of a measure of participatory informed consent for application to trials research. She is researching the effectiveness of tools used to measure informed consent for research trials. Saba is supervised by Julia Wade and Giles Birchley.