Ngozi Oparah started her PhD in the School of Design and Creative Arts in October 2020. Ngozi’s research is focused on interactive, fictionalized narratives and animation as tools towards improved mental health literacy in youth. 

Karen Sung started her PhD in the School of Design and Creative Arts in October 2020. Under the Storytelling Academy’s guidance, Karen’s research focuses on finding the lost voices of marginalized Korean Diasporas – those of Lai Dai Han to be specific, and using comics narrative to tell the stories. 

Lucy McLaughlin started her PhD in the School of Design and Creative Arts in October 2020. Lucy’s research explores the use of stop motion animation as a tool to develop young people’s mental health literacy.

Joe Stevens started his PhD in the School of Design and Creative Arts in October 2020. Joe’s research explores joint storytelling through tabletop role-playing games, such as Dungeons and Dragons, as a tool for improving young adults mental health literacy.

Holly Turpin started her PhD in the School of Design and Creative Arts in July 2021 as part of the HOME Centre for Doctoral Training. Holly’s research is focused on narrative enquiry through immersive digital storytelling and co-creation. She is exploring different material and immaterial experiences of losing one’s home and how this relates to identity, memory and heritage.

Elizabeth Jane Lovely started her PhD in the School of Design and Creative Arts in October 2021.
Elizabeth’s research is focused on the felt sense of wonderment invoked by the in-person listening to of fairy tales, and how this impacts upon healing of the whole being. She is exploring the intentional creation of read-aloud stories from an animistic perspective, alongside the origins of fairy tales through this lens. She is also intrigued by the notion of practice from the liminal spaces of blurred boundaries.

Prudhvi Kumar Chowdary‘s interests and expertise include Indian Oral Traditions and Storytelling , Literary Theory and Criticism, Performance Arts, Cultural Studies, Comparative Literature, Sociology, and Indian literature. His research focuses on Fortune Telling: Indian Oral Traditions and Storytelling of the selected Indian tribes and communities. Prudhvi’s personal motto is “Grow as you go”.

Jennifer Stuttle started her PhD in the School of Design and Creative Arts in October 2021. Jennifer’s research is focused on exploring the impact of applied storytelling on academic attainment and wellbeing in secondary education.

Ananya Gupta began her part time PhD in October 2022. Her research is focused on understanding structures of inequalities in technology workspaces through an intersectional lens. Her background is in financial services, working primarily in product management & information architecture.

Stephanie (Yao) Gou started her PhD in the School of Design and Creative Arts in January 2023. Funded through InterAct, Stephanie’s research is focused on how digital storytelling could support the innovation and diffusion of digital technologies that will result in stronger, more resilient UK manufacturing industry. Prior to joining academia, Stephanie was a CIMA qualified, project accountant with experiences in organisational changes. She is also a school governor, a children’s book translator, a cultural columnist of Chinese airlines’ in-flight magazines and a contributor to Chinese children’s literature magazines. Stephanie is interested in cross-cultural communication, dual-identity education and interdisciplinary research.

Zitao Zhou began her PhD studies in the School of Design and Creative Arts in January 2023, funded by InterAct. Her research is focused on examining the impact of digital technology on women’s participation in the manufacturing industry and exploring how digital storytelling can enhance female employees’ skills and capabilities to help them better engage with the manufacturing sector. With passion and background in film and digital media, she is a filmmaker and game designer.

Danielle Vaughan is a recycling artist. Her default position is sharing how to turn trash into treasure to benefit our very needy planet. Her primary medium for running workshops and creating portraits is paper, which, when ripped, elicits comments about its therapeutic qualities. This phenomenon leads her to enquire how people narrate the mental health & wellbeing benefits of ripping paper as a starting point for her research.

Now Doctors!

Terrie Howey (now Dr Howey) began her PhD in September 2016. Her research is on applied storytelling and heritage, specifically in Milton Keynes. Terrie has a practical background, working on community projects and education in school.

Kristina Gavran (now Dr Gavran) started her PhD in September 2017 and is currently working on a fascinating project on True Life Storytelling.

Sam West started his PhD in the School of Design and Creative Arts in October 2019. Funded through the Storytelling Academy, Sam’s research is focused on applied storytelling in independent professional wrestling. Sam is uncovering the hidden knowledge of theatrical wrestling to understand how performers use physical movement and vocalisation to tell stories. He is also exploring the unique ways that wrestling incorporates digital technology, such as social media, to extent stories beyond live performance into the wider world.