Students

Eoin Fullam is an ESRC-funded PhD student in the Birkbeck Psychosocial Studies department, supervised by Stephen Frosh (Birkbeck) and Silvia Posocco (Birkbeck). Eoin’s PhD project is an analysis of computer automated mental health therapy, so called ‘mental health chatbots’ and the artificial intelligence driving this technology. The research is interdisciplinary and engaged in a theoretical debate while supported by an ethnographic component. Eoin holds an MA in Psychoanalytic Studies and an MRes in Social Research, also in Birkbeck. 

Becka Hudson is a doctoral student at Birkbeck’s Criminology and UCL’s Medical Anthropology departments, looking at the use of diagnostic tools in the UK prison system, particularly for people with personality disorder. She is particularly interested in how criminal justice infrastructure was utilised in the British Empire, and the relationship of these developments to contemporary iterations of class, race and imperialism. Becka frequently works as a campaigner around criminal justice issues and occasionally appears in popular press to discuss imprisonment and policing.

Evan Sedgwick-Jell is a PhD candidate in the Birkbeck Psyschosocial Studies department. His research examines contemporary popular psychology literature focusing on depression, to develop its underlying political meanings for system-antagonistic political movements and the capitalist subject under societies in late neoliberalization. The connection between knowledge and political practice is key in his work, and he brings his long experience within social movements as well as his former jobs in youth and social work to bear on his writing. Evan is an associate fellow of the SHaME project, a member of the Critical Political Economy Research Network, and Postgraduate Representative on the Birkbeck UCU branch committee.

Keiran Wilson is an AHRC-funded PhD student at Birkbeck, University of London in Criminology. His research explores queer peoples’ experiences of detention under the Mental Health Act in England. Through creative and qualitative methods, his current work seeks to understand the carceral nature of compulsory inpatient psychiatric treatment through a queer criminological analysis. He is also part of the Mental Health Nursing research team at King’s College London, where he studies the use of surveillance technology, such as body-worn cameras, in inpatient psychiatric settings. He holds a BA in Psychology and Gender Studies from Drew University (2017) and an MSc in Forensic Psychology from the University of Kent (2019).

Hannah Blythe is an ESRC-funded PhD student in Cambridge History Faculty, co-supervised by Peter Mandler, Cambridge University, and Sarah Marks, Birkbeck. Hannah’s PhD thesis examines British community-based mental health charities between 1879 and 1939, and she is more broadly interested in using the mental health humanities to examine recovery and psychotherapy. Prior to her PhD studies, Hannah worked in policy and research in the charity and local government sectors. She holds an MA in Health Humanities from UCL and a BA in History from Durham University.

Janina Klement is a Wellcome Trust funded PhD candidate at UCL, co-supervised at Birkbeck. Her research explores the history of psychiatry critique in Western Europe and the US in the second half of the twentieth century. She holds degrees in history, politics, and cultural studies from University of Bonn and UCL.

Kiara Wickremasinghe is a PhD candidate in Social Anthropology at SOAS University of London. She holds a Bloomsbury Colleges PhD Studentship and is supervised by Prof David Mosse (SOAS) and Dr Sarah Marks (Birkbeck). Her PhD is part of a broader ESRC-funded Anthropological Study of Peer-Supported Open Dialogue which follows an NHS randomised controlled trial seeking to implement a social network approach to psychiatric crisis care. Previously, Kiara read for a BA in Geography at the University of Cambridge (2016) and an MA in Music in Development at SOAS University of London (2017).