Current PhD Students
Tressia [pronounced treh-sah] is a PhD candidate focusing on legacies of slavery in Eastern Scotland in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, viewed through museums and heritage collections. She is funded by the School of Art History and Art UK Collaborative Scholarship. Tressia completed a BA Liberal Arts, concentrating in History and Art History at Sarah Lawrence College in Bronxville, New York. Tressia completed her MLitt in Museum and Heritage Studies at the University of St Andrews with a dissertation titled Legacies of Slavery Within English Country Estates: Interpreting Unknowns Through Display, Narrative and Analysis supervised by Dr Bruno Brulon Soares.
Aqsa’s PhD project examines the connections between Scottish colonial photography and the construction of communalism in India. Her research aims to critically reassess late-nineteenth century photographic sources to study how Scottish colonial photography affects colonised subjects and the South Asian diaspora in Scotland today. In addition, the project aims to assess the use and meaning of Scottish photographic collections pertaining to colonial identity formation in Scottish museums, as they aim to review institutional legacies and decolonise collections. Through this multidisciplinary approach, combining Colonial Photo-History, Modern South Asian History and Museum Studies, the project aims to facilitate knowledge exchange on how to theoretically and practically address postcolonial Indian and Scottish marginality. Aqsa’s doctoral research is funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) through the Scottish Graduate School for Arts and Humanities (SGSAH). She is a Fellow of the Stuart Hall Foundation.
Katrina Dungay
Katrina is a PhD candidate researching how screen tourism impacts heritage sites in Scotland, focusing on promotion, interpretation and visitor experience. Katrina gained her MA (Joint Hons) in History and Film Studies at the University of Dundee before completing her MLitt in Museum and Heritage Studies with a dissertation titled The Outlander Effect: Is Outlander tourism influencing interpretation at Scottish heritage sites, and if so, how is this shaping Outlander fans’ perception of the sites?, supervised by Dr Gönül Bozoğlu.
Alex is a PhD student in Museum and Heritage Studies examining how museums and galleries in the US and UK curate, display, and write about queer art and artists. They completed their MLitt in Museum and Gallery Studies at the University of St Andrews in 2022 with a dissertation titled Challenging Representations: Queer Representation in Contemporary Arts. Alex’s current research builds on this dissertation, focusing specifically on contemporary queer art exhibitions since 2015. They are co-supervised by Dr Bruno Brulon Soares and Dr Catherine Spencer.
Patricia Angelina Lopez Sanchez Cervantes
Researcher and cultural manager with 18 years of professional experience in the museum sector, integrating academic research, teaching, and hands-on practice. Her research focuses on critical museum studies, with particular emphasis on collaboration with Indigenous communities and processes of decolonisation in museum institutions. Patricia has held senior leadership roles in museums and cultural organizations, developing educational, curatorial, and community-based projects that bridge theory and practice. She has taught museum studies, museology, and museography at Mexican universities and is currently a PhD candidate in Museum Studies at the University of St Andrews, examining the gap between museological theory and practice in museum management.
Rebecca Mesonjnik
Rebecca is a PhD candidate investigating how Ukrainian museums utilize participatory methods in their public engagement programs in the wake of the full-scale invasion. In particular, Rebecca’s research considers the modality in which participatory programs challenge traditional hierarchies of power within the museum context. Rebecca is a Fulbright Postgraduate awardee, holds a BFA in Communication Design from Parsons School of Design, and prior to embarking upon their dissertation, was the Manager of Public Programs at the Bruce Museum in Greenwich, Connecticut. Rebecca’s current project is co-supervised by Dr. Nicôle Meehan and Professor Victoria Donovan.
Clare Murphy
Clare is a PhD candidate focusing on how far-right women, specifically the 1920s Women of the Ku Klux Klan, are documented and interpreted across US museums and heritage infrastructures. The aim is to develop a methodological framework for ethically interrogating ‘difficult’ gendered histories in digital and physical spaces. Clare completed a First Class BA (Hons) in Social Science at Glasgow Caledonian University before completing an MLitt in Museum and Heritage Studies with Distinction at the University of St Andrews with a dissertation titled Where are the Women? Metadata, Digital Archives, and the Women of the Ku Klux Klan, supervised by Dr Nicole Meehan.
Emerson Norteman
Emerson’s research centres around the ethical curation of human remains in UK museum collections, using visitor studies to understand more about the interactions between institution, exhibition, and the public. Their key research goals include: creating a chronological map of human remains legislation, exploring the ways in which power and inequality affect how human bodies are perceived as both objects and individuals, and examining the educational and emotional impact of human remains as cultural, spiritual, and political memory.
Federica Papiccio
Federica is a PhD candidate investigating crowdsourcing’s potential to deepen both heritage collection information and the relationships institutions forge with their audiences. Bridging methodologies from the fields of museology and human-computer interaction (HCI), her research investigates initiatives both within the heritage sector and beyond it, with particular attention to citizen-science projects, asking what galleries, libraries, archives, and museums might learn from collaborative knowledge creation in other domains. With approximately nine years of experience in collections management across heritage institutions in Scotland, Federica brings practitioner insight to her scholarly work. She currently serves as Collections Information Data Coordinator at the National Galleries of Scotland, where she works part-time alongside her doctoral studies.
Renato is a PhD candidate in Museum and Gallery Studies at the University of St Andrews. His research interest is in alternative modalities of visiting museums, considering diverse sensory and access needs. Renato’s current research focuses on negotiating the responsibilities and possibilities of museums in implementing access for and with visually impaired audiences. Renato holds a BA and MA in Art History, and a Master in Neuroaesthetics from the University of Rome Tor Vergata. He also completed an internship at the CREA Lab in Vienna. Before his doctoral research, he worked with several museums in Rome, including the Vatican Museums.
Yizhi Yao
Yao is a PhD candidate researching Chinese intangible cultural heritage and its overseas transmission. Her research focuses on Chinese diaspora communities in the UK, considering Feng Shui practices as place-based cultural activities, to explore the possibility that Feng Shui shapes place attachment within diaspora communities. Yao holds a BSc in Heritage Management from the Macao University of Tourism, with a focus on historic urban landscapes. She later completed an MLitt in Museum and Heritage Studies at the University of St Andrews, with a dissertation titled Across the Universe: An Autoethnographic Study of a Chinese Fan’s Pilgrimage and Connection with London Rock Music Heritage Sites, supervised by Dr Gönül Bozoğlu.
