Current postgraduate research

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

• 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.
• 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 Jonathan Rossiter from 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.
• Byron Hyde (Hyde)
  Hyde is an MSc by research student funded by the Wellcome trust and supervised by Jon Ives and Zuzana Deans. Hyde's project is titled 'Strengthening Objectivity in Public Service: Revisiting the Nolan Principles After Thirty Years'.
• 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.