Rhianna is a PhD researcher based in the Geography and Environment department at Loughborough University, studying the career trajectories of racialised minority PhDs and early career researchers in UK higher education. Her research focuses on the politics of mobility, whiteness, imagined futures, and unequal power structures. Using an intersectional, critical race theory, and Black feminist theoretical framework, her research explores how racialised and other intersecting identities influence career trajectories in early academic careers.
Blog Rhi-Mixed Views: https://rhi-mixedviews.blogspot.com/
Racial microaggressions campaign: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Esf8-32lds
Active Together: https://activetogether.carrd.com/
Dimensions of Inequality;Migration, identities and governance;Genders and identities;
PGR Supervisors: Dr James Esson; Dr Aija Lulle, Dr Emiliano Renzi
The racial diversity within UK higher education’s academic and teaching staff workforce does not currently reflect the diversity within the student population. Rhianna’s research explores the underrepresentation of academic staff from racialised minority groups within UK higher education institutions, by investigating the career trajectories of racialised minority PhDs and early career researchers. By focusing on PhDs and early career researchers, she looks at how previous racialised minority experiences within these spaces effects motivations, perceptions, and imagined futures to enter an academic career trajectory.
Rhianna is part of a new centre of doctoral training (CDT) in the school of Social Science and Humanities. The CITHEI CDT focuses on Unequal Academic Citizenship: Opportunities and Barriers to Participation and Inclusion of Cultural Diversity and Intersecting Identities in Higher Education. The overall aim is to examine cultures of equality, diversity, and inclusion (EDI) in British universities that are pivotal to wider society. British universities are drivers of innovation, educators of future professionals, and multipliers of public EDI cultures. The CITHEI CDT’s core PhD projects therefore analyse the opportunities and barriers for culturally and socially diverse students, staff, and alumni across academic disciplines and services.
CITHEI Centre of Doctoral Training website: https://www.lboro.ac.uk/schools/social-sciences-humanities/research/genders-and-identities/cithei-cdt/