Advanced Quantitative Methods

Alex Kwong

PhD Researcher in Advanced Quantitative Methods (ESRC +3)
University of Bristol, School of Geographical Sciences/Centre for Multilevel Modelling

Start date: September 2016

Research topic: Genetic and environmental contributions to psychiatric disorders

Both genes and the environment contribute to psychiatric disorders, however the extent to which they both contribute and interact to cause illness is still poorly understood. Modelling longitudinal data is one way to explore this relationship. My research uses data from the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children (ALSPAC) and statistical techniques such as multilevel modelling (MLM) to address this topic.

Research supervisors: Dr David Manley, Dr Nic Timpson, Dr George Leckie, Dr Evie Stergiakouli

Email: alex.kwong@bristol.ac.uk

Twitter: https://twitter.com/asfkwong

Website/Blog: http://www.bristol.ac.uk/geography/people/alex-s-kwong/index.html

Bethany Taylor

PhD Researcher in Advanced Quantitative Methods (ESRC 1+3)
University of Bath, Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, Department of Social and Policy Sciences

Start date: September 2018

Research topic: Can the Development of Physical Literacy Improve Children’s Sedentary Behaviour?

Research supervisors: Martin Standage, Charlie Foster

Email: bmrt20@bath.ac.uk

Chengxi Hu

PhD Researcher in Advanced Quantitative Methods (ESRC +3)
University of Bristol, School of Geographical Sciences

Start date: September 2016

Research topic: Prediction of population ageing trends and potential risks in China's cities

China is on the brink of a transformation to an ageing society. Population ageing also constitutes multifaceted challenges and potential risks to Chinese society. My research attempts to provide a broad macro perspective on the population ageing process and trends and forecast the future impact of these demographic changes in China’s cities. Based on the panel data of 660 cities in China and some specially selected demographic and socioeconomic variables, a prediction model shall be developed to predict ageing trends and potential risks across different cities in China. A region-level policy analysis shall also be explored.

Research supervisors: Dr Winnie Wang, Dr Junko Yamashita

Email: ch16399@bristol.ac.uk

Elizabeth Bermeo

PhD Researcher in Advanced Quantitative Methods (ESRC +3)
University of Bristol, School of Geographical Sciences

Start date: September 2014

Research topic: Determinants of financial inclusion

My research focuses on financial inclusion from the perspective of individuals and households, specifically on the identification of socio-economic, institutional, legal, and cultural barriers that prevent individuals from using the formal financial system. Methodologically, my interests are in the application of quantitative methods including multi-level and spatial modelling to determine patterns of exclusion at national and local levels.

Research supervisors: Dr Malcolm Fairbrother, Dr Sean Fox

Professional memberships/Positions held: Financial Inclusion Forum Association for Women’s Rights in Development

Email: e.bermeo@bristol.ac.uk

Website/Blog: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Elizabeth_Bermeo

Hope Kent

PhD Researcher in Advanced Quantitative Methods ESRC (+3)
University of Exeter, College of Life & Environmental Sciences

Start date: October 2020

Research topic: Suicidality, violence, and recidivism in the criminal justice system: Using multilevel modelling and machine learning algorithms to predict, understand, and reduce risk.

My research project is looking at applying advanced statistical models, including machine learning and multilevel modelling, to large forensic datasets. This includes datasets from prisons and from alternative provision school settings. The aim of this is to better understand and predict risk of outcomes such as violence, poor mental health, and recidivism in prisoners, and contact with the criminal justice system in adolescents. I am interested in the cumulative risk effects of the presence of neurodisabilities (including autism and traumatic brain injury), the lifetime impact of traumatic experiences, and risk factors associated with belonging to minority ethnic groups.

Research supervisors: Professor Huw Williams (Exeter), Professor George Leckie (Bristol)

Professional memberships/Positions held: British Psychological Society Graduate Member.

Email: hnk201@exeter.ac.uk

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/hope-kent-4642821b5/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/HopeKent20

Kalyan Kumar

PhD Researcher in Advanced Quantitative Methods (ESRC 1+3)
University of Bath, Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, Department of Social and Policy Sciences/Department of Education

Start date: October 2017

Research topic: Accountability & Learning Outcomes in School Education System: Examining Cross-Contextual Public Secondary School Education Systems

Despite the progress made in the last few decades in developing countries, evidence demonstrates a lack of translation of schooling into learning. The role of systemic factors such as accountability processes continues to remain under researched amidst the prevailing challenges. In this backdrop, my research seeks to bridge the knowledge gap by studying, how accountability processes in public secondary school education systems affect the learning outcomes of students from various socio-economic backgrounds? My study employs a systems approach which views school system as a set of or a network of relationships and cumulative practices occurring in a particular format.

Research supervisors: Dr Andres Sandoval-Hernandez, Dr Liz Washbrook

Email: kkk44@bath.ac.uk

Kiran Arabaghatta Basavaraj

PhD Researcher in Advanced Quantitative Methods (ESRC 1+3)
University of Exeter, Q-Step Centre, College of Social Sciences and International Studies

Start date: September 2017

Research topic: Data Democracy and Policy-Making in the Digital World

My research focuses on inter-linkages between digital technologies and democracy, and investigates the dynamics of social-media, digital listening, governance and policy-making, with a case of industrial strategy of UK. Current literature indicates increase in information flows has increased transparency, but when it comes to policy making, the betterment of access to information hasn’t resulted in a conversation with the policy makers and the stakeholders. Technologies by itself would not do the trick, but requires set of actors to retrieve the available distributed information (big data) and use it in decision making.

Research supervisors: Professor Susan Banducci

Professional memberships/Positions held: Member, Political Studies Association (PSA)

Email: ka385@exeter.ac.uk

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kiran-a-basavaraj-b110b214a/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/kiranabasavaraj

Laura Scheinert

PhD Researcher in Advanced Quantitative Methods (ESRC +3)
University of Exeter, College of Life and Environmental Sciences

Start date: September 2018

Research topic: Supporting judges in asylum adjudication – the role of judicial training

My PhD explores the training of judges who hear asylum appeals. The project proposes a comparative mixed methods approach. The purpose is to arrive at a well-rounded picture of asylum-related training and its role in supporting judges in adjudicating asylum in different jurisdictions (e.g., England & Wales, Germany). I will combine quantitative and qualitative methods, to both trace the concepts conveyed through training (text mining), and to capture relevant individuals’ views and experiences of training (observation, interviews/ focus groups). The novelty in the proposed approach lies in making a new field fruitful for text mining and mixed methods analysis.

Research supervisors: Professor Nick Gill , Dr Emma Tonkin , Dr Ana Beduschi

Email: l.scheinert@exeter.ac.uk

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/laurascheinert/

Lenka Hasova

PhD Researcher in Advanced Quantitative Methods (ESRC +3)
University of Bristol, School of Geographical Sciences/Centre for Multilevel Modelling

Start date: September 2019

Research topic: Machine learning methods for Urban Flows: spatial effects in Origin- Destinations

My research looks at different forms of urban flows, such as Intra-national Migration or patients flows within City of Bristol, and explores the ways we try to predict them. This includes review of methodologies that has been developed in past, but mainly explores the suitability of Machine Learning algorithms for flow prediction. Most importantly, the focus of the research is on the spatial effects we observe in urban flow data, which are the main feature of the urban flows. Predicting human flows can be beneficial in wide range of fields, transport, urban planning and even health care.

Research supervisors: Richard Harris , Levi John Wolf

Email: lenka.hasova@bristol.ac.uk

LinkedIn: https://uk.linkedin.com/in/lenka-ha%C5%A1ov%C3%A1-88340a88/en

Twitter: https://twitter.com/LenkaHas

Website/Blog: lenkahas.com

Maria Cristina Montero de Espinosa

PhD Researcher in Advanced Quantitative Methods (ESRC +3.3)
University of Exeter, College of Social Sciences and International Studies

Start date:

Research topic: Impacts of corporate agri-business on Bolivia’s Indigenous Peoples: a case study of soya bean value chains in the region of Santa Cruz.

Former Bolivian president, Evo Morales, had been criticized for accommodating neoliberal policies and state-corporate alliances, widely considered to harm the people who supported his election into office. By using difference in difference with matching, as well as the synthetic control method, which is innovative to social sciences, my aim with this project is to provide new insights on the impacts of Public Private Partnerships (PPPs) for development and examine how such partnerships may, contrary to popular opinion, actually be improving the livelihoods of indigenous peoples.

Research supervisors: Dr Gabriel Katz (University of Exeter), Dr Andres Sandoval Hernandez (University of Bath)

Email: mm927@exeter.ac.uk

Twitter: https://twitter.com/MCristinaMonte3

Mariam Cook

PhD Researcher in Advanced Quantitative Methods (ESRC 1+3)
University of Exeter, Q-Step Centre, College of Social Sciences and International

Start date: October 2019

Research topic: A framework for democratic advance: connecting political opinion, policy, and outcomes beyond GDP

My research looks at the application of Advanced Quantitative Methods to support scalable democratic participation and policy making that incorporates wellbeing and sustainability outcome tracking and goal setting. Methodologically I am applying Natural Language Processing (NLP), probabilistic and graph-based techniques in the development of a computational framework that spans argument mining, policy analysis and econometrics. My work is inspired by two normative drivers: strengthening democracy through increasing citizen agency, and supporting fairness and sustainability as per the ‘Beyond GDP’ agenda.

Research supervisors: Professor Gabriel Katz, Professor Nick Pearce

Email: mc833@exeter.ac.uk

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mariamcook/

Maxime Perrott

PhD Researcher in Advanced Quantitative Methods (ESRC 1+3)
University of Bristol, School of Education/School of Geographical Sciences

Start date: October 2020

Research topic: Exploring the relationship between relative school starting age, emotional development and ADHD diagnosis in England.

My research will centre around analysis of data from the English context to provide new evidence on the interaction between relative school starting age (those youngest and oldest in the school year) and early years ‘schoolification’, the long-term consequences for children and the mechanisms that underlie any effects.

I hope to explore associations between relative school starting age and children’s emotional development in Reception class, as well as discover whether discrepancies exist between parents and teachers’ perceptions and clinical diagnosis. Then, I will investigate how relative school starting age may be associated with trajectories of academic and socioemotional development into mid-to-late-adolescence and how these trajectories may vary according to indicators of emotional development in the Reception year, gender, maternal education and birth cohort.

Research supervisors: Dr Liz Washbrook (Bristol), Dr Matt Dickson (Bath), Dr Ioanna Bakopoulou (Bristol)

Professional memberships/Positions held: SWDTP Student Rep

Email: tj20461@bristol.ac.uk

LinkedIn: https://uk.linkedin.com/in/maxime-perrott-90aa7685

Mirjam Odile Nanko

PhD Researcher in Advanced Quantitative Methods (ESRC 1+3)
University of Exeter, Q-Step Centre, College of Social Sciences and International Studies

Start date: September 2018

Research topic: Climate change believers and sceptics: a text-mining approach to measure their impact on the political discourse

A growing interdisciplinary literature examines the role of industry actors and conservative think-tanks in shaping the climate change debate and promoting inaction by manufacturing doubt about anthropogenic climate change. The aim of my research is to quantify the influence of these sceptics on the political discourse with a text-mining approach. The language of the sceptics is to be identified by analysing not only documents of sceptics but also of the environmental movement. Distinguishing between the two discourses will allow a nuanced textual exploration of political agendas and provide a framework for measuring the impact of each group on the political debate.

Research supervisors: Dr Travis Coan

Email: m.nanko@exeter.ac.uk

Oby Bridget Azubuike

PhD Researcher in Advanced Quantitative Methods (ESRC +3)
University of Bristol, School of Education/Centre for Multilevel Modelling

Start date: October 2020

Research topic: Open to all, accessible by few: A multilevel modelling and secondary data analysis of access barriers to Higher Education in Nigeria and the role of parental perceptions of Higher Education

My research seeks to identify the barriers at different organisational levels that affect access to higher education (HE) in Nigeria and the additional role that parental perception of education plays. I intend to answer my research questions by conducting a programme of original item response theory, multilevel, and structural equation modelling analyses of complex clustered secondary data on two cohorts of individuals, households and communities data as it relates to access to Higher Education in Nigeria.

Research supervisors: Professor George Leckie, Professor William Browne

Professional memberships/Positions held: SWDTP Student Rep

Email: bridget.azubuike@bristol.ac.uk

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/oby-bridget-azubuike/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/oby_bridget

Olivia Malkowski

PhD Researcher in Advanced Quantitative Methods (ESRC 1+3)
University of Bath, Department of Education/Department for Health

Start date: October 2020

Research topic: Developing a precision, machine learning-powered, technological intervention to promote physical activity and healthy ageing in older adults of low socioeconomic status.

Population ageing places significant pressures on health and social care services. Physical activity is one of the most promising avenues for reducing the socioeconomic burden of age-related diseases. Although mobile technologies could transform the healthcare industry, digital exclusion is stratified by socioeconomic status, emulating physical activity divides. My research will use methods such as multilevel modelling and machine learning to inform the development of a “just-in-time” adaptive intervention for older adults of low socioeconomic status. By monitoring dynamic biocultural variables (e.g. mood, physical/social environment), this digital intervention will aim to deliver personalised physical activity support when users need it most.

Research supervisors: Dr Nick Townsend (Bath), Dr Max Western (Bath), Dr Mark Kelson (Exeter), Dr Charlie Foster (Bristol)

Email: osm25@bath.ac.uk

Rhiannon Moore

PhD Researcher in Advanced Quantitative Methods (ESRC 1+3)
University of Bristol, School of Geographical Sciences / School of Education

Start date: September 2017

Research topic: Exploring the impact of teacher motivation and classroom practices on student learning in India

My research looks at the relationship between teachers’ levels of professional motivation and student learning attainment within secondary school classrooms in two states in India. The context for this research is the ‘learning crisis’ which existing research has highlighted within Indian schools in recent years, with evidence of a decline in learning levels despite increased enrolment, declining class size and greater teacher availability. I am interested in understanding more about the influence of teachers within this ‘learning crisis’.

Methodologically, my interests are in defining a measure of the latent trait of teacher motivation, and in modelling the pathways through which this influences how teachers teach, and how much students learn.

Research supervisors: Professor Sally Thomas, Dr George Leckie

Email: rhiannon.moore.2017@my.bristol.ac.uk

Twitter: https://twitter.com/Rhi_Moore

Satpal Singh Sandhu

PhD Researcher in Advanced Quantitative Methods (ESRC +3)
University of Bristol, Centre for Multilevel Modelling, Graduate School of Education

Start date: September 2016

Research topic: Analysis of longitudinal craniofacial growth data to examine growth trajectories and pattern, factors influencing their growth, and to develop growth prediction model

My research involves adaptation and development of Advanced Quantitative Methods for modelling complex longitudinal craniofacial growth data. The objective is to advance understanding of craniofacial growth process (primary focus would be face) from early childhood through to adulthood. My research is based on the data collected from various historic longitudinal growth studies conducted in the 20th Century and presently part of American Association of Foundation Legacy (AAOFL) collection database.

Research supervisors: Dr George Leckie, Professor Kate Tilling

Professional memberships/Positions held: Growth Modelling Group, School of Social and Community Medicine and Spatial Modelling Group, School of Geographical Sciences, University of Bristol

Email: satpal.sadhu@bristol.ac.uk

Tom Owton

PhD Researcher in Advanced Quantitative Methods (ESRC +3)
University of Bristol, School of Geographical Sciences

Start date: September 2016

Research topic: Social Vulnerability Mapping

I attempt to develop new methods of mapping natural hazard social vulnerability in developing countries. Where “social vulnerability” refers to the well-established phenomenon that people of certain social groups are more negatively affected by natural hazards. With regards to informal settlements official statistics such as census data are typically lacking and surveys are expensive and difficult to collect. As a result, my research attempts to use sources of data from in particular remote sensing to map social vulnerability, such as brightness at night and information derived from visible light satellite imagery.

Research supervisors: Dr Sean Fox, Dr Jeffrey Neal

Email: to12018@bristol.ac.uk

Yunqi Zhou

PhD Researcher in Advanced Quantitative Methods (ESRC 1+3)
University of Bristol, School of Geographical Sciences

Start date: September 2018

Research topic: Health promotion, health behaviour and prevalence of disease: a spatio-temporal analysis based on social media data

Research supervisors: Prof Rich Harris, TBD

Email: ql18400@bristol.ac.uk