Alumni & Final Year Students’ Mentoring Scheme

We are pleased to introduce you to the newly launched informal mentoring scheme for incoming LAHP students.
The scheme allows you to be paired up to a LAHP alumnus/a or a current student in their final year to help you settling into the first year of your LAHP studentship, share experiences and ideas, as well as offer advice on the process of studying for PhD. We know this would be of immense value to new students, and hope you would be interested in participating in the scheme. The aim is to keep the mentoring informal – so once you are paired with an alumnus/a/final year student, then it would be over to you to arrange an informal chat with them either on Zoom or in person. You can aim to have one session or more – it will be entirely up to you and your mentor.
Please note that we only have a limited number of alumni/final year student mentors and therefore we will only be able to accommodate a portion of all incoming LAHP students on this scheme.

If you are interested in signing up, please complete the online form by 22nd September indicating your preferred mentors in order of preference and we will do our best to assign you to them.

Mentors’ profiles

Lilija Alijeva

SAS Alumna – Development Studies, Political Science and International Studies; Law & Legal Studies

Lilija Alijeva

SAS Alumna – Development Studies, Political Science and International Studies; Law & Legal Studies

Research profile: Lilija’s research interests are in political science and international law, hence, she can describe her research as inter-disciplinary. She is interested in how states release international norms on a domestic level. She researches human rights, minority rights, international organisations, and social movements. Her research focuses on human rights implementation and analysis of policies that influence the lives of ethnic and linguistic minority communities in post-Soviet states and Europe. In addition, she is currently researching the role of universities and other higher education institutions in soft power, diplomacy, and inter-state cooperation.

Current occupation: Presidential Postdoctoral Fellow at the City Law School (City, University of London)

Background: Lilija is an ethnic, linguistic and religious minority in her home country, who used to be stateless, and is also a migrant in the UK.

UK/Internationally based: UK based

Areas of support offered:

  • How to work with your supervisor
  • How to make the best out of research resources
  • Understanding progress reports and other administrative issues such as LAHP language and grant forms
  • Guidance on how to mentally prepare for the upgrade and viva
  • How to seek additional sources of income while studying; and
  • Preparing for conferences and publishing papers
Email

Fran Allfrey

KCL Alumna – Archaeology; Communications, Media and Information studies; Cultural and Museum Studies (incl. Cultural Geography and Area Studies); English Language & Literature (pre-1900)

Fran Allfrey

KCL Alumna – Archaeology; Communications, Media and Information studies; Cultural and Museum Studies (incl. Cultural Geography and Area Studies); English Language & Literature (pre-1900)

Research profile: Fran’s research explores how premodern heritage narratives are crafted between historiography, institutions, mass media, and users or participants. Drawing together approaches informed by phenomenology and ethnography, she is interested in the use of premodern remains and myths in local and national identity-making practices, history-writing, and contemporary arts, especially as related to constructions of race, nation, and gender. She is fascinated by experimental and folk or ‘outsider artist’ translations or revoicings of Old English poetry, especially work by women. She completed her PhD, ‘Sutton Hoo in public: newspapers, television, and museums’, in the English department at King’s. She has taught in the English departments at King’s, Queen Mary, and University of Reading, facilitated learning workshops at the British Museum, and she was the volunteer coordinator for The Courtauld’s photographic digitisation project. She now works in the Department of Archaeology at York as a postdoctoral researcher for The Avebury Papers, funded by UKRI.

Current occupation: Postdoctoral researcher, Department of Archaeology, University of York

Background: Fran was the first person in her family to go to university.

UK/Internationally based: UK based

Areas of support offered:

  • Getting started with research and writing
  • Archival research. Balancing work and study
  • Helping talk through ideas for public/ academic events / activities
  • Applying for additional funding.

Aleida Mendes Borges

KCL Alumna – Development Studies, Political Science and International Studies

Aleida Mendes Borges

KCL Alumna – Development Studies, Political Science and International Studies

Research profile: Aleida holds a PhD in African Studies and Youth Politics from King’s College London. Her research focuses on grassroots organising and politics, women’s rights, representation and participation, diaspora political participation and youth politics in the Global South (Africa & Latin America). She is a jurist by training, specialising in International Public Law (Human Rights), occasionally consulting as country-expert for Cabo Verde.

Current occupation: Research Associate at the Global Institute for Women’s Leadership (KCL)

Background: Aleida considers herself from a background currently underrepresented in academia – she is the first person in her family to go to university and as a black African woman, underrepresented in UK academia. Also, English is her fourth language.

UK/Internationally based: UK based

Areas of support offered:

  • Navigating academia
  • How to make the most out of the training opportunities offered by LAHP
  • Placements while doing the PhD
  • Career development beyond academia
Email

Joseph Da Costa

KCL Alumnus – History (medieval and early modern)

Joseph Da Costa

KCL Alumnus – History (medieval and early modern)

Research profile: Joseph’s research focuses on early modern histories of race, science and imperialism. His research investigates the impact of sixteenth century Portuguese maritime science on wider conceptualisations of human and non-human worlds. During his PGCert studies, he developed his pedagogical philosophy on facilitating self-regulated students and the links between core pedagogy in that regard and the creation of inclusive and anti-racist educational environments.

Current occupation: Research Fellow (KCL)

Background: Joseph grew up in a working-class family as the only mixed-race student in my primary school and home village (besides his twin brother). Neither of his parents went to university. He went to state schools until the age of 14 and then transferred to a fee paying independent school. He applied to university as a non-traditional route of entry student at 26. Joseph started his research in 2015 and was awarded his PhD in 2020. During that time, he became a father and held part-time/ gig jobs to support his family and was awarded a PGCert HE.

UK/Internationally based: UK based

Areas of support offered: Navigating academia as a person of colour

Email

Clara De Massol

KCL Alumna – Cultural and Museum Studies

Clara De Massol

KCL Alumna – Cultural and Museum Studies

Research profile: Clara’s research focuses on the intersections of memory studies and environmental humanities to reflect and examine the possibilities of memorialisation in the Anthropocene.

Current occupation: Academic Education Pathway Lecturer (fixed term) – KCL (CMCI)

Background: Clara is a non-British scholar with dyslexia

UK/Internationally based: UK based

Areas of support offered:

  • Time management
  • Placements
  • Overall organisation
Email

Olivia Joustra

UCL Alumna – Art History

Olivia Joustra

UCL Alumna – Art History

Research profile: Olivia’s research focuses on postwar German art; portraiture (photographic, painted), specifically family and self- portraiture; artistic self-staging and self-fashioning; Cold War West German cultural productions (including film and literature); domesticity; German history.

Current occupation: Associate Director, Research at Hauser & Wirth Gallery

UK/Internationally based: UK based

Areas of support offered:

  • Archival Research
  • Time Management
  • Career Advice
Email

Aleksandra Kubica

KCL Alumna – Cultural and Museum studies

Aleksandra Kubica

KCL Alumna – Cultural and Museum studies

Research profile: Aleksandra’s research focused on collective memory, museums and heritage using case studies from Central Europe. She has also developed an interest in researching migration and forced displacement. She has used ethnographic methods and other qualitative methods.

Current occupation: Research officer at the Bridge Group (UK) and freelance project manager and educator on history and migration (Poland)

Background: non UK

UK/Internationally based: Internationally based

Areas of support offered:

  • Networking and collaborations with non-academic partners
  • Preparing for a career outside of academia
  • Using opportunities provided through LAHP
Email

Tommaso Manzon

KCL Alumnus – Theology, Divinity, Religious Studies, Philosophy (Theoretical & Practical)

Tommaso Manzon

KCL Alumnus – Theology, Divinity, Religious Studies, Philosophy (Theoretical & Practical)

Research profile: Tommaso’s research focuses on Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, contemporary theological and philosophical thought.

Current occupation: Junior Researcher

Background: non UK

UK/Internationally based: Internationally based

Areas of support offered:

  • Emotional support
  • Research support
  • Bibliographical organization
Email

Annegret Marten

KCL Final Year PhD student – Modern Languages & Comparative Literature

Annegret Marten

KCL Final Year PhD student – Modern Languages & Comparative Literature

Research profile: Annegret researches literary strategies (esp. German) in the context of contemporary crisis moments and she works with theoretical concepts around subjectivity and poetic knowledge-making. Her work touches on areas of ecocriticism, posthumanism, labour and gender.

Current occupation: Self-employed in arts and cultural sector

Background: European student, first-gen

UK/Internationally based: UK-based

Areas of support offered:

  • Joint/bi-national degrees (esp. Germany)
  • Managing your supervisor
  • Part-time studies, organising a schedule that works for you

 

Email

James Metcalf

KCL Alumnus – English Language & Literature (pre-1900)

James Metcalf

KCL Alumnus – English Language & Literature (pre-1900)

Research profile: James’ research focuses on Eighteenth-century and Romantic-period poetry, especially the mid-eighteenth century, labouring-class and women poets, Charlotte Smith, William Wordsworth, John Clare, and John Keats; poetry, poetics, and form, particularly the body, the senses, and place / environment in the history and theory of poetics; cultural and intellectual history of the long eighteenth century, especially natural history / philosophy, antiquarianism, and earth sciences; environmental humanities: ecocriticism, New Materialisms, posthumanism, and queer ecology; queer and gender studies perspectives on writing in the long eighteenth century.

Current occupation: Lecturer in Eighteenth-Century Literature and Culture at King’s College London

Background: James is a queer, first-generation university graduate from a working class background.

UK/Internationally based: UK based

Areas of support offered:

  • Making the most of a PhD in English / Arts and Humanities
  • What to expect and how to prepare
  • Academic career paths
  • Executive functions (time management, organisation, planning) and managing stress / anxiety
Email

Charlotte Munglani

KCL Final Year PhD student – Classics

Charlotte Munglani

KCL Final Year PhD student – Classics

Research profile: Charlotte’s research explores the topic of female sexuality and knowledge in male-authored texts from the Roman Imperial period, creating a corpus of evidence that does not currently exist. The notions of female sexuality, and in particular of female homoerotic desire, have been overlooked and downplayed by previous scholarship. In order to address this deficiency, her thesis will allow for a re-examination of female sexuality and epistemology in a broader sense using sources that are currently underutilised in the modern scholarly narrative. Through close readings of these texts, her thesis will both uncover a new area in Roman Imperial literary studies and contribute to lesbian historiography.

Current occupation: Current student

UK/Internationally based: UK based

Areas of support offered:

  • Support in navigating the first year of a PhD;
  • Advice on doing a PhD while carrying out caring responsibilities
Email

Nina Vindum Rasmussen

KCL Alumna – Communications, Media and Information Studies

Nina Vindum Rasmussen

KCL Alumna – Communications, Media and Information Studies

Research profile: Nina’s doctoral research examines film and TV production in a data-driven streaming era. Through in-depth interviews, drawing exercises, and participation in industry events, her project illuminates how screen workers make sense of their collaborations with global streamers like Netflix and Amazon. She especially focuses on issues relating to creative labour, digital platforms, and algorithmic culture. She also has a keen interest in qualitative methods and creative approaches to generating empirical data. Throughout her studies, Nina was a LAHP student representative for three years and organised events/networks across the cohorts. She is looking forward to meeting new LAHP students and discussing PhD life in London.

Current occupation: LSE Fellow at the the London School of Economics and Political Science

UK/Internationally based: UK based

Background: Danish

Areas of support offered:

  • Establishing good and sustainable work routines in the first year of the PhD
  • Building an academic and social network (especially when you’ve moved from another city or country)
  • Making the most of one’s LAHP studentship (training, additional funding, becoming a student rep)
Email

Natalie Sedacca

UCL Alumna – Law & Legal Studies

Natalie Sedacca

UCL Alumna – Law & Legal Studies

Research profile: Natalie’s research focuses on human rights and labour law, with a particular interest in domestic workers and other marginalised workers, and in issues of gender and migration. Her PhD, completed at UCL in 2021, analysed the legal position of domestic workers and their frequent exclusion from protective labour law legislation, using human rights standards to criticise this exclusion. It included case studies on Chile and the UK with empirical work in each. Her ongoing research projects (some collaborative) include: the human rights implications of the ‘hostile environment’ for migrant women; the rights of domestic workers in the ‘gig economy’; and the risks of exploitation posed by new migration routes in agriculture and care, and weaknesses in employment regulation and enforcement.

Current occupation: Lecturer in Law

UK/Internationally based: UK based

Areas of support offered: Natalie’s support will be tailored to the needs of the mentee/s she is assigned to.

Email
Back to the top