PGR Leads

Maya Azizan is a part-time PhD student in the School of Design, Arts and Creative Industries, Faculty of Society and Culture at Northumbria University, where she also works as a Post Award Coordinator. She returned to academia after 20 years, having previously completed an MA in Cross-Cultural Communication and International Relations at Newcastle University and a BA in English and Sociology at the George Washington University, Washington D.C. Her PhD research explores cultural heritage through the lens of creative performative acts among the Malaysian diaspora in the North East of England. Born in Malaysia, Maya grew up moving between schools in Malaysia, the US, and the UK, an experience that has deeply shaped her interest in diaspora, belonging, and cultural identity. She has been based in the UK since 2003 and has built a career spanning PR, corporate communications, theatre, and higher education professional services. Outside of work and research, Maya practises Taekwondo and enjoys reading crime thriller fiction.

Rachel Breckon (she/her) is a PhD researcher at Northumbria University, Newcastle, funded by the Northern Bridge Consortium DTP. Her project, ‘Mixed-Race Literacy in Early Modern Travel Plays: A Blue Humanities Approach’, aims to read and destabilise the construction of binary racial identities in early modern drama (c. 1590-1642) by combining the Blue Humanities with Premodern Critical Race Studies. Rachel holds a Postgraduate Certificate in Shakespeare from the Shakespeare Institute and an MA in English Literature from Northumbria University. She is a member of the Revels Office, the Early Modern Scholars of Colour Network and the Critical Mixed Race Association.

Ross Somerville is a first-year PhD researcher in Human Geography at Northumbria University, supervised by Dr Isabel Meier, Prof Kathryn Cassidy, and Dr Matthias Wienroth. His thesis, 'Binding Life to the Border: Digital Tethering and EU Border Governance', examines how eu-LISA's biometric interoperability architecture produces durable bindings between migrants and transnational identification systems. He holds an RDF studentship and is affiliated with the Race and Migration IDRT and the DataMig COST Action Network. His research draws on critical border studies, science and technology studies, and Black feminist theory to interrogate the lived consequences of digital border infrastructures.