Employability

Postgraduate students from the History Department at Durham have progressed to a wide variety of academic, academic-related, heritage and professional careers. They have entered sectors from professional services (law, civil service, accountancy), to teaching and business.

Please see below for short case studies on some of our recent graduates:

Academic

After completing her PhD, 'The Communities Within: the Integration of Muslim Immigrants in Newcastle-upon-Tyne and Bremen from the 1960s to the 1990s' Sarah Hackett was funded to complete a six-months research stay in Bremen. Finance was provided by a Durham Doctoral Fellowship (DDF), as well as by the German Historical Institute London (GHIL) and the Deutscher Akademischer Austausch Dienst (DAAD).

Sarah then worked as a lecturer in European History at the University of Sunderland before moving to Bath Spa University. Her monograph, Foreigners, Minorities, Integration: The Muslim Immigrant Experience in Britain and Germany, was published by Manchester University Press in 2013.

Academic-related

Following the competition of his PhD, ‘The origins of modern propaganda in Britain’, Paul Meller was appointed Policy Advisor to the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC), the national funding council for economic and social research.

Heritage and museums

Kent Rawlinson was awarded a Durham Doctoral Fellowship to pursue his PhD on 'The English Household Chapel, c.1100 - c.1500: an institutional study.' Previously, Curator of Historic Buildings at Hampton Court Palace, then Head of Collections and Public Programmes at the RIBA, he now manages a project for the National Trust.

Professional

Nicola Guy completed her PhD on 'Ethnic nationalism, the great powers and the question of Albanian independence, 1912-1921', which included research in Albania, Greece and the United States plus a period of study in Albanian at Indiana University, funded by the US Department of State.

Whilst still writing up her thesis, Nicola joined the Civil Service Fast Stream and worked in the Department of Health at Leeds. She has since undertaken a range of placements including working on the passage of the 2008 Health and Social Care Act and being a Project Manager in Borneo.

Nicola also works part time as an Associate Lecturer in Modern European History for the Open University and has published a number of articles in academic journals.

Nicola’s thesis was published as a monograph in 2012: The Birth of Albania: Ethnic nationalism, the great powers of World War I and the emergence of Albanian independence.