Meet our Postgraduate Researchers

Karolina Aksamitowska's PhD research focuses on structural investigations and domestic prosecutions of core international crimes.

Her recent research report titled ‘War Crimes Units: Legislative, Organisational and Technical Lessons’ written for the T.M.C. Asser Instituut/Global Rights Compliance MATRA project on ‘Strengthening Ukraine’s Capacity to Investigate and Prosecute International Crimes’ provides an overview of best practices drawn from domestic war crimes units.

She has published on a variety of international criminal and humanitarian law topics, including in the Journal of International Criminal Justice, Journal of International Humanitarian Legal Studies, Annotated Leading Cases of International Criminal Tribunals (ALC), Oxford Reports on International Law, the Opinio Juris blog and several edited collections. Recent publications include ‘Digital Evidence in Domestic Core International Crimes Prosecutions – Lessons Learned from Germany, Sweden, Finland and the Netherlands’ and ‘Traditional Approaches to the Law of Armed Conflict: Disseminating IHL through the Receptor Approach’.

Furkan Bulut is a graduate of Istanbul University, Faculty of Law. He is a qualified lawyer in Turkey since 2018 and holds LLM degree in International Maritime Law from Swansea University.

Furkan is a postgraduate researcher at Swansea University. His research interests are insurance law, admiralty law, carriage of goods by sea and multimodal transport. Furkan conducts his doctoral research on the implications of artificial intelligence and related emerging technologies on (marine) insurance law. The realization that human decision making can be replicated or even improved by disruptive technologies such as AI, machine learning, deep learning and industrial Internet of Things has initiated a race to integrate them into transport systems as they promise to reduce accidents and the overall costs of transporting goods and passengers globally. His PhD aims to look into the changes that are required in terms of liability and insurance law to accommodate these developments in transport sectors, particularly in shipping.

Fatmanur has been a PhD candidate in Law at Swansea University since 2021, under the primary supervision of Assoc. Prof. Stefano Barazza. She is passionate about Law and Technology and Intellectual Property Law, E-Commerce Law, Competition Law, and European Union Law. Her PhD research is titled “To What Extent Can Territorial Restrictions Be Applied to Digital Products? In-Depth Analysis and Policy Recommendations for EU Policy-Makers”.

She also completed her LegalTech, LLM degree in Swansea University in 2020 with the specialisation of Digital Intellectual Property Law, Blockchain and the Law, Artificial Intelligence and the Law, and Digital Rights. Before that, she graduated from Ankara Yildirim Beyazit University, Faculty of Law, in 2018, and she worked as a Trainee Lawyer between 2018-2019 in Turkey.

Hamza is a Ph.D. candidate at the Hillary Rodham Clinton School of Law in Swansea University from January 2021. His research is on the international law of the sea under the title of “The International Legal Framework Applicable to Unmanned Ships: Is it Fit for Purpose?” under the supervision of Dr. Youri Van Logchem and Prof. Andrew Tettenborn. Before that, he completed his LLB in Ankara Yildirim Beyazit University in 2018. He also accomplished his LLM with merit in Swansea University in 2020. His studies in the LLM were primarily in the areas of international law of the sea, admiralty law, the law of carriage of goods by sea, land, and air, and the law of marine insurance. He worked as a trainee solicitor in 2018 in Turkey, besides his academic career.

Ramil Gachayev joined Swansea University in 2021 and the title of his research is 'the Impact of International Investment Law on the Territoriality Principle in International Intellectual Property Law: A Critical Examination of the Impact of Intellectual Property Provisions in Investment Treaties of Middle-Income Countries'. Before joining the PhD program of Swansea University, he was practising law in Azerbaijan and worked as a corporate lawyer in many commercial structures in the telecommunication, construction, food production, media, warehouse, and other fields. Ramil graduated from Samara State Academy of Economics (now University) with distinction. Moreover, he attained a Level 7 Diploma in International Business Law (postgraduate certificate) from one of the British schools and participated in many courses related to mediation, human rights, advocacy etc.

Xinge Li is a Ph.D. student at Swansea university. The title of her thesis is “Disruptive Technologies in Shipping Industry: Insurance Implications”. Prior to her doctoral study, Xinge completed her undergraduate study in maritime law at Dalian Maritime University, in which she participated in the V+1 Associate Exchange Programme at Swansea University in the senior year. Afterwards she went on to further postgraduate study in International Commercial and Maritime Law and obtained a Law Master’s degree from Swansea University.

Alicia Mckenzie is a PhD candidate at the Hillary Rodham Clinton School of Law, Swansea University. Her research focuses on cyber risks insurance in the shipping industry. Alicia also has an interest in evaluating the impact of technology on shipping and commercial operations. She has been tutoring (part time) at Swansea for the last 4 years and has delivered seminars in Legal Methodology, Tort Law and Contract Law.  

Alicia completed her LLM degree in International Commercial and Maritime Law at Swansea University in 2017. She holds a Certificate of Legal Education from Norman Manley Law School in Jamaica (2015), a Bachelor of Laws from the University of the West Indies, Cavehill Barbados (2013) and a Bachelor of Science in International Relations with minors in criminology and social policy administration from the University of the West Indies, Mona Jamaica (2010). Alicia is a qualified attorney-at-law in Jamaica where she specialised in the litigation of civil and commercial matters.               

Gayle is a Ph.D. candidate funded by Swansea University and the Economic and Social Research Council Wales (ESRC) and is primarily supervised by Dr. Jon Burnett of the criminology department. She first joined the department in 2015 where she gained an undergraduate degree and an MA in criminology, before going on to earn an MSc in research methods and embarking on her PhD. Gayle is a member of the British Society of Criminology.

With a main interest in critical and radical criminology, the focus of Gayle’s Ph.D. is the adult male prison estate in Wales, and the harms caused by incarceration. Specifically, how rehabilitation measures such as education and vocational training can ameliorate – or not – the pains of resettlement upon release from prison; how they might facilitate desistance from crime when stigma, socioeconomic barriers, and the adverse effects of incarceration are taken into account.

Connor is a PhD Candidate at Swansea University, supervised by Dr. Lella Nouria (Criminology) and Dr. Bertie Muller (Computer Science). He first joined the institution in 2015 to study Criminology and Criminal Justice followed by two consecutive master's courses on Cyber Crime and Terrorism, followed by Human-centered AI.

The interdisciplinary topics of Connor's PhD work is covered under the remit of the role of content moderation by social media platforms, in the context of extremist content removal (specifically the extreme right). Whilst his research looks at online extremism, it also covers Human-Computer Interaction, Ethics, and regulation of Artificial Intelligence within the same remit. Outside of his PhD Connor has led seminars within the department and has been involved with numerous interdisciplinary projects Including Swansea University's DRAGON-S project.

Leonie´s research focuses on offender groups, offending behaviours, and dark personality traits with her current PhD centred around female sexual offenders, how they are perceived in the criminal justice system, and the current training needs of professionals. Through this work, she hopes to shed light on male-centric policies as well as gendered views of sexual offenders.

Leonie holds a BSc in Criminology and Psychology, a MSc in Abnormal and Clinical Psychology, and is a Graduate Member of the British Psychological Society. While Leonie´s background is in Criminology and Psychology her interests are widespread and she has published works on sadistic personality traits, “Creating Evil: Can Sadism be induced?”, and regional economic development, “A well-being network approach to covid-19 recovery: The approach of 4theRegion”. Leonie was involved in the latter work through her position as a research assistant in the business department at Swansea University.

Kerime’s research focuses on organized crimes, financial crimes, and criminal use of cryptocurrencies. She is especially interested in how revenues from crypto-generated crimes are laundered. She is a member of the CYTREC (Cyber Threats Research Centre) in the university. She is also a student representative of the criminology department.

Kerime started her career in a law office focusing on criminal law and worked as attorney at law in Turkey. She has studied illicit trafficking of cultural property in her master thesis. Kerime works closely with NGO networks that specialize in international law and she gave lectures on International Law in the ICIL (Istanbul Centre of International Law). She is on the supervisory board of this organization.

Shahed is a PhD candidate in Criminology. Her project, funded by ESRC Wales and in collaboration with Tech Against Terrorism, is titled “The Application of Digital Forensics and Machine Learning to Automatically Detect and Flag Modified Online Terrorist Propaganda”. This project will employ criminology frameworks as well as computer science to advance understanding of terrorists’ use of online spaces and propaganda dissemination strategies, to inform efforts to develop tools to detect content that has been modified to evade detection.

Shahed has an International Master’s in Security, Intelligence and Strategic Studies (IMSISS), awarded by the University of Glasgow, Dublin City University, and Charles University in Prague. She has experience in corporate security, and trust and safety. Her previous research includes extremists’ use of crowdfunding, cryptocurrencies, and blockchain technology. She is also interested in ethics, postcolonialism, privacy, and cyber security. She was included in the Barcelona Centre for International Affairs' (CIDOB) 2020 Future Leaders Forum 35 Under 35 List on “Global Techno-politics: Technology, the next global order and the role of the EU.”