Call for “Writing on Jewellery Clinic”
Since the journal’s inception, we have supported authors who needed to revise their papers with bespoke tutoring. We are now extending this free support to potential authors who have not yet submitted a paper, through our “Writing on Jewellery Clinic” run by the JJR team. If you are interested in participating, please do get in touch with us
Call for Information –
We are keen to create a map of jewellery PhD research and are interested in PhD work that is current, and recently completed. What we need from you are:
Your name, 1 paragraph (up to 400 words) outlining your PhD research, expected date of completion and institution you are attached to and PhD thesis.
Send this to informationJJR@gmail.com – we will update the map as and when we receive your information.
MAP OF JEWELLERY PhD RESEARCH
UPDATED FEBRUARY 2026
Yu Boya– PhD candidate 2026 (ongoing)
Jewellery Design Technology, Faculty of Art and Design, Universiti Teknologi MARA (UiTM), Malaysia
Main supervisor: Dr.Hema Zulaika Hashim, Co supervisor: Dr.Wan Noor Faaizah Wan Omar
Title:
Hybrid Jewellery as Cultural Expression within Chinese Identity and Western Innovation in Contemporary Design
This PhD research focuses on jewellery design and living aesthetics, exploring how cultural hybridity and design innovation can bridge traditional symbolism with contemporary creative expression in jewellery art
——————————————————————————————————————–
Mihaela Coman – PhD candidate (2021-2025)
Edinburgh College of Art, The University of Edinburgh, UK
Supervisors: Prof. Juliette MacDonald, Prof. Sarah Kettley and Jennifer Gray
Title:
Post-Communist Romanian Contemporary Jewellery: from Nothing to Everything (?)
Making a city-to-wear – an exploration of the imperialist communism ongoing impact.
This practice-based research situates my practice within the distinct geopolitical visual landscape, the communist cityscape, and is structured in two parts: The first unravels the obscure history of Romanian contemporary jewellery. It explores contemporary jewellery making during the restrictive legislation on precious metals of communist Romania (1947-1989) and seeks to better understand its recent post-communist development (2010-2025). The second explores, evokes, and explains the inherited pervasive urban visuals, the communist cityscapes, and their continued influence even after the fall of communism (1989-2025), through making a city-to-wear series of contemporary jewellery.
Research conducted in museums, archives, and libraries led to the rediscovery of forgotten Romanian contemporary jewellers and their artistically refined and diverse universe. A series of oral history interviews complemented this discovery.
By situating my practice within this post-communist context, I developed a body of work that explores ways to reflect on the ideological, historical, and sociological layers of these communist urban landscapes. I used three theoretical frameworks for three case studies: Martin Coward’s concept of Urbicide, in relation to political power and the manipulative destruction, to evoke the massive demolitions in old Bucharest during the communist regime. Visual Scepticism, following Margit Kern’s recent theory on greening difficult heritage, to highlight the tensions embedded in the more pleasant parts of the city. Michel Foucault’s concept of Docile Bodies, which assisted me in further pushing the metaphor of apartment blocks as docile bodies, to identify features of another side of the city -the dystopian one – and to understand why some neighbourhoods retained the uncomfortable feeling of the oppressive regime.
This research is important in that it is the first time the history of Romanian contemporary jewellery making during the communist era has been brought to light. It is also the first time a series of jewellery has been made with the explicit purpose of both evoking and explaining the ongoing impact of imperialist communism ideology on Romanian cityscapes.
——————————————————————————————————————–
Yajie Hu– PhD candidate (ongoing)
Loughborough University, School of Design and Creative Arts, UK
Supervisors: 1st Dr R. Bernabei, 2nd Prof. D. Gyi
Y.Hu@lboro.ac.uk
Title: Contemporary Jewellery: improving well-being and quality of life
Yajie’s current research investigates how contemporary jewellery could help people to enhance their well-being and quality of life.
——————————————————————————————————————-
Zoé Kiner-Wolff– PhD
University of Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne, France
Supervisor: Prof. Pascal Rousseau
Zoé Kiner-Wolff is a PhD student and jeweler from HEAR (Strasbourg). She is conducting PhD researches in art history at the on “Body jewelry and new physicalness, since the 1970s in Europe”. Her PhD thesis is about the “new physicalness” of jewellery from the mid-twentieth century. I focus my research on artists who use jewel as artistic medium by questioning its relationship to the body and to wearability. this approach shifts the experience of wearing a jewel, which is no longer a daily accessory. In that way, thoses artists develop jewelry for spectacular scenes : such as exhibition, music scene or catwalk podium. They also make jewelry for performance and use photography as a part of their artistic work.
——————————————————————————————————————-
Jasper Martens –PhD
Department of History of Art and Architecture at the University of California, Santa Barbara.
Supervisor: Prof. Dr. Mark Meadow
Expected completion date is 2030.
Profile: Jasper Martens is a PhD student in the Department of History of Art and Architecture at the University of California, Santa Barbara. His research delves into early modern Netherlandish jewels and jewelry, with a particular interest in material culture, global trade, and sensory experiences.
Zihan Zhou– PhD candidate (ongoing)
Loughborough University, School of Design and Creative Arts, UK
completion by 2025
1st supervisor: Dr Roberta Bernabei, 2nd supervisor Prof. Phillip Lindley
Profile: tbc
——————————————————————————————————————-
Sofie Boons –2020- (completed in 2024),
University of the West of England, Centre for Fine Print Research, UK
Supervisors: Dr Laura Morgan and Dr Tavs Jorgensen, Director of Studies, Dr Sarah Bodman
Title: Man-made crystals: an investigation into the design implications, possibilities, and limits of utilising man-made crystals in the development of jewellery designs
Research question: What are the design implications, possibilities, and limits of utilising man-made crystals in the development of jewellery designs?
Bespoke man-made crystals drive innovations in a range of industries, which has not fully translated into the jewellery industry, even though crystal growing techniques have been around for many years. Innovations with man-made crystals within the industry have remained limited, and most are still produced to imitate mined crystals. My PhD study will therefore investigate the design implications, possibilities and limits of utilising man-made crystals in the development of jewellery designs. Whilst conducting experiments and developing planned collaborations the changing role of the designer will also be explored in relation to the amount of control and input the designer has had in the material development stage. Finally, the appreciation of these man-made crystals and the context in which they are appraised will also be explored as part of the contextual review.
——————————————————————————————————————-
Yi Jen Chu –2018- 2022 completed, PhD candidate
Gold and Silversmithing at RMIT, Melbourne, Australian.
Supervisors: Dr Mark Edgoose and Dr Nicholas Bastin
Title: Interrogating excess in the post Fordist and contemporary culture through examining kinetic objects in the food mass production and consumption system.
Profile:
Yi-Jen Chu is a PhD candidate of Fine Art, Gold and Silversmithing at RMIT, Melbourne, Australian. Her practice centres on kinetic jewellery and objects that evoke a narrative of excess in food production and consumption in contemporary culture using interaction as a way to simulate the conceptual meaning behind the objects.
In this research, I have created a series of objects titled Interrogating excess in food production which focuses on investigating the issues of waste related to manufacturing, consumerism and diminishing natural resources as a narrative foundation. My project also involves the exploration of a narrative of the value of craftsmanship and workmanship in manufacturing processes in relation to the lack of First World societal value attributed to resources such as food. Through object making I highlight an appreciation of the lost value of hands on experience in brought about by manufacturing machinery, particularly the loss of knowledge and skills that occurred because of repetitive tasking throughout the pre Fordist, Fordist and post Fordist manufactories systems. My overall aim, however, is to utilise the interactive object as a new way to communicate contemporary issues of production and consumerism.
——————————————————————————————————————-
Ginta Grūbe- PhD candidate (2015 – ).
Affiliation: The Art Academy of Latvia, Riga
Title:
Profile: Ginta Grube (maiden name Zabarovska) is a Latvian based jewellery artist and a PhD researcher at The Art Academy of Latvia. Primarily her research seeks to enrich the historical analysis of jewellery art history in Latvia during the Post-Soviet period. „The theme is jewellery art in Latvia from 1991 until present (2019/20). I focus on individual artists and collections that hold Latvian contemporary jewellery such as The Latvian Museum of Decorative Arts and Design, The Artists’ Union of Latvia etc.
——————————————————————————————————————-
Mohammed Kwaku Baidoo- PhD candidate
Department of Educational Innovations in Science and Technology, Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, Kumasi
Title: JEWELLERY EDUCATION IN GHANA: A COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS
OF SCHOOL-BASED AND APPRENTICESHIP PROGRAMMES
Profile: The processes of acquiring jewellery education in Ghana is either through School-Based or apprenticeship programme. Concern expressed by some players in the jewellery industry is that most students who acquire jewellery education through School-Based (Metal Product Design Section, KNUST) are not able to practise as jewellers after their graduation because there is mismatch between skills that students acquired while in school and that of jewellery industry’s needs.
This study therefore sought to describe the characteristics, similarities and differences of School-Based and Apprentices Jewellery Education programmes in Ghana, also design and propose models for teaching and learning of Jewellery by School-Based and Apprenticeship systems of education in Ghana and finally assess the designed models to ascertain their effectiveness on knowledge and skills acquired by the learners through School-Based and Apprenticeship programmes in Ghana.
——————————————————————————————————————
Yueyang Sun– PhD candidate (completed in 2023)
Loughborough University, School of Design and Creative Arts, UK
Title: Technological Innovation in Antique Ming dynasty Chinese Filigree for Jewellery Design Development.
1st supervisor: Dr Roberta Bernabei, 2nd supervisor Dr Robert Harland
Externale Examiner Prof. J. Cunningham
——————————————————————————————————————-
Jie Sun -research project- October 2020 to December 2021 introduction to PhD study- no qualification obtained-period of study ended in Jan 2022.
Loughborough University, School of Design and Creative Arts
Title: Contemporary Art Jewellery acts as a Mediator in art therapy and the social-virtual sphere
1st supervisor: Dr Roberta Bernabei, 2nd supervisor Prof. Phillip Lindley
——————————————————————————————————————-
Wenyan Luo – PhD candidate- ongoing
Title: Reinvigorate Chinese Inlay Technique in Jewellery Design and Practice with the use of CAD/CAM applications. (provisional title)
Loughborough University, School of Design and Creative Arts
1st supervisor: Dr Roberta Bernabei, 2nd supervisor Prof. Richard Bibb
——————————————————————————————————————
Katie Brown- PhD candidate
Date of completion:
University of Dundee, Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art & Design
Title: Exploring hearing aids and super normal design.
The intent of this project is to challenge prevalent visions for the future of hearing aid design: that they will either ‘disappear’ through miniaturisation, or else by appearing to be something other than a hearing aid, whether mainstream consumer electronics or jewellery. And to challenge the implication that this disappearance – even if possible – would be a positive outcome for everyone concerned.
The research will explore themes of stigma as part of understanding the different social and cultural relationships that exist and their link to hearing aids. It will involve the experiences and perspectives of wearers, non-wearers, health care professionals and manufacturers of hearing aids.
In response (yet also as a mode of inquiry) it will use super normal design: defined as the design of everyday objects that fit into our lives so comfortably as to usually go unnoticed (another, more subtle form of invisibility, in a way). By which we mean the design of hearing aids that are in some ways archetypical hearing aids and recognisable as such, yet at the same time understated, and subtly and beautifully resolved.
Research questions include:
How does the experience of wearing hearing aids differ across hard of hearing, deafened and D/deaf users?
What decisions are wearers making with regards to passing, covering and uncovering? In what way does stigma affect these decisions?
How can the design of hearing aids better represent the identity of their wearers? What would a super normal hearing aid look like, and who might wear one? What role can design play in challenging stigma associated with hearing aids and hearing loss?
——————————————————————————————————————