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Staff Profile

Dr Niall Cunningham

Senior Lecturer in Quantitative Human Geography

Background

I am a social and historical geographer working on the geographies of class and race. Before coming to Newcastle in 2019 I was Assistant Professor in Human Geography at Durham University and between 2011 and 2015 Research Fellow in Quantitative Analyses of Social and Cultural Participation at CRESC: The ESRC Centre for Research on Socio-cultural Change at the University of Manchester. My first academic role was as Research Associate in History at Lancaster University in 2008. I am a UK state qualified secondary school teacher and taught in schools in the north of England and in Japan. I am also a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy. I am currently Chair of the Board of Examiners for Geography.   

My Feedback, Guidance & Consultation hours in academic year 2024-2025 are:

- Mondays: 9-11

- Wednesdays: 11-12

Academic Qualifications

PhD in History, Lancaster University (2014)

MSc in Geographical Information Systems, University of Leeds (2007)

MA in History, University College Dublin (1998)

BA(Hons) in Irish Studies, University of Liverpool (1997)

 

Professional Qualifications

PGCHET, Durham University (2016)

PGCE in Secondary History, Institute of Education, University of London (2001)

Research

Boundaries, Belonging and Conflict

My research interests and outputs can be classified into two main areas of activity. The first is within the sub-discipline of political geography and coheres around issues of identity, place and conflict. Most of my work in this area has focussed on the Irish context and I have published extensively on issues relating to geographies of ethnicity and political conflict on the island of Ireland.

  

Class, Race, and Health

The other major thrust in my work lies around an engagement with issues of social class - and my published work in recent years has contributed to debates on the wider 'spatialisation of class'. More recently it has reflected my interest in the wider 'costs of class', and has addressed the implications of economic crisis, class location and spatio-social mobility for mental and physical health and wellbeing. I am interested in the comparative international aspects of these issues and have developed a network between the UK and Japan for scholars working on these issues as part of the ESRC-funded 'Culture, Class, Connection' project. 

 

External Grant Funding

2023: Wellcome Trust: (Collaborator) 'North and South: Regional Health Inequalities in England' (£913,683)

2020: ESRC Advancing Business Collaboration (ABC) ECR Call 2020: (Co-I) 'Impact of Greening Wingrove and Arthur's Hill Community Interest Company on the Health and Wellbeing of the Community' (£3,250)

2019: ESRC Social Science Humanities Japan-UK Connections Call: (P.I.) 'Culture, Class, Connection: Bridging Debates on Social Class and Inequality in the UK and Japan' (£60,547)

2019: Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS) – Grants-in-Aid for Scientific Research – Challenging Research (Exploratory) (Co-I): ‘Inequality and Precarity in Global Perspective’ (¥5,000,000 (£33,097)

2018: ESRC Centre for Social and Economic Research on Innovation in Genomics (INNOGEN)) (Co-I): Recession and Mental Health in Scotland: Do Personal or Community Factors Promote Resilience to Labour Market (£9247.00)

2017: ESRC Secondary Data Analysis Initiative: (Co-I) 'Recession and Mental Health in Scotland: Do Personal or Community Factors Promote Resilience to Labour Market Change?' (£163,000)

2016: British Academy: (PI) 'The Greatest Turn of the Ratchet: Belfast 1920-22' SG161841 (£5,857)

2016: European Commission Horizon 2020: (Co-I.) ‘NATure-based URban innoVATION’. H2020-EU.3.5.4.2 ID: 730243 (€7.8 million)

2013: ESRC Festival of Social Science 2013: (P.I.) ‘Class Matters: Understanding Inequality in Contemporary Britain’, Public Event, Manchester Business School, University of Manchester, 8 November 2013 (£1,750)

2010: British Academy: (named researcher) 'Mapping the Congregations of God: The Presbyterian Church in Ireland, 1851-2001' SG090803 (£7,031)

 

Teaching

In academic year 2024-2025 I teach on the following modules:                                                       

  • GEO1025: Mapping a Changing World: GIS for Geographers
  • GEO2043: Key Methods for Human Geographers (Module Leader) 
  • GEO2236: Between Two Unions: Ireland Human Geography Fieldcourse (Module Leader)
  • GEO8015: Doing Geographical Research: Concepts in Action

My Feedback, Guidance & Consultation hours in academic year 2024-2025 are:

  • Mondays: 9-11
  • Wednesdays:11-12

To date I have supervised the following doctoral students to successful completion alongside colleagues at Durham and Northumbria: 

  1. Victoria Smith (May 2019) ‘Using Agent-Based Modelling and Social Network Analysis to understand power and interaction in CAtchment Based Approaches (CABA) to water network management’ 
  2. Mildred Ajebon (June 2019) ‘Geographical Perspectives on the Social Determinants of Inequalities in Under-Five Mortality in Nigeria: Towards an Integrated Approach. 
  3. Hannah Holmes (March 2020) 'Spaces of Demarginalisation: Processes, Policies and Politics in Addressing Territorial Stigma in Middlehaven, Middlesbrough'.
  4. Eleojo Abubakar (September 2020) 'Socio-spatial analysis of small-area need and accessibility of primary healthcare services in Nigeria: A sequential mixed methods study'.
  5. Paul Barber (May 2022) ‘The Uniformed Cadet Forces: Evidencing the Difficulties Volunteers and Volunteer Organisations experience in delivering youth training services’.
  6. Clair Cooper (September 2022) ‘A pan-European Analysis of the Distribution of Nature-Based Solutions (NBS) in Urban Space and their Relation to Socio-Spatial Inequalities and Modes of Governance’.
  7. Chandika Shrestha (October 2023) 'Female resilience and rebuilding strategies in post-earthquake Nepal'.


I currently supervise the following PhD students:


  • Dominika Dmitrzak - 'Socio-spatial mobilities in England's North-South Divide' (Wellcome Trust studentship) (with Professor Clare Bambra and Dr. Vic McGowan (Population Health Sciences Institute))
  • Tolu Olufarati - 'The Nigerian Education Management Information System (NEMIS) and Educational Provision for Internally Displaced Populations' (Petroleum Technology Development Fund studentship) (with Dr. Laura Routley (Politics))


I am always pleased to receive enquiries on potential PhD supervision relating to my areas of research activity.

 

Publications