Projects, grants and publications
My research covers evidence synthesis in education, linguistic inequality and career progression.
METIUS
Mobilising Evidence Through AI and User-Informed Synthesis. In the Education Work Package I help build a synthesis-ready repository of randomised trials and quasi-experimental studies, working with partners including the Education Endowment Foundation and the EPPI Centre.
LINKS evidence gap map
Mapping the evidence on early childhood interventions in low- and middle-income countries.
Tongues and Skins
Language as a proxy for race. A raciolinguistic study of how accent-based judgement affects racialised speakers in employment and housing in Northern Ireland.
Gender, inequality and employability in international education
A transnational project on English Medium Education (EME) and the career progression of women in engineering in the UK and the Global South. We used UNESCO Story Circles, focus groups and design sprint workshops with academic partners, community organisations and participants.
Language attitudes towards Nomadic Ouled Naïl Arabic
My doctoral research at Northumbria University examined attitudes towards the Arabic spoken by the nomadic Ouled Naïl in Algeria, and how those attitudes affect speakers’ perceived employability. It combined ethnographic fieldwork with large-scale attitudinal surveys and structural equation modelling.
- 2026Fellowship of the Higher Education Academy (FHEA)Advance HE
- 2026–28METIUSEconomic and Social Research Council (ESRC). Research Fellow
- 2026–LINKS evidence gap mapNational Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR). Research Fellow
- 2023–24Gender, inequality and employability in international educationBritish Council. Research Fellow on a transnational project using UNESCO Story Circles
- 1 yearFemale engineers’ development in the UKCUSP-funded project
- 2018–22Algerian Excellence Cohort PhD ScholarshipAlgerian Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research. Full doctoral funding
- 2026Khoumikham, R. Language attitudes towards Nomadic Ouled Naïl Arabic in Algeria and perceived employability. The Journal of North African Studies, 1–31. doi:10.1080/13629387.2026.2633614
- ForthcomingKhoumikham, R. Linguistic triggers of attitudes towards Nomadic Ouled Naïl Arabic. Language in Society.
- ForthcomingKhoumikham, R. The PhD viva examination in the UK: Perspectives from students and examiners. Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education.
- ForthcomingElmgadma, A. et al. Decolonising intercultural competencies: A Story Circles approach. Language and Intercultural Communication.
- Forthcoming · 2026Khoumikham, R. et al. Increasing awareness of barriers to career progression for female engineers. ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, North Carolina, USA.
- 2025Al-Mqadma, A. et al. Female engineering academics in the Global South and North: An exploration of language of instruction, using Story Circles and Focus Groups. ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, Montreal, Canada. doi:10.18260/1-2--56570
- 2023Khoumikham, R. Insights into the influence of English Medium Education (EME) on career progression in the UK and Palestine. EMI Symposium 2023: Fostering Collaboration, Oxford. EMI Symposium 2023
- 2022Khoumikham, R. Wandering in the desert of Algeria: Language attitudes towards Nomadic Ouled Naïl, possible linguistic triggers of attitudes. Accent and Social Justice, Newcastle upon Tyne. Accent and Social Justice, NE 2022.
- 2019Khoumikham, R. Language attitudes towards Nomadic Ouled Naïl and their possible impact on the job market. Newcastle & Northumbria Postgraduate Conference in Linguistics, Newcastle upon Tyne. NNPCiL14.
From 2023 to 2025 I was a member of the Department of Language and Linguistics at the University of Essex, alongside colleagues working across sociolinguistics, translation, language teaching and computational linguistics.
