Postgraduate Researcher Image Competition 2023
First Place
The relationship between participation and transformation in a context of structural violence
Diana Ramirez Sarmiento, Institute of Development Studies
In a rural post-conflict zone in Colombia women have created civil society associations, agricultural and educational, to promote social change. While the State has failed to catalyse structural changes, these women are improving the quality of life of their communities.
Second Place
"My life is on my phone"
Sarah Stephens, Institute of Development Studies
Field research with women in Tanzania investigating how they use their mobile phone in their daily lives, to explore the opportunities and challenges for mobile phones to be a conduit for transformation in household power dynamics.
People's Choice
Vision at the origin of vertebrate life
Georgios Kafetzis, Life Sciences
What does the eye tell the brain? My research 'listens' to the signals shark and ray retinas transmit. Studies have shown that the retina (in mice) splits visual input in different components like luminance, contrast, colour, and direction of motion. How many of these span all vertebrates and how did ancient retinas, in species no longer existing, function?
Are flags dangerous?
Johnny Hopkins, Media, Arts and Humanities
Yes, flags can be dangerous. They come with complex histories, often involving brutality, war and empire. As national symbols, flags help to embed nationalistic feelings. Even flags on cheap plastic bunting work on us in subtle and banal ways. This is the central concern of my PhD.
The Golden Quantum Machine
Petros Zantis, Mathematical and Physical Sciences
The insides of a trapped-ion quantum computer prototype, it comprises intricate electronics such as the gold plated boards and cables of various functions. The purpose of the metal octagon is to keep the system in Ultra High Vacuum (UHV) - low pressures close to outer space! The gold microchip in the middle is able to trap individual charged atoms - or ions - and using lasers we can manipulate them for quantum computations.
The Future of Education
John Carden, Education and Social Work
This work contrasts the pace of technological change with the status quo of the UK education system. It was generated using the Dall-E(AI) image generator. The image provokes us to think about: What is education for? How should we reimagine education in the age of AI?
Treehugger Embraces Technology
Elle Osborne, Media, Arts and Humanities
Installing recording devices for collecting environmental sounds of wildlife in woods on a farm transitioning from intensive to regenerative practices. This type of soundscape study is called ecoacoustics, and I am collecting the sounds of the woodland to document environmental shifts as the habitat regenerates.
Cross or Twist?
Rebecca Owen, Media, Arts and Humanities
My research explores how experience of contemporary craft practice, in this case bobbin lace making, can uncover hidden narratives of artisanal collaboration in sixteenth century Italy, revealing lost ways of knowing, and highlighting the work of unknown Early Modern makers.
Absent from the table: the teachers’ voices on learning matters
Ramona Saraoru, Education and Social Work
The accountability for student learning placed on teachers has made teachers’ professional learning a debated subject. However, their voices are absent from discussions at policy level. My research establishes what and how they learn, using teachers’ voices as data so it can be channelled into policy outcomes.
Little Pearly Graphene Balls
Raquel Cano, Mathematical and Physical Sciences
Even though they are 50 microns in size, these graphene spheres keep my project rolling. They're highly conductive and we expect great things from them.
'Ike W-': Finding Defeat in Victory
Nick Greenwood, Media, Arts and Humanities
Under Dwight “Ike” Eisenhower the Republican party won the election in 1952 after two decades of defeat. The broken text encapsulates the tension at the heart of Eisenhower’s 1952 landslide, just before the Republicans tear themselves apart over economics, civil rights, and the Cold War.
Thinning the Foliage of History
Aaron Austin Locke, Media, Arts and Humanities
The historian's role is to thin this foliage and reveal the paths that have led to this moment in time. By disentangling the events of history in this way, the lived reality of those from the past may be imagined and re-imagined; we conjure images of those lives.
Exploring the Tactile World
Ruxiang Jiang, Engineering and Informatics
The image depicts a working scene of a wide-ranging camera-based tactile sensor, with the camera capturing a frame. Each circle in the image represents an individual tactile unit. It provides heightened sensitivity to touch and precise feedback of force signals.
'We have to keep digging...' - Overwriting grooves on a phonographic record
Dylan Beattie, Media, Arts and Humanities
An audio inscription (voice and spade digging samples) takes place on a blank vinyl record using a ‘cutterhead’ made from an old computer hard drive. Combining redundant technology with so-called ‘dead’ media, this practice challenges conventions of disc mastering processes and repurposes ‘record cutting’ as musical act.
Participatory research on infectious diseases in a Sierra Leone village
Catherine Grant, Institute of Development Studies
Villagers leading a transect walk to explore their understanding of causes of Lassa fever, a virus spread by the multimammate rat Mastomys natalensis. I asked on the walk about where people see rodents and which types they identified as potentially infectious.
Once Upon a Time in the South-East
Asad Abbasi, Global Studies
The bull, road and Chinese funded power plant embody three themes of my research. Power plants provide energy security, but cause displacement and ecological problems for the local people. Roads have brought ‘modernity’, but also a fear of ‘outsiders’.
An orphan crop: Finger Millet
Mansi Nimbhal, Institute of Development Studies
Millets used to be a staple crop but have been replaced with cash crops. Millets are climate resilient, rich in micro nutrition and important for sustainable diversified farming. Women can engage post-harvest which improves their economic and social status.
We're all going on a maths hunt
Gillian Emerson, Education and Social Work
Children are thinking about mathematics. The phone, their only link to school during Covid-19, has a blank screen; no longer their teacher but now embedded into home/school communications. Schools are open but the relationships between teachers, parents and children have changed.
Knowledge changes our lives
Felipe Paredes, Education and Social Work
My research was done in Santiago, Chile; the national research agency in Chile funded me. Coincidentally, the national office was two blocks from the site where I took my interviews, where I was reminded that 'Knowledge changes our lives' as the sign shows.
Parent communication through health and nutrition messaging on playdate snacks
Rachel Claydon, Institute of Development Studies
My ethnographic research explores how nutrition is marketised by children’s food/drink brands. I am attempting to move beyond public health ideas about barriers to healthy eating and understand implications of branded children’s foods for parents/carers.