Celebrating doctoral research at our PGR poster showcase
The University’s Doctoral College held their annual PGR poster showcase on Wednesday 26 November, bringing our postgraduate research community together to exhibit the fantastic doctoral research taking place at Southampton.
The event also gave our postgraduate researchers (PGRs) a chance to meet their fellow researchers, practice their presentation skills and share their research with an interested audience.
This year’s event had record attendance, with 125 PGRs presenting their work and over 200 students, doctoral supervisors and other staff coming along to view the posters on display.
Cash prizes were available for the best posters, with participants being assessed on the accessibility and design of their poster, the clarity of their research aim, the significance of their work and the concise presentation of material.
Dr Ross English, Academic Developer in the Centre for higher Education Practice (CHEP) and Chair of the Poster Showcase judging panel, said: “The judging this year proved to be the most challenging we have ever faced – not because of the number of posters submitted, but because of their outstanding quality. The panel was deeply impressed by the research our PGRs are undertaking and their ability to communicate it so effectively.”
Poster winners
The 2025 PGR Poster Showcase winners are:
STEMM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Maths and Medicine)
- Winner: Irene Breda (Engineering Education) – Damn beavers damming everywhere! Relationship between beavers, fish and people in England
- Runner-up: Yishu Li (Psychology) – Sexual Information Sources and Psychosexual Well-Being Among Young People in China and the UK
- Most innovative poster: Tommie Griffin-Bloomfield (Ocean and Earth Science) – Doing as the Romans Did: Ancient Lessons from the Environmental Legacy of Romano-British Industries
- Highly commended: Nur Zainal (Cancer Sciences) – Bringing Human APOBEC3 Into Mice: A New Model for Better Lung Cancer Therapies
- Highly commended: Emily Cole (Ocean and Earth Science) – Balancing biodiversity and climate targets in local land-use decisions
- People’s Choice winner: Aditya Vaswani (Mathematical Sciences) – The hype around scattering – hyperboloidal methods for hyperbolic orbits
- People’s Choice winner: Yishu Li (Psychology) – Sexual Information Sources and Psychosexual Well-Being Among Young People in China and the UK
Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences
- Winner: Nicole Brooks (Sociology Social Policy & Criminology) – What if the monster is not under the bed? Protecting children from Intra-familial Child Sexual Abuse through Education
- Runner-up: Chifuniro Somanje (Social Statistics & Demography) – No Ring, No Rights? Uneven Progress in Contraceptive Use Among Unmarried Adolescents in sub-Saharan Africa
- Most innovative poster: Narmin Mammadova (Business School) – From Resistance to Readiness: Barriers and Enablers for a Successful Adoption of AI in Performance Management
- Highly commended: Imogen Tozer (History) – Print, Prejudice, and Propaganda: The Portrayal of Jews by English Civil War Polemicists, 1642-1649
- Highly commended: Julia Barela (Music) – How does social class impact musical identity?
- People’s Choice winner: Maha Althiyabi (Modern Languages and Linguistics) – Voicing the Self Online: How EMI Academics Use Language to Build Identity
Congratulations to the winning researchers, who are pictured with Professor Tracey Newman, Director of the Doctoral College.
For those who were unable to attend the showcase, you can view all of the posters and see the photos from the showcase.
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