�鶹ӳ��

Nathan Pond (School of Psychology)

Does training attention away from threat reduce anxiety?

Everybody experiences worry sometimes, but 1 in 20 people have an anxiety disorder in which worry becomes time-consuming, uncontrollable and debilitating. Despite the high prevalence and devastating impact of anxiety, 50% of people who receive the leading treatment for anxiety will not make a full recovery. People with anxiety experience an attention bias, in which attention is automatically captured by mildly threatening stimuli. My research is testing an experimental intervention that aims to reduce this attention bias, and in turn anxiety symptoms. If effective, this intervention may provide a new low-cost treatment approach, helping us combat low recovery rates.

Jo Renaut (School of Life Sciences)

Synthetic Lethality: Finding Cancer’s Hidden Vulnerabilities to Save Lives

In 2014 Cancer Research UK highlighted oesophageal, lung, brain and pancreatic cancers as areas where treatments have barely improved in 50 years. My research searches for fresh solutions. In my thesis I explore “synthetic lethality”: pinpointing two weak spots in a cancer cell so that disabling both kills the tumour while sparing healthy cells. By utilising large genetic datasets and running computer simulations of cell behaviour, I uncover new gene pairs that drugs could target. I also examine how this tactic can be matched to each patient’s unique cancer for truly personalised care.

Catherine Cundy (School of Media, Arts and Humanities)

"It's ok, Miss, I have my knitting!” Unlocking potential in our most able young musicians

Limited research has explored what constitutes effective provision for the most able young musicians. To uncover the current teaching and learning strategies in English secondary schools, I am undertaking research at the junior departments of music colleges, giving our most able young musicians a voice by sharing their experience of teaching and learning within their typical school day. This will enable me to understand what they expect and require from their teachers. The research should benefit a wide range of educators, increasing the effectiveness of their professional practice and the systems we operate to support children with their learning.

Charmaine Wellington (�鶹ӳ�� Business School)

AI in Hiring & Promotion: Levelling the Field or Tilting the Scale for Black Professional Women?

Artificial intelligence is transforming hiring and promotion processes in financial services, yet its impact on Black professional women in senior leadership remains minimal or non-existent. My research examines how AI-enabled technologies influence recruitment and promotion practices, shaping workplace equity through insights from HR professionals, technology vendors, and Black professional women. As financial services adopt AI, understanding these dynamics is crucial to ensuring fair and equitable career advancement. Early findings reveal conflicting narratives—some view AI as a tool for reducing bias, while others see it as perpetuating discrimination. This research highlights AI’s role in shaping the future of inclusive leadership

Arunima Shandilya (School of Global Studies)

Pakistani-Hindu migrants in India: narratives from migration to citizenship

People from post-colonial South-Asian nations often find themselves at the crossroads of nationality and religion. Pakistani-Hindus exemplify this, as their religious identity seems at odds with their national identity, given Pakistan’s Islamic majority and India’s Hindu majority. My PhD investigates a significant wave of migration that occurred post-1990s, focusing on the journey of Pakistani-Hindu migrants in India, from their pre-migration aspirations to citizenship. The stories of migration to citizenship entail aspects of migration aspirations and abilities, social integration and belonging in India, and ultimately viewing citizenship as state-recognized belonging to India. However, this journey is shaped by their intersectional social location of caste, class, gender, and age.

Seyi Ugochukwu (School of Law, Politics and Sociology)

Access to Legal Aid for Undocumented Migrants in the UK: A postcolonial perspective

This research explores systemic barriers preventing undocumented migrants in the UK from accessing legal aid, which supposedly guarantees justice to all. It reframes these exclusions as rooted in colonial legacies rather than bureaucratic failure. Analysing laws like LASPO 2012 it shows how modern immigration policy embeds racialised hierarchies and institutionalised marginalisation. Through a postcolonial lens, it reveals how legal frameworks reproduce imperial power by denying justice to those from formerly colonised regions. By centring undocumented migrants within debates on migration and justice, this work challenges Eurocentric narratives of equality, advocating for decolonial reforms to eliminate enduring inequities in accessing legal aid.

Muthanna Saari (School of Global Studies)

Solidarity in ‘scarcity’ – reimagining the practice of zakat

Muslims donated 4.3 times more than average adults in the UK through various types of giving. Zakat-giving stood out as a practice that works on wealth redistribution among its wider community, emphasising care and solidarity for others. However, at the same time, an estimated half of UK Muslim households live in poverty. My research looks into the perspective of Muslims in Britain on how zakat practice is located within the contemporary social welfare benefits system of the UK. It reveals their moral dispositions in rationalising their acts and decisions to care for others whilst aspiring for a good life.

Chrysovalantis Fekos (School of Life Sciences)

Are brain cells fated to play their role?

The primary somatosensory cortex has been considered a somatotopic map representing sensation of different body parts. It has been proposed that the three principal molecularly defined interneuron types, expressing parvalbumin, vasoactive intestinal polypeptide, and somatostatin, map onto separate functional identities. We showed that interneurons could respond to both/either sensory (i.e. touch) and/or non-sensory aspects of behaviour (i.e. action or reward). However, our results revealed overlapping functions among the three cell types, with the vasoactive intestinal polypeptide interneurons being the least sensory ones. By knowing how the brain works, we could potentially identify which neuron types are affected in neurological disorders.

3MT 2025 Judges

• Prof Debbie Keeling, Pro-Vice Chancellor for Knowledge Exchange
• Dr Amanda van den Berg, Associate Professor at Nelson Mandela University
• Katy Stoddard, Researcher Development Manager
• Sunisha Neupane, 3MT winner 2024
  
  

Video Transcript

Since time immemorial, people have moved across the world for countless reasons, seeking safety, opportunity, a better life. So it’s still a bit of a wonder why in our contemporary society today, the term ‘immigrant’ continues to carry such a negative connotation.

Now, in the UK context, I'm sure almost everyone has properly read a headline once with bold inscriptions, "STOP THE BOATS." Which to me sounds a lot less like a government policy and more like an aggressive weather forecast (laughs).

But when we really think about it, it's not just always only about the boats, is it? Behind everyone of those crazy headlines always lies the experiences of real people with hopes and dreams just like you or me.

You see - people often become undocumented for several reasons beyond their control, some, through no direct fault of their own. For instance, children born into a situation they cannot help.

Nonetheless, should being undocumented be enough reason to be denied basic human dignity? The right to access health care when one falls ill, the right to seek employment to keep oneself sustained, the right to rent a house to keep a roof over your own head, or the right to seek justice when you get back against a wall.

Now, here is when my research becomes important. Legal aid is essentially a legal system put in place to ensure everybody regardless of class, social status, or levels of income can access justice, but for undocumented migrants, that system is usually out of reach.

My research asks, ‘Why are these migrants being denied legal aid? And what does that tell us about the justice system in modern Britain? ‘

I argue that this exclusion is not accidental. It's in fact, rooted in Britain's colonial history…. Patterns of exclusion that continue marginalise migrants, particularly migrants from former British colonies.

With my research, I aim to show how the system is a perpetuator of inequality by it’s continuous denial of legal to this group who are some of the most vulnerable people in the society

By interviewing these migrants, as well as legal aid professionals, I am creating a balanced perspective and ensuring that my research goes beyond just academia.

I hope to push policymakers to critically examine the legal aid provisions, particularly provisions relating to undocumented migrants. Because at no point during a conversation about justice, should justice ever be tendered as a privilege? Justice should always be a right. Thank you.

• Prof Jeremy Niven, Dean of the �鶹ӳ�� Researcher School
• Dr Samuel Knafo, Reader in International Relations
• Dominika Varga, 3MT winner 2023
• Dr Priscilla Mensah, Director of Research Development at Nelson Mandela University

3MT 2024 Results

• Winner: Sunisha Neupane (Institute of Development Studies) - मातृत्व र संघर्षका कथा [Stories of Motherhood and Resilience] - Researching maternal health and care in rural Nepal
• 2nd Place: Emily Whelan (Psychology) - Seeing Sounds and Tasting Colors: The Sweet and Sour of Synaesthesia
• People's Choice Award: Leonard Chimanda Joseph (Law, Politics and Sociology) - Two homes, no home: the Global Compact on Refugees vis-à-vis 50 years of refugees in Kigoma villages, Tanzania

Video Transcript

In this age of medical advancement, why do 800 women die daily from preventable childbirth reasons? And why do 95% of these deaths happen in low-income countries? Today, with Anu's story, I will share with you the elements at play here, as I unravel this puzzle. Anu was born 30 years ago, in a remote mountain village in Nepal.

While Anu and her mother survived unassisted birth, many women in similar situations do not. In the following decades, Biomedical policies were introduced to reduce these risks around the world. Because of that, globally and in Nepal maternal mortality rates have declined. However, the progress has not been uniform. Marginalized women in remote areas continue to face higher mortality. Why you may ask My PhD seeks to find answers to this question by studying the impact of streamlining maternal health policies in complex and remote contexts.

Anu is one of the 16 pregnant women living in the remote mountains, who participated in my ethnographic study. For 13 months I followed and observed their pregnancy and childbirth journeys. Now, I would like You to IMAGINE Anu's world. She lives with her 3-year-old daughter and manages the family farm. Her in-laws have migrated to the city. Her husband runs a business in the market area. At 2 am, during torrential rain, Anu’s labour begins. The solar telephone service has not worked for three days due to the cloudy monsoon weather.

The health centre is a five-hour walk away. So, unassisted like her mother, Anu gives birth to her daughter at home. My study shows that poor resource allocation, manifested as lack of transportation, and secondly, labour migration, which takes the husbands away are examples of structural barriers. Such barriers prevent Anu and other women in remote areas from accessing care that the policy provides.

Thus, my study finds that one policy cannot fit all. Women themselves must be asked what the barriers are, and their voices included in efforts toward finding solutions to improve maternal health outcomes uniformly. Or Else, as Anu says “One more girl is born to a life full of struggles” Struggles that aren't addressed when a policy is imposed without first listening to marginalized women’s voices.

Deborah Upchurch (Education & Social Work)

Reclaiming Reading: A collaborative action research project

Over 25% of children in England leave primary school unable to read to the expected standard and worst affected are those already at socioeconomic disadvantage. Current educational policy reduces reading to a set of skills and fails to take into account the importance of reading engagement. This research explores how agentive social reading groups can raise reader engagement for primary aged children in disadvantaged contexts. The resulting rich, highly contextualised data gathered during Spring 2024 illustrates both the immediate and exponential impact of school-based action research and it’s potential to challenge educational policy.

Leonard Chimanda Joseph (Law, Politics and Sociology)

Two homes, no home: the Global Compact on Refugees vis-à-vis 50 years of refugees in Kigoma villages, Tanzania

Burundian refugees are in Kigoma villages in Tanzania since 1972; more than fifty years now suffering from predicaments such as statelessness, poor access to labour market and stigma. Using decolonial theory of knowledge, third world approach (es) to international law in particular; this study seeks to examine the role of the United Nations Global Compact on Refugees (GCR) in identifying durable solutions that enhance the resilience of refugees who are self-settled in Kigoma villages in Tanzania. Adopted by the United Nations in 2018, the GCR reflects the current international legal obligations by states on offering solutions to refugees.

Sunisha Neupane (Institute for Development Studies)

मातृत्व र संघर्षका कथा [Stories of Motherhood and Resilience] - Researching maternal health and care in rural Nepal

Every day, nearly 800 women die from preventable pregnancy and childbirth-related causes, with 95% of these deaths occurring in low and middle-income countries. While the maternal mortality rate has significantly declined since the 1990s, disparities persist. In Nepal, women in remote areas continue to face inadequate care and higher mortality rates. My PhD research investigates the reasons behind this disparity. Over 13 months of ethnographic and participatory fieldwork in a 4000-meter-high mountain village in Nepal, I followed 16 pregnant women. My results show what maternity care means to them and uncover the barriers to maternal healthcare they encounter.

Emily Whelan (Psychology)

Seeing Sounds and Tasting Colors: The Sweet and Sour of Synaesthesia

Have you ever experienced a blending of senses, like tasting colours or seeing sounds? This fascinating phenomenon is known as synaesthesia. My research explores how synaesthetes, their relatives, and experts in colour and spatial fields may perceive and remember things differently. By comparing their abilities, we aim to uncover whether unique perceptual strengths in synaesthesia stem from the condition itself or from a blend of cognitive factors. This study could reveal how our brains connect perception, memory, and imagination, shedding light on the extraordinary ways our senses intertwine and influence each other.

Dolores Teixeira de Brito (Global Studies)

Voluntary Sustainability Standards: to what extent do they work?

I am researching the effectiveness of Voluntary Sustainability Standards (VSS) in Global Supply Chains, with a focus on inequalities in Global Value Chains (GVCs). To explore these issues, I have chosen the açaí berry sector in the Brazilian Amazon. I collected my data through interviews with harvesters, companies and other actors. My analysis centres on understanding how VSS initiatives green value chains in a sector at its early stage of internationalization. I focus on the perspective of harvesters using the Global Value Chain framework.

Edward Langley (Global Studies)

Bullshit jobs and financialisation in neoliberal Britain

‘Bullshit jobs’ should not exist under efficient capitalism. David Graeber (2018) attributed their rise to financialisation: rent-seeking has dominated in neoliberal, post-industrial economies with work evolving accordingly. However the proportion of those employed in financial services has remained stable over recent decades, indicating the possibility of other neoliberal culprits.

My research- analysing macroeconomic data and conducting worker’s surveys- investigates whether Britain may hold some answers, specifically whether its expanding services sector has geared the economy away from producing utility for society and instead towards maintaining institutions and power structures which serve the interests of global capital.

Video Transcript

I ask you to remember a memorable time that you stand on the Brighton beach. You may be transported back to a sunny day, hearing seagulls, watching the waves and a pier in the distance as you spend time with your friends and family.

Memories have this amazing power to evoke rich stories within us.

Today I will share how our minds craft these stories. Traditionally, in the lab, memories are studied by asking people to remember a list of objects like: ice cream, beach ball, sun cream. But there is a big gap between these lab studies and rich real-life memories. 

With my experiments, I aim to breach this gap by using video games that capture the real life much better than watching the person looking for shells on the beach. With this, I can study how real world knowledge influences is making new memories. In our daily lives, we rely on our knowledge and expectations to understand and remember situations.

However, we often underestimate how much our expectations shape what we remember. In fact, my research shows that expectations can be stored memories. For example, imagine this situation where you are packing for the beach about to grab a sun cream but the sound of your doorbell interrupts you. 

Later you realise you left the house without the sun cream, mistakenly remembering packing it. Sounds familiar? Turns out that our minds sometimes create false memories that align with our expectations I found that people often misremember this person leaving the beach, with a collection of shells, despite the video being interrupted before she found one.

High expectations can fill in the gaps in our memories, creating the coherent story that follows a logical sequence of events. With clear beginnings and ends. So how does our brain make these coherent memories?

By measuring brain activity, we show that brain regions involved in perception, knowledge and prediction, all work in synchrony to piece together the puzzle of a known end situation. When we expect a situation is about to reach and end, our brain creates this coherent story, writing the whole experience into our memory. Breaching lab and real-life contrast is not only crucial for understanding how we make memory in the wild, but also to identify the processes that breakdown in memory disorders like Alzheimer's disease.

Furthermore, evidence that memories can be influenced by expectations, has implications for real world situations, like the justice peace, where accurate memories matter. And with that, I would like to leave you with a final thought - that our minds are the architects that shapes the gnar of the our lives.

Thank you.