Undergraduate Highlights - Durham University

Undergraduate Highlights and Achievements

Our students thrive in a supportive and open learning environment. We are keen to both celebrate their successes and to find ways to pay it forward.

The support we provide to our dissertation students helps them to realise their considerable potential. In 2024 nine of our students won or were runners up in various RGS-IBG and other dissertation prizes (8 winners, 1 runner -up). This is a truly remarkable achievement and we are proud of how the excellent work our students do has been recognised externally. Several of our students have also gone on to publish their research (further details below).

We hold an annual photographic competition open to all undergraduate students and recognise throughout the year those who have made special contributions to the university community and beyond.

We also support students seeking scholarships and nominate students for recognition within and beyond the university.

Dissertation Prize Winners

Each year the top undergraduate dissertations from across the department are nominated for a variety of prizes in human and physical geography. These prizes are adjudicated by working groups of the Royal Geographical Society and other learned societies. We are delighted to announce that those below have received recognition as truly exemplary undergraduate scholarship!

2025 Dissertations

Nominated Prize	Student	Dissertation Title	Result
British Hydrological Society	Dylan Tweats	Assessing Climate Change Impacts on Nitrogen Dynamics and Eutrophication Risk in the Upper Eden: A Comparative Evaluation of Process-Based, Empirical, and Deep Learning Modelling Approaches	Winner!
Digital Geographies Research Group	Levina Purewal	Interacting with artificial intelligence: AI’s agentic role in the reconfiguration of assemblage and (re)construction of the self	Winner!
Social and Cultural Geography Research Group	Olivia Griffin-Roach	Beyond the Bump: Understanding How Women Experience and Navigate Pregnancy and Early Motherhood in the Financial Service Sector	Winner!
Gender and Feminist Research Group	Imogen Burton	Bursting at the Seams: A Critical Feminist Geographical account of Michaela Stark’s artwork	Winner
Animal Geography Working Goup	Anna Meller	A GIS-Based Study of Emperor Penguin Colony Dynamics and Their Environmental and Ecological Influences in Antarctica	Winner!
History and Philosophy of Geography Research Group	Henry Blake	Foreclosed Futures': Youth, Hope, and the Limits of Imagination in Contemporary Cornwall	Winner!
Geographies of Health and Wellbeing Research Group	Emily Williams	A Feminist Geographical Exploration Of The Everyday Lives Of People With Endometriosis	Winner!
Energy Geographies Research Group	Rachel Garlake-Louw	Frontlines and Solidarity: a decolonial analysis of climate activism against the East Africa Crude Oil Pipeline (EACOP) in Uganda and the UK.	Honourable mention

2024 Dissertations

Nominated Prize	Student	Dissertation Title	Result
Quantitative Methods Research Group	Sophie Pretorius	A legacy of Apartheid?’: A GIS - based multi-criteria decision analysis (MCDA) into relative social vulnerability within Cape Town, South Africa'.	Winner!
Space, Sexualities and Queer Working Group	Sophie Reuben	'Boundaries, intimacy and postfeminism: A feminist geographic exploration into OnlyFans'	Winner!
Gender and Feminist Research Group	Lily Weston	“It's a regular thing and it's always going to happen to you": An exploration of sexual harassment and assault on the London Underground through the lens of Rob Nixon's (2011) 'slow violence’.	Winner!
Gender and Feminist Research Group	Emily Horrell	The Geographies of Gestation: A Feminist Investigation into the Potential Impacts of Ectogenesis on Women".	runner up
Latin American Geographies Research Group	Christopher Weber	The Indigenous Other: Critically examining the construction of Bolivian indigeneity within contemporary climate change governance discourse’	Winner!
Carceral Geography Working Group	Kate Callow	Navigating the Hostile Environment: Exploring the Impact of Rising State hostility on Asylum seekers in UK 'Quasi Detention' Accommodation'.	Winner!
Quaternary Research Association	Molly Gath	Sedimentology and stratigraphy associated with the Late Devensian Welsh Ice Cap and Irish Sea Ice Stream: Glanllynnau, Llŷn Peninsula, Northwest Wales.'	Winner!
Geographies of Health and Wellbeing Research Group	Georgiana Cannock	Navigating Neurodiversity: Exploring the identities and lived experiences and of female students with ADHD at Durham University	Winner!
Urban Geography Research Group	George Buckland	The gaybourhood never sleeps: Mapping the intergenerational (re)configurations of queer urban space (Manchester's Gay Village)	Winner!

2023 Dissertations

Nominated Prize	Student	Dissertation Title	Result
Energy Geographies Research Group	Emilia O'Keefe	The diffusion of clean energy technology: an assessment of domestic solar panel and electric vehicle distribution in England and the factors influencing their adoption.	Winner!

Recent Publications by Geography Students

Tess Howard (2023) "Practical professional, or patriarchal? An investigation into the socio-cultural impacts of gendered school sports uniform and the role uniform plays in shapring femail experiences of school sport." Sport, Education and Society.
- Featured in The Guardian here.
Iona Nixon and Jeremy Schmidt (2023) "Multispecies thought from the shadows: the associated worlds of dog-walking." cultural geographies.
Evie Wilkinson (2022) "Living in harmony with nature: environmental politics, the rights of nature, and avoiding Hothouse Earth." Routes 3(2): 75-84.
Amy Campbell (2021) "llliberal Democracy: the Case of Democratic Erosion." Columbia Undergraduate Research Journal, 5(1).
Tiegan Hannah Ansell (2021) "To what extent can humans be blamed for the end-of-Pleistocene mass extinction of the megafauna?" Routes 2(1): 10-14.
Lily Duffy (2020) "Where are the silt layers in the Albufeira Lagoon (Portugal) sourced from?" Routes 1(1): 109-119.
Charlie Drew (2019) "From maggots to millions: biomimicking the fly to feed humanity from its waste in the 21st century." Journal of Undergradtuate Ethnography 9(2): 3-18.

Annual Photographic Competition

Welcome to the Durham Geography undergraduate photo competition! Each year we receive entries from dissertation research and fieldtrips taken around the world and from across all levels of our undergraduate community.

Geography Photographic Competition

What's Durham Geography like?

Our students are amazing and love what we offer and what they get to do. Hear about their studies and fieldtrips through Student Voices. Then explore our Colleges and college life.

Student Voices Explore our colleges

A picture of two female students looking at a laptop.

Undergraduate Study

When you study Geography at Durham University, you join one of the world's best geography departments. We offer BA and BSc degrees tailored to your interests and career goals. Our vibrant student community is right there with you.

Discover our undergraduate courses

Contact Us

Founded in 1928, the Department of Geography at Durham University is one of the leading centres of geographical research and education in the world.

Department of Geography

Durham University
Lower Mountjoy
South Road, Durham
DH1 3LE, UK

Tel: +44 (0)191 3341800