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!
2024 Dissertations
Nominated Prize | Student | Dissertation Title | Result |
---|---|---|---|
Sophie Pretorius |
A legacy of Apartheid?’: A GIS - based multi-criteria decision analysis (MCDA) into relative social vulnerability within Cape Town, South Africa'. |
Winner! | |
Sophie Reuben |
'Boundaries, intimacy and postfeminism: A feminist geographic exploration into OnlyFans' |
Winner! | |
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! | |
Emily Horrell |
The Geographies of Gestation: A Feminist Investigation into the Potential Impacts of Ectogenesis on Women". |
runner up | |
Christopher Weber |
The Indigenous Other: Critically examining the construction of Bolivian indigeneity within contemporary climate change governance discourse’ |
Winner! | |
|
Kate Callow |
Navigating the Hostile Environment: Exploring the Impact of Rising State hostility on Asylum seekers in UK 'Quasi Detention' Accommodation'. |
Winner! |
Molly Gath |
Sedimentology and stratigraphy associated with the Late Devensian Welsh Ice Cap and Irish Sea Ice Stream: Glanllynnau, Llŷn Peninsula, Northwest Wales.' |
Winner! | |
Georgiana Cannock |
Navigating Neurodiversity: Exploring the identities and lived experiences and of female students with ADHD at Durham University | Winner! | |
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 |
---|---|---|---|
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! |
2022 Dissertations
Nominated Prize | Student | Dissertation Title | Result |
---|---|---|---|
Helena Lewis |
The global intimate: an exploration into how a yogic breathwork practice is conducive to and resists a biopolitical rationality | Winner! | |
Saskia Huxham |
Reaching carbon neutrality in electric and hydrogen-powered transport by 2045: A case study of resident perceptions and the technical feasibility of implementing a renewable power structure on the Isle of Skye, Scotland | Winner! | |
Flora Farthing |
Re-entry as 'punishment's twin': an exploration of contemporary post-release carceral environment | Winner! | |
Thomas Bartlett |
A 'post-colonial borderlands approach' to the Northern Province of colonial Sudan, 1897-1956 | Highly Commended |
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.
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.
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.
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