Faculty of Humanities showcase celebrates student environmental sustainability research
25 Jun 2026
Staff and students came together on Thursday 11 June 2026 for the Faculty of Humanities Environmental Sustainability Showcase 2025/26.
The showcase featured student research from across different undergraduate, postgraduate taught and postgraduate research whilst including contributions from every School. In doing so, it showcased the breadth of work taking place across the Faculty, whilst also highlighting pathways for further study and research.
It included work both already completed and work underway. Students submitted abstracts through a competitive process and were selected to present their ideas.
In the showcase students were given three-minutes and one-slide to explain their research, pressing students to communicate their ideas concisely. The event showcased both the strength of student research and the Faculty’s commitment to supporting and embedding environmental sustainability within teaching, learning and research.
Amongst other things, presentations covered topics as diverse as the geochemical interactions between heavy metals and organic matter in restored peatlands at Holcombe Moor, the relation between right-wing populism and climate scepticism, and working-class environmentalism in the nineteenth century.
In the session, a vote was taken for the strongest presentation at each level. Alex Higdon, Yoon Kim, Jashmitha Basireddy, Kiara Harrison, Esme Taylor and Amber Taylor were our joint undergraduate winners from SALC, with their creative presentation titled Animal Biogeographies, which detailed their interactive multidisciplinary project and zine, and which explored human-animal relationships whilst posing questions about ethical coexistence.
Our postgraduate taught winner was Sara Fogarty Olmos (also from SALC) who impressed judges with a project titled At The Fence: Derrida’s The Animal That Therefore I Am And Counterbalancing. The presentation was both philosophically rich yet engaging in managing to bridge an anecdote about a dog walk, a fox and sausages with Derrida to discuss how ethical relations are negotiated through embodied encounters.
Finally, our postgraduate research winner was Mariana C Hernandez Montilla (from SEED) with a project titled Rooted Futures: What Territorial Belonging Tells Us About Sustainable Restoration. Mariana’s project drew upon fieldwork with Mixtec communities in Mexico's Mixteca Alta, and showed that effective sustainability depends on community rootedness, something which is often overlooked in international governance frameworks. A short video based on Mariana’s research is also available to watch.
We closed the session by having the postgraduate research students offer some advice for pursuing further study and research.
Many congratulations to all involved on a series of excellent projects which really demonstrate the high calibre of environmental work taking place amongst Humanities students.