May news from the SEED Director of Postgraduate Research
22 May 2026
Update from Tanja Bastia, Director of PGR in the School of Environment, Education and Development
This month has brought both sadness and joy to our PGR community. Many of you will have heard of the death of Hamid Khalafallah in April. Hamid was an outstanding researcher and activist and a very much loved member of our PGR community. I have been impressed by how our PGR community has pulled together to support one another at this difficult time. This is testament to the strength of our community and all the work that our PGRs, their reps, DCOs and supervisors invest in making SEED a great place to be doing a PhD. I am sure you will join me in extending our deepest condolences to Hamid’s family and friends. May his humility, kindness and integrity live on in all the people whose lives Hamid was part of. Look out for information about the memorial event that is being planned by Hamid’s friends for next month if you would like to join us in celebrating his life.
Our PGRs have gone on to receive outside recognition from a number of sources.
Shashank Nitundil, recently submitted PhD student in Geography, has been awarded an MDC excellence award for Best Contribution to Internationalisation MDC Excellence Award in the Faculty of Humanities.
Frederick Jones, from MIE, has been awarded a Distinguished Achievement Medal – Postgraduate Researcher of the Year 2026 for the Faculty of Humanities.
GDI’s Dani Cocco Beltrame was awarded a Making a Difference Awards for outstanding benefit to society through research (emerging impact).
Very many congratulations to all three for these outstanding achievements.
You will have seen from the email I circulated earlier this month that expectations about supervisor training are changing and there is now an expectation that supervisors will participate in a minimum of 2 CPD sessions a year. Funding councils are already starting to change this expectation into a requirement so please do look out for training opportunities. These range from CPD sessions organised by the Doctoral Academy, the central Researcher Development team, while formal accreditation is also available from the UK Council for Graduate Education.
PGRs and colleagues have been active in organising wellbeing events for PGRs. Kirsty Finn has organised two events for PGRs, one online held this month and one upcoming on 20th June, which will be on campus and there will be other events led by PGRs funded through the SEED PGR-led interdisciplinary funds.
Finally, I hope many of you will enjoy the SEED PGR 2026 Conference, World in Flux: Weaving Interdisciplinary Responses to Global Challenges, which this year includes a Social Responsibility Panel chaired by Professor Nicola Banks.