2022 Postgraduate Research Award recipient Emma Underwood (third from right) and Razafindratsima lab team (UC Berkeley) outside Centre ValBio, Madagascar, ready for their first hike out to camp, Ranomafana National Park in June 2022. (Credit: Mahefa Andriamavolosoarisoa)
Doctoral students return to the field
The Society is delighted to be able to support PhD students undertaking fieldwork each year through its grants programme. This year, the Society’s grants programme has allocated funding to support 27 PhD students, thanks to generous support from donors. Many of those supported by these PhD grants go on to develop a career in academia and related disciplines.
Postgraduate Research Awards
The Postgraduate Research Awards are given to individual PhD students to help them establish themselves in their particular field. These grants support projects in topics across the full breadth of geography.
This year's Geographical Club Award was given to Rosemary Huck (University of Oxford) for work quantifying soil crust erodibility in fragile semi-arid dune systems, and Dhaval Joshi (University of Edinburgh) for work exploring knowledge(s) of groundwater governance in India.
The recipient of this year’s Jasmin Leila Award for medical and health geography, performance geographies, or research into transnational communities, is Rosie Knowles (Royal Holloway, University of London), who is studying industrial and coastal therapeutic landscapes.
The Hong Kong Research Grant, for geographical research in the Greater China region, was awarded to Junwanguo Guo (University of Southampton) for field research to explore the e-waste industrial growth path in China.
See the full list of recipients of this year’s grants, including the postgraduate Albert Reckitt Award and Dudley Stamp Memorial Award.
Slawson Awards
This year’s recipients of the Slawson Awards for PhD students carrying out field research in the Global South are Zoe Hamilton (University of Oxford), Bina Limbu (Northumbria University), Molly Atkins (University of Birmingham) and Harry Quealy (University of Manchester). They will be working on topics ranging from community participation in disaster risk reduction policies, to the labelling and enforcement of “fake news” legislation. Read more about their projects.
Frederick Soddy Postgraduate Award
The Frederick Soddy Postgraduate Award supports PhD students carrying out research into the social, economic and cultural life of a region, anywhere in the world. This year the Award will support three students: Cristina Argudin (University of Southampton), Maureen Kinyanjui (University of Edinburgh) and Chantal Bright (University of Manchester), undertaking work on topics ranging from food security and subsistence hunting to water, land rights and gendered peacebuilding. Read more about their projects.
Henrietta Hutton and Monica Cole Research Grants
This year’s PhD student recipient of the Henrietta Hutton Research Grant is Aavika Dhanda (University of Oxford) for research evaluating the impacts of land-use and land-cover changes on eastern Indian Himalayan birds. This year’s PhD student recipients of the Monica Cole Research Grant are Maike Nowatzki (University of Oxford) for research exploring morphological drivers of dunefields in southern Africa using deep learning, satellite imagery, and field-based approaches, and Diana Jerome (University of Edinburgh) for work studying the effect of forest management and climate change on boreal shrubs
The next deadlines for the Society’s grants for PhD students is in November 2022. Find a grant and apply
Grants are awarded subject to recipients receiving full approval from their university for fieldwork and research to take place.