Winners of the 2023 Three Minute Thesis and BGRS Poster Competitions

Top row left to right: Conor J. Kelly, Jo Brydon-Dickenson, Allison McKibban. Bottom row left to right: Graham Driver, Laura Phillips-Farmer, Clau Di Gianfrancesco

Birkbeck’s annual Three Minute Thesis and Poster competitions were held on 25 May and proved to be an entertaining and invigorating evening for competitors and the audience alike.  

For the Three Minute Thesis competition, participants from a range of different disciplines were challenged to present their scholarly research to a non-specialist audience in just three minutes. Showcasing their ability to talk with clarity and passion about their research, as well as their presentation skills, the quality of entries from doctoral students was exceptionally high. For the Poster competition, doctoral students submitted a poster design that explained their complex research to a mixed audience of non-subject specialists.  

The winner and recipient of a £500 prize for the Three Minute Thesis was Conor J. Kelly, for his talk entitled ‘Brexit and Northern Ireland’s Political Parties’.

The winner of the Poster competition and recipient of £150 was Graham Driver for ‘Exploring the geological evolution of Glacier-like Forms on Mars’. As well as the winners, a panel of judges also selected runners-up for each competition, and there was also a people’s choice award.  

Below is more information about the students who placed as winners and runners-up, and their respective research.  

Three Minute Thesis Judges Winner: Conor J. Kelly  

Thesis title: Northern Ireland’s Political Parties Shifting Stances on European Integration 

What’s it about? Northern Ireland’s political parties have had a huge influence on political developments related to Brexit in recent years. But the parties themselves have often presented contrasting positions on whether they support European integration since Ireland and the UK joined in 1973. There is literature on how parties form their positions on the EU. However, I argue Northern Ireland presents a somewhat unique case, and I try to show why you need to go beyond the current literature on political parties in order to understand how they behave towards Europe. 

Why this research? I grew up in Donegal, near the Irish border and I’ve always been interested in the politics and history of Ireland. The 2016 Brexit referendum brought the politics of Northern Ireland back to the top of the political agenda in Ireland, the UK, and the European Union. My thesis is trying to make sense of one dimension of a complicated but fascinating set of political dynamics. 

What’s your background? I did my BA at the University of Galway in Ireland and then studied for an MA at Maastricht University in the Netherlands. Prior to coming to Birkbeck in 2018 to do a MRes and then a PhD, I had a variety of different jobs in not-for-profit fundraising in New York and London. 

Three Minute Thesis Runner-up: Jo Brydon-Dickenson

Thesis title: Percy Grainger and Trans Identity in Edwardian England 

What’s it about? It’s about a musician who wrote a lot about gender and sexuality in their private letters and diaries. I’m using those documents to try to piece together some understanding of what it was like to be trans in London in the early twentieth century and how people like Percy Grainger might have understood themselves.  

Why this research? A lot of trans history before the 1950s is built upon court records and newspaper articles, and it’s very rare that we get to hear trans people speaking for ourselves. So, when I came across these documents with Grainger expressing thoughts that will probably seem quite familiar to a lot of trans people today, I thought it was important to take the time to unpick them and show how they might help us understand the trans past.  

What’s your background? Before this, I was doing a Master’s at Reading and a degree at Sussex, both with a focus on music and gender in history. My background also includes a lot of performing music, so I love the opportunity to bring the things that I’ve learned as a musician into my research. 

Three Minute Thesis People’s Choice Winner: Allison McKibban

Thesis Title: An Era of Violence: Confronting Colonialism in the U.S. Violence Against Women Act (1994-Present) 

What’s it about? While laws regulating sexual violence are used by governments around the world, it remains a global health crisis. For 30 years, the U.S. Violence Against Women Act has addressed sexual violence, and in particular, violence against Indigenous women. My research questions why this set of laws hasn’t prevented the violence, through uncovering the ingrained beliefs beneath the words written in the more than 2000 pages of legislation. 

Why this research? The United States government has enacted violence against Indigenous communities for centuries. However, as a U.S. citizen, I never learned of this ongoing colonization until I was in university. My research pushes back on my own government’s violent policies, but also has compelled me to do activist work to restore land to Indigenous peoples. 

What’s your background? Before Birkbeck, I worked in government affairs in the US and attended LSE and Oxford to study for master’s degrees related to law, gender, and history. 

Poster Competition Winner: Graham Driver 

Thesis Title: Exploring the Geomorphological Evolution of Glacier-Like Forms on Mars 

What’s it about? The mid-latitudes of Mars are populated by numerous water-ice-rich landforms known as Glacier-Like Forms (GLFs) that are similar in appearance to valley glaciers found on Earth. Little is known about these glaciers and how they have evolved over time. Using data collected by orbiting spacecraft, and computer climate modelling, I am attempting to provide insight into the geological evolution of these landforms and discover what environmental factors influence glacial evolution on Mars. 

Why this research? I have always been interested in space exploration and geology, particularly in geomorphology and how landscapes are formed. When you think of Mars, you think of a dry, cold, dead planet, not an active landscape with large glaciers on its surface. The difference between what I had known about Mars before and the excitement of what I could discover exploring another planet drew me to this research. It’s an amazing privilege to have the opportunity to look at Mars every day from images I have requested from spacecraft 140 million miles away.  

What’s your background? Like many Birkbeck alumni I was working a steady job when, aged 30, I decided to go back to university to study something I have always been passionate about: planetary science. I worked full-time whilst completing my degree at Birkbeck, and graduated in 2019. In 2020, this PhD was advertised at Birkbeck, and I was fortunate enough to be selected for the position. Now I’ve had the opportunity to teach one of the modules which got me here and help other students towards their goals of exploring the geology of our solar system. 

Poster Competition Runner-up: Laura Phillips-Farmer 

Thesis title: Where structural and individual factors interplay: Building on the pathways approach to homelessness  

What’s it about? It’s about looking at the factors involved in why and how people come to face homelessness in the UK. Currently, research is split between ‘individual factors’ or ’structural factors’ or episodes of both types of factors. I would like to explore the spaces where they interplay using Life Course Theory and by focusing particularly on families.  

Why this research? Homelessness in the UK is a crisis that many take for granted. Comparisons between countries show that policy makes a huge difference, but it is highly contested over. I wanted to provide research that would give some weight to arguments in these areas. I was keen to slightly dismantle this idea that there’s always going to be some people who are safely in housing and some people who don’t get that, and that there’s something inherent about ’those people’. Homelessness charities sometimes make the point that “we’re all only one or two months of pay away from being homeless”, but it’s more complicated than that, with inequalities being deeper rooted. I want my research to help people tackle that complexity.  

What’s your background? I’ve worked as a youth worker, managed a winter night shelter project, and also a support worker for a homelessness charity. I took the Birkbeck conversion MSc in 2019-20, studied a health and social psychology MSc at Maastricht University in the Netherlands the following year, and began my PhD in the summer of 2021. 

Poster Competition Runner-up: Clau Di Gianfrancesco
 

Thesis title: Collective Practices of Undoing and Unbecoming: Masculinity and Theatre of the Oppressed 
 

What’s it about? I am investigating the potentialities held by participatory theatrical practices, and more specifically of Theatre of the Oppressed, in troubling and re-imagining gender and masculinity. In my work, I consider the work of decolonial, antiracist, queer, and feminist thinkers – and specifically, those who have used theatre and performances as privileged sites to question and trouble gender normativity. My aim is to investigate theoretical and practical ways of doing and undoing gender and masculinity. I am using an ethnographic approach, detailing my experience with companies working with Theatre of the Oppressed in different parts of the world.  

Why this research? I have been interested in questions pertaining to gender, theatre and gender performances since my BA in Psychology. I find theatre an incredibly helpful and productive medium to explore questions of identity and gender. Given my added interest in collaborative storytelling and collective imagination, I think that theatre and performance offer privileged sites for such rich, artistic, multi-sensorial, embodied and collaborative ways. 

What’s your background? While studying for my BA in Psychology, I saw my first Theatre of the Oppressed play which I was so profoundly struck by it that it informed my dissertation. After my BA, I did a Master’s in Psychosocial Studies at Birkbeck, where I learned about a rich variety of theories and methodological approaches and encountered a vibrant community of postgraduate students. After a year of working as a Research Assistant at Goldsmiths in the Department of Sociology, I was awarded the UBEL, ESRC 3+1 scholarship which is currently funding my PhD research. 

BGRS Poster Competition 2023

Thursday 25 May 2023

Birkbeck Graduate Research School (BGRS) invites you to enter a Postgraduate Research Student Poster Competition, which will be held on campus alongside the 3 Minute Thesis Competition on Thursday 25 May from 6pm.

This Poster Competition is open to all doctoral researchers at Birkbeck and provides an excellent opportunity for you to present your research, practice your communication skills, to network with other doctoral researchers and to celebrate your work.

Prizes

  • The winner of the first prize will receive £150 and a certificate
  • Two runners up will be awarded certificates and £75 each

Poster requirements

  • You should create a research poster that explains complex research to a mixed audience of non-subject specialists.
  • Your poster should be formatted for printing as A0 in size and in portrait orientation.

What is involved?

  • Your poster will be displayed on a poster board, with an in-person judging session during a reception after the 3 Minute Thesis Competition.
  • You will be invited to attend your poster during the judging session and so that attendees can speak with you about your research.

How to enter

Training available

For all those taking part in the competition we are organising a workshop to help you produce your poster.

Regardless of whether you are planning to enter the 3 Minute Thesis Competition or enter this BGRS Poster Competition please do mark 6pm Thursday 25 May in your diaries for these exciting events.

Three Minute Thesis Training sessions

The BGRS is pleased to announce the 2023 Birkbeck 3 Minute Thesis Competition, which will take place on Thursday 25 May from 6pm. Please mark this date in your diaries!

Birkbeck 3MT: Thursday 25 May 2023

Join a selection of Birkbeck PhD students as they compete to communicate their compelling thesis topics in just three minutes. This event is a fantastic opportunity to share and celebrate the interests and successes of PhD researchers from across the College and we invite all current Birkbeck PhD students to take part. The winner of the Birkbeck competition will be chosen by an expert panel of judges who will award:

  • £500 to the overall winner
  • £250 to the runner up
  • The audience will also have their say by picking a people’s choice winner who’ll win a special prize.

Training Sessions

As part of our support for the competition, a free programme of training sessions has been arranged. All potential 3MT competitors should attend these sessions. However, any or all of them are open to any doctoral researcher at Birkbeck who would like to gain skills in these areas:

What is it like to take part in 3MT?

Some of last year’s contenders have kindly shared what they gained from partaking.

Marie Houghton said that it ‘helped me to clarify exactly what I think the main message of my PhD is’ and that she ‘would definitely recommend taking part in the 3MT to any other PhD students.’

Hannah Reeves also said that the competition allowed her to ‘think about what matters most about my research – what do I care about, what do the community I’m working with care about, and what will this audience care about.’ She also described herself as nervous about the experience of being on stage but ‘the training helped to develop a mutually supportive atmosphere.’

Doyin Olorunfemi described how ‘the exercise of delivering a concise speech gives you clarity of mind as a researcher and clarifies your contribution.’ She would ‘highly recommend the competition.’

2023 Birkbeck 3-minute Thesis competition: Join the audience on Thursday 25 May

On Thursday 25 May, an expert panel of judges will decide which Birkbeck student has presented the most compelling, convincing, and concise summary of their thesis. There’s a lot at stake: not only the prestige of winning and the confidence that goes with it, but also –

  • £500 to the overall winner
  • £250 to the runner-up
The seven finalists from the 2022 3-minute thesis competition.

This is the headline BGRS event of the year

This is an event for all doctoral researchers and also for anyone interested in studying for a PhD. The event will be followed by a drinks reception and a chance to view entries to the BGRS Poster Competition.

During the reception prizes will be awarded to the 3 Minute Thesis Competition and the Poster Competition winners.

Register to attend

You can be part of the audience for this year’s Three Minute Thesis Competition.

Registration is now open for this event

As part of the audience you will have a vote to decide who is the People’s Choice. You can also join the Birkbeck postgraduate community in celebrating the diversity of research interests undertaken here, and raise a glass to that with a drinks reception after the winners have been announced.

If you would like to participate in this year’s competition please see this post for more information.

2022 Gwynne-Vaughan Medal

Deadline for entries extended to midday 14 October

The Birkbeck Graduate Research School (BGRS) aims to highlight the activities and successes of our research student community. We are pleased to announce the 2022 Gwynne-Vaughan Medal which is awarded to Birkbeck Doctoral students able to demonstrate the most notable contribution to their field while undertaking their research degree. The winners will be awarded a £250 prize, a formal certificate and a distinctive medal.

Eligibility

There are two categories for entry:

Current doctoral students

  • This category is open to all current part time and full time doctoral students enrolled at Birkbeck in academic year 2021/22
  • Any achievements you include must have taken place while you were registered as a Birkbeck Doctoral student up to 31 July 2022

Doctoral awardees

  • This category is open to any student who was enrolled in academic year 2019/20, 2020/21 and who has already been awarded their doctorate.
  • Any achievements you include must have taken place before your doctorate was awarded.

How to enter

Applicants must complete the following Gwynne-Vaughan Prize form which includes a statement from the student and a supporting statement from the supervisor.

Your completed form should be sent by email to graduateresearchschool@bbk.ac.uk

Deadline for entries

Friday 14 October, midday

Consideration of entries

All entries will be considered by the Research Student Sub-Committee (RSSC). The winners will be announced at the end of the Autumn term at a BGRS event that will be open to all research students at Birkbeck.

2022 Birkbeck 3 Minute Thesis Competition: Join the Audience on 16 June

Registration now open for this event

You can be part of the audience for this year’s Three Minute Thesis Competition. On Thursday 16 June, an expert panel of judges will decide which Birkbeck student has presented the most compelling, convincing, and concise summary of their thesis. There’s a lot at stake: not only the prestige of winning and the confidence that goes with it, but also –

  • £500 to the overall winner
  • £250 to the runner-up

As part of the audience you will have a vote to decide who is the People’s Choice. You can also join the Birkbeck postgraduate community in celebrating the diversity of research interests undertaken here, and raise a glass to that with a drinks reception after the winners have been announced.

Register now to be part of the audience.

Three Minute Thesis Training sessions

The BGRS is pleased to announce the 2022 Birkbeck 3 Minute Thesis Competition, which will take place on Thursday 16 June from 6pm. Please mark this date in your diaries! This will be the first competition to have taken place in person since 2019.

Birkbeck 3MT: Thursday 16 June 2022

Join a selection of Birkbeck PhD students as they compete to communicate their compelling thesis topics in just three minutes. This event is a fantastic opportunity to share and celebrate the interests and successes of PhD researchers from across the College and we invite all current Birkbeck PhD students to take part. The winner of the Birkbeck competition will be chosen by an expert panel of judges who will award:

  • £500 to the overall winner
  • £250 to the runner up
  • The audience will also have their say by picking a people’s choice winner who’ll win a special prize.

Training Sessions

As part of our support for the competition, a free programme of training sessions has been arranged. All potential 3MT competitors should attend these sessions. However, any or all of them are open to any doctoral researcher at Birkbeck who would like to gain skills in these areas:

What is it like to take part in 3MT?

You can read more about what it was like to take part in the 2018 and 2019 3MT competitions in the following BGRS blog posts: 

This is an international event and the Birkbeck winner will have the opportunity to continue on to the UK semi-finals later in the year.

Urban Intersections Reading Group


The Birkbeck Institute of Social Research’s Urban Intersections Working Group aims to stimulate conversations at the intersection of different disciplines, practices, spaces, media, and ways of seeing and understanding an urbanised (and urbanising) world.

Last year we inaugurated a reading group for post-graduate students (masters and doctoral) in any department of the College. Through a specific text, participants have the opportunity to reflect and discuss a particular urban topic, speaking from, but also challenging, their own research and disciplinary perspectives.

Sessions are held over Microsoft Teams and there is no limit to the number of participants. We will aim to hold at least one physical meet-up a term. We have a preliminary reading list that will be open to discussion and editing by the whole group. At the start of each session, a group member will frame the text to get the conversations going.


Our proposed reading list:
Week 1:
Alatas S. F., Sinha V: Sociological Theory Beyond the Canon, Palgrave
Macmillan, London, 2017. Introduction: Eurocentrism, Androcentrism and
Sociological Theory (1-16)
Weber, M: The City, Free Press, London, 1958
Occidental City (80-89)
Week 2:
Simmel, G: The Adventurer, “Das Abenteuer,” Phiosophische Kultur.
Gesammelte Essays, Leipzig, 1919
Jackson, S: Paranoia, The New Yoker, NY, 2013
Week 3:
Wilson, E: The Rhetoric of Urban Space, NLR, Jan-Feb, 1995
Sudjic, D: Dangerously Insane, LRB, Oct 2010
Week 4:
Nora, P: Between Memory and History, Representations, Spring 1989
Sicard, M: Eutopia, NLR, May-June 2020
Week 5:
Myambo, M, T: Africa’s Global City?, NLR, Nov-Dec 2017
Ruiz Tagle, J: Territorial stigmatization in Socially-Mixed Neighbourhoods
in Chicago and Santiago: A Comparison of Global-North and Global South Urban Renewal Problem, Social Housing and Urban Renewal (Watt and
Smets, Eds.), London: Emerald, 2017
Week 6:
Thompson, M et al: Re-grounding the City with Polanyi: From Urban
Entrepreneurialism to Entrepreneurial Municipalism, Economy and Space,
Vol. 52(6), 2020
Baibarac, C and Petrescu, D: Co-design and Urban Resilience: Visioning
Tools for Commoning Resilience Practices, CoDesign, Volume 15, 2019
Week 7:
Hatherley, M: Look at England Urban Spaces, Open Democracy, August 2011
Hatherley, M: The Occupation of Space, Open Democracy, January 2011
Self, W: It Hits in the Gut, LRB, March 2012
Other:
Adams RE: Circulation and Urbanization, Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE
Publications, 2018
Halegoua GR: The Digital City: Media and the Social Production of Place,
New York: New York University Press, 2019
Hou, J: Guerilla Urbanism: Urban Design and the Practices of Resistance,
Urban Design, Vol. 25, 2020
Massey, D: The Spatial Construction of Youth Cultures, Cool Places,
(Skelton and Valentine, Eds.), London: Routledge, 1998
Zukin S: The Innovation Complex: Cities, Tech, and the New Economy,
New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2020
We aim to hold one meeting per month, but this will be negotiated by the group
once it is formed. The first meeting will take place in the middle of December 2022.
If you would like to be involved, please contact Henry Mulhall
(Henrymulhall@gmail.com) and Sara Rodriguez (paralingual@gmail.com) with
your name, department, and course of study by 30 November 2021.

London Open Research Week 25th – 29th October 2021

A group of London-based peers working in the areas of scholarly communication, research data management, librarianship, publishing, and institutional repositories decided to collaborate across institutional boundaries for London Open Research Week 2021: having experienced frustrations with the fractures and divides across the topologies of openness, we have worked together to try and forge a broad event for practitioners and research communities.

Predicated by our experiences at and beyond the four institutions collaborating in London Open Research Week, and working with the theme of  this year’s International Open Access WeekIt Matters How We Open Knowledge: Building Structural Equity, we have curated a diverse and engaging programme of live, online sessions that are free to attend.

Feminist perspectives from Early Career Researchers, critical perspectives on openness, and the increasing tensions arising in the realm of research evaluation and (biblio)metrics and the various intersections with open research will be included, amongst a wealth of international insights from scholars and professionals across the sector.

We welcome you to join us to share in the ideas and benefits that come from commons approaches; as a rich field, working collaboratively and exchanging experiences and ideas beyond our usual operational, departmental, and institutional limitations, we hope to explore the tensions that exist between our current conception and operation of openness in direct relation to structural equity in order to build upon and challenge the equitable premise that ‘open’ is often understood to imply.

For more information and to book please visit: London Open Research Week 2021 If you have questions about any of the events, please contact Emma Illingworth e.illingworth@bbk.ac.uk

Latest AHRC CHASE Training Opportunities for all Arts and Humanities doctoral researchers

Material Benefits of the Immaterial: Academic Publishing in the Digisphere

Friday 10th September | 0900 – 1700 | Goldsmith’s – in person and remote

A study day will train doctoral students in the ways that the Digital Humanities have, and have not, altered academic publishing. Because art and music have led computational innovations in the Digital Humanities, their digital publications will serve as case studies; the intended audience is all arts and humanities researchers whose objects of study pose transmission challenges apposite to those in art and music. Four themes will be addressed:

  1. Output and its Transmission. How have digital and computational tools altered the creation, and the transmission, of the object of study?
  2. Remodelling Distribution. How have new formats changed distribution models?
  3. Sustainability: Are solutions to sustainability traded between digital publications?
  4. Open Access: How do emerging online publications, often staffed only by volunteers, compete with a university press publication in status, or financial resourcing?

After each speaker’s presentation, CHASE students will put questions to the speaker and their panel. For a final roundtable, CHASE students will be asked to chair and lead discussions.

During registration you will be asked whether you plan to attend remotely or in person.

Register here

CHASE Medical Humanities Network | ‘What the Book Told’: Artists’ Books and Lived Experience with Stella Bolaki

Thursday 16th September | 1700 – 1900 | Online

What is distinctive about the artist’s book as a form of creative self-exploration and communication? Since the 1960s, the artist’s book has been an innovative and versatile medium of expression, as well as a radical way of bringing art to a wider public. This talk and workshop will explore artists’ books from the ‘Prescriptions’ collection (University of Kent) that is dedicated to the topics of illness and wellbeing. We will reflect on how contemporary artists reimagine the book format to give voice to intimate experiences, craft multisensory stories about health and illness, and challenge medical hierarchies. Participants will also be guided to create a handmade book to capture aspects of their own lived experience.

About the session:

In advance of the session, you will need an A3 card paper (of any colour) and a pair of scissors. Please also gather materials that will help with crafting a handmade book (see below) or anything else that relates to the themes of health, illness and wellbeing.

If you wish, you can watch the short documentary film I Make Books by Martha A. Hall (18 min). This is a moving documentary on how American artist Martha Hall used the artist’s book format to document her illness experience and communicate with the medical community.

Indicative materials (for the making part of the workshop):

  • If you enjoy drawing or painting etc, you can have with you colouring pencils, sketches you can incorporate, illustrations and any other relevant art supplies. If you have any basic tools for bookbinding (such as a bone folder, needles/thread, pricker etc) you can bring those, but they are not essential.
  • A range of printed papers/materials with image and/or text which could be collaged or made into whole pages. E.g:
  • Packaging, wrapping paper, fabric
  • Photographs
  • Digital prints/internet printouts
  • Old books, newspapers, magazines
  • Paper with a range of textures, transparencies, uses, and contexts
  • Other materials, that could be collaged, used to produce marks/texts, or bound within, or act as pages in themselves. E.g:
  • Ribbon, strings, embroidered material, fabric, threads, cords, buttons or other small objects to glue or sew into a book or to store your book in (such as a box).
  • Stationary: staplers, rubberstamps, stickers etc.

The session will last two hours and will include a short break. Please feel free to drop in and out throughout this time – there will be no pressure to share your work or participate in discussion if you do not wish to.

Register here

Flow n Flux presents: Online Community Building – Create, Facilitate, Sustain

Thursday 23 September | 1000-1600 | Online

Have you got an idea for an online community, but you are not sure where to start?

We would like to help you bring that idea, and community, to life!

Flow n Flux presents: Online Community Building – Create, Facilitate, Sustain

Flow n Flux is an online feminist community that engages in monthly participatory workshops facilitated by Natasha Richards and Eleanor Kilroy.  

In this student led training you will learn valuable techniques necessary for building an online community. No matter the area of interest you can apply these skills to create, facilitate and sustain a sense of community online.

Here is a little taster of what to expect on the day.


10.00-11.00: Introduction

To begin with we will welcome you all to the training and share the origins of Flow n Flux. We will also start to discuss your ideas for an online community. Do not worry if you do not have an idea before the workshop, as the session may spark some ideas.


11.00-12.00: How to build

Next we will discuss marketing and advertising, as well as the organisational development tasks necessary for getting your online community off the ground.


12.00-13.00: How to facilitate

Then we will explore the skills and knowledge necessary for planning and running the online community. We will also discuss how to respond to potential challenges


13.00-13.30: Lunch


13.30-14.30: How to sustain

After lunch we will focus on how to increase and sustain your membership. We will develop strategies for addressing common pitfalls in sustaining an online community.


14.30-16.00: Your online community

In the final section of the day participants will have the chance to share their ideas for an online community and to receive feedback from other participants.

Register here