Editor's note
Authors
This issue of New Vistas celebrates UWL doctoral students’ achievements for the academic year of 2024-2025. It presents the abstracts of the talks and posters presented at the UWL Annual Doctoral Students’ Conference, which took place on the 11th of July 2025.
In the 2024-25 academic year, our doctoral community continued to grow and diversify, with a strong expansion in STEM subjects, and the development of new areas such as policing. Many opportunities were seized and our doctoral students were recognised for their talent both within the University and beyond.
There was a real sense of success when we held our first 3-Minute Thesis competition, and our winner, Cesar Portillo, proceeded to win the national 3MT competition. Not a bad start for UWL in this new territory! There were also a number of prestigious wins for our students including (and to name but a few): Clara Gatti Comini (London College of Music) who won the UK Harp Association (UKHA) Emerging Artists Award; Fatim Sbai (School of Computing and Engineering) who won an award at The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) International Symposium on Circuits and Systems (ISCAS); Camelia Bogdan (School of Medicine and Biosciences) who was recognised with a prestigious award from the Royal Society of Biology; Julia Tomasweska (School of Computing and Engineering) who won best paper at ACOUSTICS 2024 in Manchester; and Arin Aykut (London College of Music), who won a Platinum Prize for his track 'Until the End' and a Special Award for Creative Innovation in the Saint-Saëns International Music Competition.
In the same year, we continued to gather excellent results in the Postgraduate Research Experience Survey (PRES), with the UWL doctoral community voted 3rd out of 83 global institutions for ‘Overall Satisfaction’ and in the top 10 for most categories. We owe this success to all our doctoral students – their talent, perseverance and willingness to share – as well as to our wonderful supervisors who work tirelessly to support them.
So, what was covered in the 2025 Annual Doctoral Students’ Conference? Those who attended may recall that it was a very hot summer day, but we battled through the heat to listen to 29 oral presentations and to view 19 posters. These covered different topics and disciplines including: applied theatre, biomedical science, business, computer science, creative writing, dementia studies, education, engineering, health, law, media, music, psychology, and tourism. Two keynote speakers, Prof Massoud Zolgharni from the School of Computing and Engineering, and Prof Jacqui Prieto, from the College of Nursing, Midwifery, and Healthcare, opened and closed the conference, providing very helpful overviews of their academic journeys mixed with very useful dos and don’ts.
And of course, there were prizes – deservedly awarded to Saeed Parnow, from the School of Computing and Engineering, for best oral presentation (and Daniel Tweddle, School of Computing and Engineering, and Jennifer Shankyula, London Geller College of Hospitality and Tourism, as joint runners up), and to William Poulter, from the School of Human and Social Sciences, for best poster presentation (and Amara Rahim, School of Computing and Engineering, as runner up). Maryam Keyhani, from the School of Computing and Engineering, and John Whitebrook, from the School of Human and Social Sciences, were jointly awarded the Marcia Worrell Prize for their outstanding contributions to the research community.
There was much to celebrate, and there is still a lot to look forward to - not least the 29th Annual Doctoral Students’ Conference which will take place on the 3rd of July 2026. Let’s continue working together to ensure that UWL remains a place of inspiration, collaboration and enjoyment!
Caroline Lafarge & Maria Pennells
Head of the Graduate School & Graduate School Manager
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How to Cite: Lafarge, C. & Pennells, M. (2026) “The 2025 Annual Doctoral Students’ Conference at the University of West London ”, New Vistas. 12(1). doi: https://doi.org/10.36828/newvistas.410
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