Images of Research 2024

In 1998, the last residents of a Soviet mining town, Pyramiden, abandoned their settlement on the high Arctic archipelago of Svalbard. But where humans saw destitution, a small population of black-legged kittiwakes saw opportunity. Swapping sea cliffs for windowsills, they set up home in the town’s abandoned buildings, favouring in particular the aptly named ‘Crazy House’ (pictured), where boisterous young families had previously been homed. Fast forward a couple of decades, and the arrival of these new residents attracted researchers from the University of Liverpool, who saw a chance to work on kittiwakes in a logistically much less challenging environment than the steep coastal cliffs that they usually favour. There, we have been able to work on huge numbers of birds at once, facilitating studies of personality, foraging behaviour, and parental care, all from the relative ease of a Soviet ghost town.

My postdoctoral research examines how Ukrainian popular music narrates the Russia-Ukraine war. I believe this image, showing a rock concert poster, talks about the resilience of Ukrainian people. Concerts continue in Ukraine, despite the ongoing shelling. Due to the war, all concerts must be held at venues that have a bomb shelter. It is common for a concert to be interrupted by an air siren, when the musicians and the members of the audience must go to the shelter, with a hope to resume the event when the threat of an air strike is over. The pictured rock band Bez Obmezhen (‘No Limits’) explores the topic of war in their lyrics, creating complex narratives of loss, pain, resilience, and resistance. Through their concerts, the band also raises funds for the Ukrainian army. This picture was taken during a private trip, not a field trip. But I believe it captures my research well.

This series of snapshots captures the dissolution of a dye known as “Brilliant Blue”, tracking how it transforms a clear liquid into a vivid indigo. Dyes have been essential tools in human history, using colour to influence our emotions and convey meanings. Trademarked as “Coomassie”, this dye was originally used in the early 20th century for dyeing wool. Nowadays, it has found applications in science, where it is used to visualise proteins to assess the purity of protein samples. It is safe for humans, and is used in ophthalmological surgeries to contour fine membranes in our eyes. These colourful molecules are indispensable, and humanity will continue to rely on them in the coming century just as it has for centuries past. Undoubtedly, these dyes are here to stay, revealing the present in its striking clarity and illuminating new, unseen wonders within and around us.

Recent archaeological findings suggest that the use of wood for structural purposes dates back at least 476,000 years ago. My involvement in this research project, with the project lead Professor Larry Barham, focused on creating a promotional piece of content that effectively explains and showcases the ground-breaking discoveries made by the archaeological team. I produced a comprehensive video that highlights the significance of the wooden artifacts uncovered at the Kalambo Falls site Zambia, emphasizing their role in our understanding of early human behaviour and technology. This video has gained over 3 million views on YouTube, capturing worldwide interest and interaction from various audiences. The research behind these findings was recently published in the prestigious journal Nature, further validating the importance of this work in the field of archaeology. This project not only enhances public awareness of our ancient past but also inspires further inquiry into early human innovation and societal development.

Since 2020, we have been working in Karail, one of the largest informal settlements in Dhaka, Bangladesh, aiming to provide a better sanitation system. In constant growth since its origin in the early 1990s, the informal settlement now has a surface area of just under 1km², hosting an indeterminate population estimated at over 200,000 people. During research field work, we attended a festival at Karail in 2023 that wanted to bring awareness of reducing plastic pollution. We saw children running with a self-made plastic kite and were attracted by the innocence of their playfulness. Every child deserves a happy and healthy childhood.

The role of women in Roman Britain is usually portrayed through domesticity, and their engagement with the family. My initial epigraphic analysis of women during my MA summarised the data we store for female inscriptions in Roman Britain. The results indicated Romano-British women held high-status due to their high number of dedicatory tombstones. The misrepresentation of women in Roman Britain, through the male gaze, is the topic of my thesis and aims to investigate women present at the time of Early Roman occupation. The comparative analysis aims to gauge the status of women without the presence of a male gaze. To investigate this premise, I am conducting epigraphic analysis of all female funerary inscriptions across Britain to ascertain their role in society and identify individuals who may have challenged the heteronormative interpretation of Romano-British women. Through the comparative analysis with Late Iron Age and Romano-British female burials, I hope to better our understanding of women’s place within Roman Britain.

For the past year I have been travelling through the north of England, photographing, documenting and analysing hidden or overlooked spiritual spaces, often belonging to minority ethnic religions, holistic or pagan movements. My aim is to present a visual sociological understanding of contemporary spirituality in the United Kingdom, demonstrating the centrality of religion and/or spiritual belief in everyday British life.

The submitted photograph was taken at this year’s Solskin, a pagan and heathen event in the Peak District, of which the burning of a wooden ram was a festival highlight. The ram sculpture acted as a vessel for participants let go of aspects of their past– placing symbolic mementos transformed by fire into memories bid farewell.

My qualitative research explores the solemn subject matter of extremism and radicalisation; specifically, how teachers understand and implement the duty to safeguard children from these risks. Throughout my PhD I enjoyed regular dog walks in the local park where I passed by this tree carving which commemorates the 23 deaths and many victims of the Manchester bombing on May 22^nd 2017. Created by a local chainsaw artist it depicts the well-known symbol of Manchester. The Manchester bee has symbolised industry, hard work, resilience and beer. It took on greater significance after the Manchester Arena attack for the people of the city. For me the carving evokes the age-old custom of beekeepers notifying their bees of momentous events. It helped me to keep in mind the potential  for research to transcend the page and have ‘real world’ effects.

My research concerns how organisations create, defend, and transform social boundaries. I concentrate on boundaries of what is “essential”; much of my work has explored the creation and evolution of exemptions during the pandemic lockdowns, which were called “essential business” in the United States. The power of essentialist language is that it suggests a rational, objective and immutable ordering of the world. This image shows the window of a bicycle shop in Napa, California in July 2021, more than a year after the start of the pandemic. The hand-painted sign, the word “now”, and the scare quotes show that the shopkeepers know the truth: boundaries are in fact contingent, value-laden, and frequently, arbitrary. Though socially constructed, the consequences of these bounds are real—sometimes existentially. In the pandemic, to be on one side of the boundary meant the chance to open; to be on the other meant the loss of one’s income. For many, this marked the difference between continuity and permanent closure.

As a researcher, I explore how proteins bind to DNA, a key process in controlling gene expression. Scientific discovery often demands precision, focus, and order. On most days, my lab bench reflects this, staying neat and organized. But after an intense, days-long experiment, my workspace starts to mirror my mind—both a little scattered, exhausted, and in need of a reset. At times like these, the best way to recharge is a quiet evening at home, a glass of wine, and maybe a cuddle to clear my thoughts. Then, I’m ready to dive back into the science, with fresh energy and a tidy bench.

Singapore is infamous for its authoritarian government and zero-tolerance approach to crime control, including a punitive criminal justice system and the strict punishment of minor transgressions with high fines. In our research, we explore how crime and social control is manifested in the everyday life of Singaporeans, over 80% living in public housing estates provided by the government. In these estates, everyday interactions are carefully controlled by housing policies and architectural design. These measures are aimed at reducing opportunities for crime, while at the same time regulating and prescribing the parameters of acceptable social behaviour. As such, our research illuminates how the disciplinary power of the Singaporean state is not only built in via architectural design, but also built into the social fabric of everyday life. The image, taken on the ground floor of a public housing estate, captures this intertwinement of surveillance and control with notions of ‘good citizenship’.

Under the leadership of Professor Catriona Waitt, our project set out to achieve something crucial: finding the right words to connect with pregnant and breastfeeding mothers involved in our research in Uganda. We aimed to settle on respectful, relatable terms that everyone felt comfortable with, terms that speak directly to the community without feeling distant or alienating.

Why is this important? Words matter. When language doesn’t feel inclusive, it can create barriers that discourage people from engaging in research a missed opportunity for both participants and the researchers working to support them.

To tackle this, we designed a study to explore which terms are most commonly used and accepted when talking about research with pregnant and breastfeeding mothers in Uganda. This cross-sectional qualitative study reached five ethnically diverse communities, representing different regions and languages in Uganda. By using public engagement and participatory approaches, we ensured that the voices of these communities shaped the project from start to finish.

Our team collected data through 18 focus group discussions with community advisory board members, residents, and people who had previously taken part in our studies. Together, these groups offered invaluable insights into what language felt inclusive and respectful. Once we analyzed the findings, we took the results back to the communities involved, sharing the consensus on preferred terminology.

The attached photo shows our dedicated study team on their way to a community site, ready to share the results. This direct feedback was a crucial step to ensure our research language aligns with the community’s expectations and respect for the people at the heart of our studies.

Working with manuscripts and rare books commonly requires very little equipment: one’s brain, some note-taking device, a keen eye for details. Unless of course you find yourself dealing with manuscripts and objects donated to the John Rylands Library in Manchester over 50 years earlier that have hardly been consulted since. The collection has some peculiar items, including manuscripts involuntary victims of the London Blitz that show signs of possible mould and emanate a strong smell (of wet socks) because of extensive water damage. When approaching those items, you step into the unknown of light-touch PPE (gloves and a mask) and call for back-up from conservators to assess the risks to yourself and those you share the reading room with.

As a codicologist and material culture specialist, these occasions, far and few, remind you of the precarity and preciousness of these fragile yet magnificent testimonies of our past.

Catalysts are essential for advancing sustainable energy technologies and are pivotal in efforts to achieve net-zero emissions by enabling more efficient chemical reactions with lower energy inputs. Single-atom catalysts (SACs) exhibit exceptional intrinsic activity per metal site but are often limited by low metal loading, which compromises overall catalytic performance. Pyrolytic strategies commonly used for synthesizing SACs generally suffer from metal aggregation at high loadings. Here, we report a universal synthesis approach for ultrahigh-density metal–nitrogen–carbon (UHDM–N–C) SACs via a metal-sulfide-mediated atomization process. The multi-valency of sulfur (S) allows the formation of various TmS states, facilitating the deposition of transition metals (TMs) for SACs while preventing TM aggregation. This suggests that our approach is generalizable to transition, rare-earth, and noble metals, achieving 17 SACs with metal loadings >20 wt% (including loadings of 26.9 wt% for Cu, 31.2 wt% for Dy, and 33.4 wt% for Pt) at 800 °C, as well as high-entropy quinary and vicenary SACs with ultrahigh metal contents.

More than half of breastfeeding mothers worldwide require some form of medication. There are huge gaps in knowledge about how much medication may transfer through breastmilk to the baby, and what the affects of this might be. The MILK: Maternal and Infant Lactation pharmacokinetics research programme aims to address these gaps.

This photograph shows two MILK researchers, Ritah Nakijoba and Adelline Twimukye taking notes following a focus group discussion on the perspectives of mothers on medication use during pregnancy and breastfeeding in northern Uganda. A participant who consented for photography) is taking a moment to feed her baby. This photograph encapsulates much about our project, at the intersection of science and societies. We exist to understand the safe, effective use of medication in breastfeeding. We need to understand perspectives of diverse communities, and reflect on how we communicate clearly about our science to those of diverse cultural and educational backgrounds.

My research explores how cells respond to different environments, particularly during cancer. I focus on the cytoskeleton, a critical cell structure that functions like our body's skeleton. The cytoskeleton provides structure, enables movement, and adapts to environmental changes. In this image, you see a few cancer cells, that have three essential components of the cytoskeleton labelled: actin (magenta), microtubules (yellow), and intermediate filaments (cyan). Each component plays a unique role within the cell but collectively shapes cell behaviour. Using light microscopy and fluorescent proteins, a vital tool in cell biology research, we can visualise these components, gaining insights that may improve our understanding of cellular responses in cancer.