Hello all! I did my Laidlaw Programme at Durham University between 2019-2021. My research project focused on evaluating the immigration and asylum system of the EU through a case study of the 2015 immigration crisis. Following the completion of my undergraduate LLB degree I moved to London to pursue my postgraduate LLM study at Queen Mary University of London.

Hullo! I'm postgrad student in St Andrews reading Sustainable Development with a focus on urban planning. My bachelor's degree at Durham centred around Chinese & French language, culture, and literature, which I'm still involved with on the side, along with photography and Continental & Eastern philosophy.

Hello! I am a first year Durham PPE student, and this summer will be researching NGOs that tackle modern slavery, who wields influence within them and whether this influence has led to them making suboptimal decisions. Besides research, I am interested in pretty much everything from physics to poetry to philosophy.

Since 2015, I have been passionate about ending poverty in the UK. I began my journey as a campaigner against poverty in my local area with Poverty Ends Now, a young person lead group ran by Children North East. Since then, I have represented the UK in the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting and other positions of influence with poverty as my main focus point. My Laidlaw Scholarship research project is all about the relationship between language, meaning and poverty. By understanding and changing unhelpful public discourse about poverty, we can start to shift power.

Ameya Marie is a 20-year-old artist from Portland, OR who deconstructs social injustice and biased behavior through art. As a social practice artist, she has worked extensively as an artist and organizer with Black Lives Matter Portland, connecting with families impacted by racialized violence and creating memorial portraits for protests, social media campaigns, and candlelight vigils. Ameya hopes to make art more accessible to all by bringing art to communities that would otherwise not have access and amplifying their stories to inspire more understanding, empathy and progress. Her protest art and work in youth advocacy and education has taken her to the White House for a confrontational visit as a 2018 US Presidential Scholar in Art. Her work has been profiled by Paper Magazine, NPR, the Washington Post, and Adobe Project 1324 and featured in publications like Hyperallergic, Whitewall Magazine and Bloomberg QuickTake. She was recently honored by the National YoungArts Foundation as a 2018 Finalist in Visual Art and announced a Top 6 Rising Art Star by the NY Post. Ameya is a 2019 Adobe Creativity Scholar.

I am a second year MSci. student studying Clinical Psychology at the University of York. My main experience involves charity work, fundraising, promoting mental health awareness and research into Neuroscience & Linguistics. My main area of research is on language, language in society and communication. I am also interested in Forensic Psychology, Clinical Neuroscience and Cognition. I look forward to using this platform to network and grow my understanding of a variety of other subjects, from any field there is to offer.

I'm a third year undergraduate student studying international relations and human geography. My Laidlaw research concerns the ways development agendas from international organisations such as the UN as well as national governments conceptualise the role of young people in the city. Specifically, I explore the ways young people are perceived as economic assets to urban development agendas which can depoliticise their position in the community.

BA Sociology and Anthropology | MSc Public Health  Especially interested in health inequality, gender studies, and maternal health, and health systems analysis.  My Laidlaw research project explored the everyday life experiences of 'fat' women in England and the impact of stigma, body privilege and gender roles on their experiences in public spaces. 

A young radical human geographer interested in queer spaces, flows, transitions and urban planning. Lately, I became interested in the "space-place" interplay of our urban imaginations. Part of the Queer Memorials research team. Member of the executive board of the CET Platform Society Slovenia.

I am a final year English, Language and Education student with experience teaching EFL abroad, as well as tutoring English and Maths in UK primary and secondary schools. Aside from the Laidlaw scholarship programme, I also created and ran the education society as chairman for two years, and vollunteered to teach English to refugees through STAR. I also hold upper intermediate level Mandarin, equivalent to HSK 4, and have experiences both studying and working in Asia. As well as the University of Leeds, I have also studied language programmes at both Wuhan University, and Shanghai International Studies University. In the future, I would like to work more broadly in education, and particularly business in the education industry.

My research project looks at female artists in Scandinavia at the turn of the 19th century, and so by extension historiography and feminist art history. However, my expertise as an undergraduate I would say is medieval art history, particularly looking at how modern imagination directs our understanding and expectations of medieval religious practice. Outside of academia, I am looking to pursue a career in paper conservation after graduating and so have keen interest in archival practices and conservation methodologies. Safe to say I have a lot of interests, and am always looking to further my understanding in the art world!