I am a literary scholar researching Anne Brontë and feminist writing.

Hello! I am a third year student at the University of St Andrews undertaking a joint Honours in Art History and Geography. I am interested in the intersection of the visual arts and the climate crisis; exploring the interactions between artists, cultural institutions, and the environment, past and present, as well as imagining what future interactions may look like. In my first summer with Laidlaw I undertook a research project on the environmental impact of digital practice in museums and heritage institutions. This project delved into carbon costing, water usage of data centres, and the new age of digital colonialism with mineral extraction and e-waste disposal - highlight the great ecological, economic, and social impacts of increasing digital activity. My research implemented the concept of Active Hope. I explored how different experiences of hope across and in curation with different communities could write another story of our time. I questioned how hope could be the central axis for social and environmental change within digital policy in museums. During my second summer I had the privilege of working in Paris working with the NGO Karuna-Shechen for my Leadership in Action. I wrote the sixth edition of their key philanthropy output: 'Letters to our Friends'. Centred on the theme of Hope, I carried the insights from my first year into my conversations with colleagues across the field in India and Nepal. I wrote articles that captured the charities' commitment to alleviate poverty and how they passed agency back into the hands of the communities they support.

An avid Psychology Student looking to engender inspired, tangible, and meaningful change. Actively pursuing worthwhile ventures to actualise this goal.

Hi! I'm Alina, a Biochemistry undergraduate fascinated by health sciences, my long-term goal is making healthcare more accessible, equitable, and effective. For my Laidlaw research, I stepped outside my home School of Biology into the School of Medicine to study direct-to-consumer health screening (think at-home genetic tests). These tests promise autonomy but risk misinformation, false positives, and overdiagnosis; so my work pushes for a shift from early diagnosis to optimal diagnosis, where a result is only useful if it's actually clinically actionable. For my Leadership in Action project, I co-led When Science Dances; using Scottish ceilidh dance to teach gravitational-wave physics to children in underserved communities across Glasgow and Shetland, in partnership with Science Ceilidh, Wild Skies Shetland, and the University of Glasgow's Institute for Gravitational Research. It was a joy to take something as abstract as spacetime and turn it into something kids could dance out and giggle through, and to watch the project grow from a Glasgow workshop series into a Shetland outreach programme along the way. Outside of "work hours", I'm always on the move. In uni I picked up judo, which has since become kind of my whole personality (big shout out to USTA Judo, I love you). I also absolutely love cycling; started as a way of coping with not having a car, ended as a full-blown addiction. Beyond sport, I've got a soft spot for anything creative: embroidery, crochet, photography, and losing hours to discovering electronic music. Basically: endlessly curious, always chasing whatever new thing has caught my eye.

I am a second year medical student at the University of St Andrews, with a keen interest in microbiology. After completing my first year research project looking at the induction of genes involved in antibiotic resistance, I am now completing my LiA in Mbeya, Tanzania. I am volunteering for a zonal hospital, both in clinical care and outreach.

I’m currently a penultimate year mathematics student at the University of St Andrews and a 2025 Leadership and Research Scholar. My research project was in Pure Mathematics, specifically Algebraic Graph Theory. I studied pseudo-similar vertices in graphs and digraphs using inverse semigroups. I will be completing my LiA this summer with the Timothy Smith Network, acting as an instructor in web design for the Boston Design Academy in Boston, USA.

Hello! I'm an incoming third-year History student at the University of St Andrews. I'm from Madrid, Spain, but I moved to Scotland for university. My research project focuses on the impact of the Cold War on sexuality and sexual expression among LGBTQ+ youth in Brazil and the relationship between sexuality and the state in a military dictatorship.

Hello! I am an incoming third year Mathematics student at the University of St Andrews, and my Laidlaw research project is geared at investigating the intersection between coloniality and mathematics and its impacts on students from the Global South. It is the product of my (rather polar) interests in English Literature and Mathematics!

Hey everyone - I'm Gitika, but I go by Aki, and I'm a former Laidlaw Scholar currently based at the University of St Andrews. I'm originally from California, but moved to Scotland to pursue my undergraduate studies in history and economics. My Laidlaw research focussed on the colonial and postcolonial histories of sexuality and gender in Asia, and particularly how it has impacted the current lives and experiences of LGBTQ+ individuals based in India and Japan. Now, I am entering my final undergraduate year with an aim of pursuing postgraduate studies in social & economic history. I'm eager to meet you all, so do reach out if you want to chat about research or just connect over a shared interest! Apart from my work in gender and sexuality history, I'm also keenly interested in archival history, colonial/postcolonial studies, and language / linguistics. Outside of academics, I'm often playing music, walking along the Fife coast with a hot cup of tea, writing, or watching Doctor Who with my friends.

Hello! I’m Henry, a second-year student at the University of St Andrews. Originally from Lancashire, I moved to Scotland in 2023 to pursue an undergraduate degree in modern history. Now entering my third year, my interests primarily revolve around late modernity, covering themes of empire, oppression, and propaganda. For my Laidlaw research, I am focusing on youth targeted propaganda in Nazi Germany. Specifically, I am analysing the techniques used in the children’s literature of the Third Reich to skew the youth’s morality, comparing this to themes found in the contemporary U.S.. With the recent resurgence of far-right politics, I feel it is crucial to analyse the means and manner of indoctrination, particularly those centred on the youth. I look forward to connecting with you all and reading about your projects!

Hey there! I'm Miki, a 2025 scholar pursuing a combined degree in Persian, Arabic and International Relations at the University of St Andrews. I care deeply about refugee issues - particularly in the Middle East, owing to my personal experiences with refugees in Jordan and Iran. My research project explores how the Jordanian and Lebanese governments' differing policies toward Syrian refugees have influenced their integration into their host societies.

School of Classics President | Laidlaw Scholar | Foreign Affairs Review Analyst | 4x State Department Intern

I am a third-year student of English at the University of St Andrews from New Delhi, India, and I'm interested in languanges and literature. My research project explores literature in radical bookshops.

With my current interests in media studies and being impacted by the ongoing war in Ukraine, I became interested to explore the communicative methods used within the environments of far-right, authoritarian regimes. My project 'The Dominance of Collective Mystical Thinking Within the Rise of Far-Right Politics' will delve into the performance of authoritarian governance based on magical practices, involving interaction based on set of rituals and symbolic elements that aims to distance individuals from objective reality and involve them into specific collective imaginary. The research will focus on communicative applications, particularly looking into speech structure and non-verbal elements (context, gestures, media tools). It will analyse the online materials to understand the communicative patterns used between participants, contributing to the greater understanding of the authoritarian structure and its potentials for social control, and finding pathways for its resistance. --- I'm incoming third year Film and Anthropology student, being interested in documentary and video-essay form. I have extensive background in cinematography and commercial videography, with passion of story making and telling. I am interested to communicate and expand my knowledge, share my experience, especially if you are working with similar topics of Magic, Political Power, War, Displacement, Media and Communication

Finley Ullom (He/Him)