University of York 3MT 2021

Rhys Ashton

(Electronic Engineering)

Everyday electronics detecting deadly diseases

Covid-19 testing is helping us make more informed decisions in this pandemic, but current methods are far from perfect. Now consider the number of people drinking contaminated water in low income countries or the scale at which mosquitoes are spreading malaria. In all of these cases no current testing method combines the most essential features, negatively impacting human lives and leaving unfulfilled potential on testing for deadly diseases. My research aims to develop a new sensor by combining the everyday electronics at the heart of our smartphones with a powerful biological process called LAMP. If successful, the sensor will have the most important features from other types of test, along with the flexibility to target any specific disease-causing organism, by looking for its DNA or RNA. With such a sensor we could help improve the lives affected by these and many more issues.

Taryn Bell (Archaeology)

The comfort of things

Whether it’s a battered old teddy bear or a priceless ring, many of us have an object to which we are emotionally attached. These ‘attachment objects’ give us feelings of comfort and security which can prove vital for our mental health and wellbeing. In my PhD, I explore these ‘attachment objects’ in more detail. I’m considering questions such as why people across many different cultures become attached to objects, what factors influence the likelihood of being attached to an object, and what these objects have in common. By better understanding the emotional significance of even everyday objects, there is the potential to inform how we as a society develop approaches to improving mental health and wellbeing.

Mariya Geneshka (Health Sciences)

Is nature medicine?

Recently, we have seen an increase in diseases that are long-term and non-transmittable from person to person. Examples include diabetes, heart disease, depression and anxiety. Once acquired, they stay present for long periods of time and are often difficult to treat and manage. Theories, however, have proposed that certain parts of nature, like green vegetation, can have a positive impact on our health. This project summarised the research that has previously tested this. The results showed that in most cases nature has no effect on health, which could be explained by failure to capture all aspects of green vegetation, like type, where it is found in our cities and how easily accessible it is for the public to use. My project aims to use a higher quality dataset to test whether different types of vegetation, like trees and urban parks, and their position in the city affect our health differently.

Joanna Greenman

(Mechanistic Biology)

Platelets: A clot more than you think…

For many years, the tiny cells in your blood called platelets, were just known for their role in preventing excessive bleeding by sticking together and forming clots. However, this understanding is evolving, and platelets are now thought to play a key role in the fight against infection too. In many different infections, including some severe cases of Covid-19, platelets have been found interacting with different immune cells. My PhD uses the parasitic infection schistosomiasis, which affects more than 250 million people worldwide, as a model system for studying the novel roles of platelets. A better understanding of the close interactions between platelets and immune cells will help us to examine how these cells are communicating. Platelets may be re-programming immune cells to help fight infections more effectively or may be inhibiting these responses; whether friend or foe remains to be discovered?

Daisy Johnson (Education)

Understanding young girls through their writing

Research shows us that young girls who write are often understood as child first and author second, and that they write the stories they think they should write rather than their own. I found this problematic and so ran a series of creative writing workshops with girls ranging from seven to eleven years old. We discussed a story written in the 1940s by a girl of the same age before I asked the participants to write a story. These stories depicted the experience of 'being a girl' in an often complex and challenging world and suggest that when young girls tell the stories they want to tell, they become able to assert control over the act of authorship and define it under their terms - a process I dub 'authership'.

Kate Mooney (Health Sciences)

Unequal memories: Is children's learning a matter of social circumstance?

Working memory is our ‘mental post-it-note’ for storing and processing information in the present moment. We use our working memory every single day for learning new information and following written or spoken instructions. Working memory is crucial for children in the classroom, and research has found it to be consistently associated with children’s educational attainment. Given how important working memory is, it is important to understand what factors may influence it. My research asks: is family socio-economic disadvantage at birth associated with differences in children’s working memory? We already knew from national education data that children from socio-economically disadvantaged families tend to do less well at school - my research may show us a potential reason why. If we can better identify children who struggle with their working memory, we can help them to achieve what they are capable of in school, and reduce social inequalities in educational attainment.

Annis Stenson (Education)

Does lad culture lead to sexual violence in universities?

Annis’s research looked at ‘lad culture’ in a UK university setting, investigating this form of masculinity as one which is given more power than others. Based on the findings of interviews with self-identified lads, this presentation addresses whether there is a link between lad culture and sexual violence. Rather than simply suggesting that lads are sexually violent, this presentation argues that the norms of lad culture create a social context which may make sexual violence seem normal, or even invisible. This will mean that violence goes unchecked, and survivors of sexual violence feel unable to report their experiences to their university.