Chantelle Rizan

Maria Bjarnadottir

The Adam Weiler Award is given annually to an exceptional doctoral researcher at Sussex who demonstrates the potential to achieve great impact in their field. 

Announced during the online Festival of Doctoral Research on 8 July, this year the award goes to two outstanding researchers. Chantelle Rizan (BSMS) and Maria Bjarnadottir (LPS) are both undertaking pioneering work in emerging areas of research and show the potential to enact real-world change. They receive £1,000 towards their research. 

Chantelle Rizan has developed innovative new processes to measure the carbon footprint of hospital surgery, particularly the use of disposable equipment, and is working on strategies to mitigate environmental harm.

Though the NHS is responsible for 4-5% of the UK’s greenhouse gas emissions, its climate impact is largely unresearched. Chantelle is a pioneer in her field, developing a sustainability strategy for the Royal College of Surgeons, working with the UK Health Alliance on Climate Change and helping to launch an international competition to improve environmental metrics in surgical care.

During the pandemic she responded to concerns over the use of disposable PPE, writing a paper on the topic that is informing UK healthcare policy. As Chantelle’s supervisor Prof Mahmood Bhutta says, her research is “timely, important and groundbreaking”.

Maria Bjarnadottir is an international lawyer investigating the unauthorised sharing of intimate material (revenge porn) online, and the limits of current human rights law in protecting the right to privacy. Her thesis posits that violations should be classed as a sexual offence, and includes measures to ensure more effective policing, education and victim support.

Working in a fast-emerging discipline at the intersection of law and technology, Maria is already making an impact on the international stage. In 2018 she wrote a report for the Prime Minister’s Office in Iceland on image-based sexual abuse and legal reform, subsequently drafting legislation that became the Sexual Privacy Act, enacted into law in February. As her supervisor Prof Chris Marsden says, this is an "exceptional achievement" for a PhD student.

Maria has presented her work to the United Nations, chairs the Council of Europe hate speech committee and is working with the UK Law Commission and the police service in Iceland. She is a world leader in online abuse law.

Three runner-up prizes of £500 were also awarded to impactful researchers in each of the disciplines. They are:

• Arts & Humanities: Shalini Sengupta (MAH), whose research tackles the central tenet of difficulty in late modern and contemporary British poetry, taking an intersectional approach and looking at little-discussed female poets.
• Sciences: Jenny Terry (Psychology), whose work investigates a possible connection between statistics anxiety and maths anxiety. Jenny coordinates the Many Anxieties Project across 150 labs in 45 countries.
• Social Sciences: Cassandra Wiener (LPS), who is researching the law on coercive control from the survivors’ perspective, and whose reform proposal was adopted by the government and included in the Domestic Abuse Act 2021.

The judges - Prof George Kemenes (Director of the Doctoral School), Prof Kate Lacey (Director of the AHRC CHASE DTP) and Prof Aleks Szczerbiak (LPS Director of Doctoral Studies) - were impressed with all of the incredible nominees, and found it an equally difficult and inspiring process.

This award is made possible thanks to a generous donation to the University in memory of Adam Weiler, a former student. Congratulations to the winners, and thank you to Adam’s family for their continued support of outstanding doctoral research at Sussex.

Further information: http://www.sussex.ac.uk/internal/doctoralschool/funding/doctoralimpact

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