Prize winners announced at 2026 Research Presentation Competition

Prize winners from the Research Presentation Competition, with Kate Mavor, College Master

On Wednesday 18 February, the 2026 Research Presentation Prize Competition challenged students to present their work in just five minutes, using no more than three slides, and to make their research accessible to a non-specialist audience. The result was an impressive series of presentations that ranged across disciplines, methodologies and global contexts.

Four Busuttil Research Prizes of £500 were awarded to DPhil students for the best overall presentation and research content in each Division, alongside the St Cross Prize of £500 for the best overall Master’s student presentation. We are grateful to friend of the College Dr James J. Busuttil for his support of the Research Prizes.

  • MPLS: Tongshan Liu – Smarter Cooling for a Hotter Digital World
  • Humanities: Katerina Jennings – Is it Fair for Transgender Women to Compete in Women’s Sports?
  • Medical Sciences: Anna Rozina – Mitochondrial RNA Kills Cells through ZBP1
  • Social Sciences: Daniel Herszberg – Custodians of Dissent: Hong Kong’s Former Pro-Democracy Protestors under the National Security Law
  • Master’s: Skylar Hughes – Paying Attention? The Misinformation Problem Isn’t What You Think – It’s When You Think

The judging panel faced a consistently high standard, with presentations that were thoughtful, ambitious and unafraid to tackle complex or contested issues with nuance and confidence.

The competition underscored the strength of St Cross as a community in which cutting-edge scientific and engineering research, rigorous humanities scholarship and globally relevant social analysis sit side by side: a catalyst for the collision of ideas that defines graduate life here.

Congratulations to all who took part.