Thursday 17 July – Congratulations to today’s Graduates!

Congratulations to our Education, History & Welsh History, TFTS, Law and English & Creative Writing PhD and MPhil graduates today

Take a look at their theses on Aberystwyth Research Portal on the links below

Ceremony 5 @ 1000

Panna Karlinger, The Dark Side of the Ivory Tower: A Mixed-Methods Study of Cyberbullying and Online Abuse among University Students through the Lens of the Dark Tetrad and a Scoping Study of Staff Victimisation in Higher Education Institutions in England and Wales (https://research.aber.ac.uk/en/studentTheses/the-dark-side-of-the-ivory-tower)

Ewan Lawry, The Anti-Appeasers: A study of the parliamentary opposition to the National Government’s foreign and defence policies Ewan Lawry (https://research.aber.ac.uk/en/studentTheses/the-anti-appeasers)

Ceremony 6 @ 1330

Jeremy Turner, Chwaraea hwnna, dad!: Nodweddion hanfodol prosesau creadigol mewn theatr i gynulleidfaoedd ifanc yng nghyd-destun diwylliant ac iaith leiafrifol (https://research.aber.ac.uk/en/studentTheses/chwaraea-hwnna-dad)

Ceremony 7 @ 1630

Manon Chirgwin, Age of Criminal Responsibility in England & Wales: Are the Government Correct to Maintain the Current Age? (https://research.aber.ac.uk/en/studentTheses/age-of-criminal-responsibility-in-england-wales)

Samantha Ryan, Imagining untold history: A critical commentary on Women in White (https://research.aber.ac.uk/en/studentTheses/imagining-untold-history)

Wednesday 16 July – Congratulations to today’s Graduates!

Congratulations to our Psychology and IBERS PhD and MPhil graduates today

Take a look at their theses on Aberystwyth Research Portal on the links below

Ceremony 3 @ 1030

Alanna Allen-Cousins, Are We Really Addicted?: A Mixed Methods Investigation into Smartphone Addiction and Smartphone Use in the 21st Century (https://research.aber.ac.uk/en/studentTheses/are-we-really-addicted)

Gwenann Mair Jones, Examining the effectiveness of the Ceredigion Youth Offending Team in reducing further offending within the context of vulnerability (https://research.aber.ac.uk/en/studentTheses/examining-the-effectiveness-of-the-ceredigion-youth-offending-tea)

Ceremony 4 @ 1400

Steven Bourne, Using Dielectric Spectroscopy to Detect and Predict the Real-Time Transition From the Yeast-Like to the Hyphal Phenotype of the Pleiomorphic Yeast Species Candida tropicalis (https://research.aber.ac.uk/en/studentTheses/using-dielectric-spectroscopy-to-detect-and-predict-the-real-time)

Eleanor Furness, Ecophysiological adaptation in cryoconite bacteria and the relationship to horizontal gene transfer (https://research.aber.ac.uk/en/studentTheses/ecophysiological-adaptation-in-cryoconite-bacteria-and-the-relati)

Hannah Vallin, Advancing Dietary Analysis in Herbivores: testing, validating, and deploying faecal DNA metabarcoding for accurate diet composition assessment (https://research.aber.ac.uk/en/studentTheses/advancing-dietary-analysis-in-herbivores)

Tuesday 15 July – Congratulations to today’s Graduates!

Congratulations to our Computer Science, Information Studies and Business School PhD and MPhil graduates today

Take a look at their theses on Aberystwyth Research Portal on the links below

Ceremony 1 @ 1030

Xiang Chang, Robotic Imitation Learning from Videos: Boosting Autonomy and Transferability. https://research.aber.ac.uk/en/studentTheses/robotic-imitation-learning-from-videos

Jessica Charlton, A Comparison of the Performance of Human and Algorithmic Segmentations on Low-Contrast Martian Rock Images. https://research.aber.ac.uk/en/studentTheses/a-comparison-of-the-performance-of-human-and-algorithmic-segmenta

Patrick Fletcher, Monitoring Coastal Sediment Movement using Edge Computing. https://research.aber.ac.uk/en/studentTheses/monitoring-coastal-sediment-movement-using-edge-computing

Arshad Sher, Automating gait analysis using a smartphone. https://research.aber.ac.uk/en/studentTheses/automating-gait-analysis-using-a-smartphone

Ceremony 2 @ 1400

Afrin Mustakkima, Analysis of Pollution In The River Buriganga, Its Impact, And Policy Options For Improving Water Quality. https://research.aber.ac.uk/en/studentTheses/analysis-of-pollution-in-the-river-buriganga-its-impact-and-polic

Hamad Alblooshi, Identifying Operations Effectiveness Between Different Cultural Teams: Issues and Challenges a Case in the Military Organisation. https://research.aber.ac.uk/en/studentTheses/identifying-operations-effectiveness-between-different-cultural-t

Ahmed Alburkani, The role of leadership style in influencing innovation and organisational performance: A mixed-methods study of the Abu Dhabi government sector (public sector) https://research.aber.ac.uk/en/studentTheses/the-role-of-leadership-style-in-influencing-innovation-and-organi

Shaima Alhosani, Sustainable Urban Development (SUD) Approaches For Digital Urban Heritage Management (UHM) of Al Ain City’s Landscape. https://research.aber.ac.uk/en/studentTheses/sustainable-urban-development-sud-approaches-for-digital-urban-he

Mariam Almazrouei, The Role of Leadership in Promoting Organizational Safety Culture in the Government Sector of Abu-Dhabi, the UAE. https://research.aber.ac.uk/en/studentTheses/the-role-of-leadership-in-promoting-organizational-safety-culture

Mohammed Ibrahim, The role of social media influencers in purchase intentions of social media users: A study of purchases from influencers’ virtual boutiques in Qatar. https://research.aber.ac.uk/en/studentTheses/the-role-of-social-media-influencers-in-purchase-intentions-of-so

Lisa Kelly-Roberts, Perceptions of Career Success in the Construction Industry in Wales. https://research.aber.ac.uk/en/studentTheses/perceptions-of-career-success-in-the-construction-industry-in-wal

Masni Mat Dong, Exploring the Multidimensional Poverty of Orang Asli in Peninsular Malaysia: A Mixed-Methods Study Using the Capability Approach and Spatial Justice Framework. https://research.aber.ac.uk/en/studentTheses/exploring-the-multidimensional-poverty-of-orang-asli-in-peninsula

Professional Pathways to Library Services

As the academic year draws to a close, it’s the perfect time to reflect on the wonderful contributions made by our Professional Pathways students during their work placements with us in the Library.

This year we were delighted to welcome three students who worked across different teams within Library Services and quickly became integral members of staff.

Our Placement Students

Tayyibah Shabbir, Communications, Quality and Marketing team

Tayyibah brought a unique blend of psychological insight, first-hand experience as an Aberystwyth student, and a genuine passion for reading; qualities that made her an invaluable addition to our service. Her love for libraries was also apparent right from the start and we hope her time with us has helped nurture that passion!

Tayyibah quickly became a driving force behind several of our initiatives. She coordinated creative book displays in the Hugh Owen Library to mark key events such as University Mental Health Day and Valentine’s Day, bringing both awareness and a sense of fun to our spaces.

Her understanding of the student experience also proved instrumental in the launch of our AU Library News newsletter. Tayyibah helped shape content that resonated with students throughout the academic year, ensuring that our communications remained timely and relevant.

Her analytical skills truly shone in her work on service evaluation and user experience. Tayyibah assisted with data collection through a variety of research techniques, including helping with our What Students Think About Noise in Libraries workshop and conducting observational studies at our Library Floormaps kiosks. The insights she gathered have already helped us identify areas where some students need more support in navigating the library. Thanks to her recommendations, we’re now developing new resources to make finding books and using our services even easier.

Tayyibah’s achievements were recognised at the Professional Pathways celebration event on 11th June, where she was invited to present on her placement experience.

Tayyibah Shabbir receiving her certificate for successfully completing her Professional Pathways placement from Professor Anwen Jones, Pro Vice-Chancellor (Education and Student Experience) 

Kirill Kulikovskii, Academic Engagement team

Kirill Kulikovskii, a Computer Science student, had his Professional Pathways placement with the Academic Engagement team in the Library. He developed a Python script for use to identify broken links across a range of resource types in Aspire Reading Lists which have now been fixed. He also liaised with IT staff to arrange for the script to be added to the University’s company portal so it can be downloaded and used by staff to check for new broken links occurring in the future.

Kiril’s app in the University’s Company Portal

This was a really successful placement and Kirill was nominated and shortlisted for the Undeb Aber Student Staff Member of the Year Award 2025.

Ewan Price, Digital Skills team

Ewan Price completed his Professional Pathways Placement with the Digital Skills Team. He firstly created a series of DigiTips to help students and staff develop their digital skills, Ewan’s DigiTips ranged from using graphs in Excel to being more effective in Teams through using commands.

You can read all our DigiTips here!

Ewan also helped maintain our Digital Skills Library through checking all the resources to make sure they were still appropriate and applicable to our users – staff and students alike.

Lastly, Ewan’s biggest project was to create a brand-new SharePoint site “Digital Essentials for Staff” to help new staff navigate all things digital they may need to know when they begin working at Aberystwyth University. Ewan successfully harvested resources, mapped a logical layout for the site and worked collaboratively with the other members of the working group to decide on content and design. He also developed his facilitation skills and communication skills by liaising with stakeholders at the university to collect feedback to improve the resource before it will be launched.

Ewan was a great asset to the team over the last few months and made completing these projects possible with his expertise in Computer Science and a new perspective to how we deliver our resources.

Looking Ahead

We are incredibly proud of what our Professional Pathways students have achieved during their time with us. Their enthusiasm, curiosity, and willingness to learn, as well as their individual skills and insights brought fresh perspectives and energy to our work. It has been inspiring to watch their confidence grow as they took on new challenges, collaborated with colleagues, and saw the positive impact of their work on library users.

We wish them the best of luck in their future careers!