Adam Weiler Winners 2026 - Research Images
The Sussex Researcher School is proud to announce the winners of the 2026 Adam Weiler Impact Awards, recognising three exceptional postgraduate researchers (PGRs) who demonstrate the potential to make lasting, positive changes across diverse fields.
These awards are made possible by a generous donation to the University in memory of former student Adam Weiler, and celebrate postgraduate researchers whose work exemplifies creativity, rigour, and real-world relevance.
There is one award available per Faculty, and each winner receives £1,000 towards their ongoing research.
Our 2026 recipients are:
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Dina Abdelhafez (Media, Arts and Humanities): Dina’s innovative work applies a cultural history lens to the study of modern Egypt of the 1950s and 60s, looking at the production of domestic interiors as a way of understanding societal transformation. Through oral history interviews, magazines, family photographs and films, and in collaboration with galleries in Egypt and the UK, she examines a critical era of pan-Arab post-colonial culture through the lived experience of the domestic home.
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Sunisha Neupane (Social Sciences – Institute of Development Studies): Sunisha has taken an innovative participatory approach to the study of maternal health inequalities in remote communities in Nepal. She applies novel interdisciplinary methods such as storytelling and poetry to the global health field, and centres the lived experiences of women and caregivers at the heart of her thesis. Sunisha’s research sheds light on how structures such as geography, migration, gendered expectations and health systems constrain agency, and shape pregnancy and childbirth experiences.
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Laura Steege (Science, Engineering and Medicine – Brighton and Sussex Medical School): Laura is undertaking vital research into Non-Tuberculous Mycobacterial (NTM) species in hospitals, which pose a risk of respiratory infection but are not routinely tested for. Laura developed a new, practical method for sampling the bacteria, trialling it in 11 hospitals, and offering the first snapshot of NTM in the built environment in the UK. This method has been cited in NHS guidance and is recommended as the gold standard for new-builds, making hospitals safer for at-risk patients.
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University of Sussex Business School: No nominations received.
The prizes will be presented at the Sussex Awards ceremony on 27 April, and our winners will share their research and its impact in a dedicated panel session during the Summer of Research Three Minute Thesis final on Friday 26 June.
For further information visit the Adam Weiler PGR Impact Award webpages.