The QMRG panel are pleased to announce that the 2021 Undergraduate Dissertation Prize joint-winners are:
Brittany Pugh (University of Nottingham) for their dissertation “Partitioning taxonomic and functional beta-diversity into their relative turnover and nestedness components between disturbed engineered and undisturbed towpath plant communities on the Basingstoke Canal, UK”
Jay Chang (University College London) for their dissertation “A detailed assessment of the current and future spatial distribution of Loxodonta cyclotis in Central Africa: An application of ensemble species distribution model”
For this year’s competition, we received entries from 18 Geography departments across Great Britain. The standard was very high across all these entries and the judging panel were very impressed with the standard of research which included a range of complex data types (political data, Census records, remote sensing, climate records) and advanced quantitative techniques (machine learning, regression-based techniques, data visualisations). Previously, we have not awarded joint winners very often. In view of the number of dissertations we received, and more importantly the quality of these two dissertations, we have decided to do so this year as we could not split the difference between Brittany and Jay’s excellent work. Well done both!
Brittany and Jay will both receive a £100 prize.
Both of our winners will be sharing a short bio about their work which will be published later in the year on our blog.