🎓 Celebrating Our Horizon CDT PhD Viva Successes – Closing 2025 on a High Note! 🎉

As we enter 2026, we’re thrilled to celebrate the outstanding achievements of several Horizon CDT students who successfully passed their PhD vivas at the end of 2025. It was an exciting viva season, and we couldn’t be prouder to see our researchers reach these major milestones.

Edwina Borteley Abam (2019 cohort)
Edwina successfully passed her viva in November, subject to minor corrections. Supervised by Berndt Stahl, Joy Egede and Steve Benford, her thesis is titled Exploring fairness and transparency in algorithmic decision-making systems in credit scoring.

Callum Berger (2021 cohort)
Callum passed his viva, subject to minor corrections. Supervised by Paul Tennent, Jocelyn Spence and Horia Maior, his thesis is titled Physiological Adaptive VR Horror Experiences. Callum has started a new role as a Research Associate at the University of Lincoln, working with the Centre for Defence and Security AI—an exciting next step in his career!

Ellie Colegate (2021 cohort)
Ellie successfully passed her viva, subject to minor corrections. Her thesis, Reducing Online Harms via Content Moderation? The Online Safety Act 2023 and the Everyday Interactions of Young People, was supervised by Professor Richard Hyde and Professor Andy Crabtree. Ellie is currently teaching as a Teaching Associate in Law and Technology at the University of Nottingham and is transitioning into her new role as Assistant Professor in the School of Law this new year.

Gabrielle Hornshaw (2021 cohort)
Gabrielle successfully passed their viva, subject to minor corrections. Supervised by Prof Steven Furnell, Dr Oliver Butler and Dr Mike Pound, their thesis is entitled Biometric Recognition of the Hand in Unconstrained Images.

Gregor Milligan (2021 cohort)
Gregor passed his viva, subject to minor corrections. Supervised by Prof James Goulding, Prof Elvira Perez Vallejos and Dr Liz Dowthwaite, his thesis is Understanding Loneliness Through Data-Driven Approaches: From Practitioner Insights to Algorithmic Detection. Gregor has secured a position as Lecturer in Artificial Intelligence at Sheffield Hallam University—an excellent achievement!

Torran Semple (2021 cohort)
Torran passed his viva at the end of December, subject to minor corrections. His thesis, The Modern Problematisation of Fuel Poverty in England: Quantification, Obfuscation and Energy Transitions, was supervised by Lucelia Rodrigues, Mark Gillott, Grazziela Figueredo and John Harvey. Torran has joined The University of Oxford’s Department of Engineering Science as a postdoctoral researcher contributing to the Energy Demand Observatory and Laboratory (EDOL) project. Another fantastic step forward!

We’re so proud of all our students for their hard work, dedication and outstanding contributions to research. Congratulations to all our viva graduates! What a way to successfully close out 2025!

Originally posted at https://cdt.horizon.ac.uk/2026/01/07/%F0%9F%8E%93-celebrating-our-horizon-cdt-phd-viva-successes-closing-2025-on-a-high-note-%F0%9F%8E%89/