ESE Postgraduate Prizes 2025

On 17 June 2025 the Department of Earth Science and Engineering (ESE) at Imperial awarded its annual PhD prizes.

To recognise the excellence of its postgraduate cohort, each year ESE presents three prizes: the John S Archer Award, the Janet Watson Memorial Prize for Excellence in Research, and the Janet Watson Memorial Prize for Good Citizenship.

During an award ceremony held at the Royal School of Mines last week, staff, students, alumni and friends came together to celebrate the winning three PhD students within ESE.

Head of Department Professor Tina van de Flierdt opened the ceremony with an introduction to ESE and some of its key research focuses, including building the energy transition to a net-zero future and shaping Imperial’s top-level initiatives within the new Schools of Convergence Science.

John S Archer Award

Professor Robert Zimmerman, Chair in Rock Mechanics at ESE, introduced the first prize of the day: the John S Archer Award, which recognises research excellence in the broad field of subsurface engineering and geoscience relating to delivering sustainable energy.

The Award was established and generously funded by a group of Professor John S Archer’s former students called the Group of Ten, to honour his legacy, two of whom – Dr Ivor Ellul and Dr Alexander Folefac – attended the ceremony.

Both Dr Folefac and Professor Archer’s daughter, Professor Louise Archer, Karl Mannheim Chair of Sociology of Education at UCL, presented to the audience their memories and stories of Professor Archer, who had a long-standing history and career at Imperial, including as Professor of Petroleum Engineering and Dean of the Royal School of Mines. 

The winner of the 2025 John S Archer Award was then announced as Lianjun Li, who received a certificate and £5,000.

With a background as a marine geophysicist in the Oil and Gas Industry, Lianjun specialises in using active-source seismic data to image subsurface structures. Her research focuses on the seismic properties of mature, slow-spreading oceanic crust and tectonic deformation at the diffuse North and South America Plate Boundary.

Lianjun’s first PhD chapter, published in Geology, established a new approach to studying crustal evolution with age. Her second chapter, now under revision in Nature Communications, explores bound water distribution in mature oceanic crust. Now, she is ambitiously preparing her third chapter investigating subduction initiation processes at the North and South America Plate Boundary.

Speaking to Lianjun’s achievements, Professor Jenny Collier, marine geophysicist at ESE, and Lianjun’s supervisor, said: “Lianjun is a Presidents’ Scholar who has shown exceptional dedication, rigour and insight throughout her PhD studies. Her work has gained international recognition and demonstrates considerable breadth, including material she independently initiated and developed through collaboration with fellow PhD students.

“This award recognises not only [Lianjun's] academic excellence but also her insightful and collegiate activity that greatly strengthens the research community environment within the Royal School of Mines.”

Janet Watson Memorial Prizes

Next to be presented were the Janet Watson Prizes, established in honour of British geologist and Imperial alumnus Professor Janet Watson,, whose work significantly advanced the field of structural geology and Precambrian geology.

The first Prize, awarded in the category of research excellence, went to Arianna Olivelli and was presented by Professor Ann Muggeridge, Proconsul and Chair in Subsurface Physics at ESE.

Arianna is a chemical oceanographer, with expertise ranging from analysing the composition of seawater in the laboratory to leveraging data science and modelling techniques to investigate the distribution of chemicals at the regional and global scale.

Her research aims to advance our understanding of the impacts of human activities on marine climate change, including the marine carbon and oxygen cycles, and environmental pollution, such as that caused by trace metals and plastics.

She completed her PhD in isotope geochemistry at ESE in March 2025 and is now a postdoctoral researcher at the Flanders Marine Institute (VLIZ) in Belgium.

Professor van der Flierdt, who nominated Arianna for the prize, said: “At the core, Arianna is a curiosity-driven polymath and her astonishing breadth of interests and skills is well reflected in her Graduate Teaching Assistant work.

“To me, Arianna personifies the new generation of outstanding scientists for whom excellence in research goes hand-in-hand with good citizenship and a strong set of ethical values. It was an immense privilege to be her supervisor.”

The winner of the event’s final prize, the Janet Watson Prize for Good Citizenship, was Ugo Legendre, as presented by Professor Martin Blunt, Chair in Flow in Porous Media at ESE.

Ugo studies the resources (such as copper, oil and gas) needed to execute different energy transition plans, to assess how feasible they are and to identify opportunities to make a more ambitious transition.

He has been involved in various departmental outreach efforts, having led the Climate Action Survey initiative in the ESE Sustainability Committee, the aim of which was to improve the Imperial community’s awareness of their individual carbon footprints and empower people to take action to reduce their emissions.

Ugo also led an outreach program aimed at broadening participation in STEM, reaching 150 high school students over the last four years, which was funded by the department’s EDI and Outreach funds, Imperial Outreach.

One of Ugo’s nominators, Dr Pablo Brita Parada, Reader in Sustainable Minerals Processing at ESE, said: “Ugo is deeply passionate about sustainability and the energy transition, while in his role as a Graduate Teaching Assistant he has gone above and beyond when it comes to supporting our students.

“For all his contributions as a sustainability champion in ESE and beyond, [Ugo] is a worthy recipient of this prize.”

Each Janet Watson Prize winner received a certificate and £1,000.

Closing the ceremony, Professor Zimmerman gave special mention to the other nominated PhD students – Gonzalo Larrabure, Matthew Morris and Xiaowei Yang – who were each recognised for their contributions.

Congratulations to all the winners and candidates, and thanks to their nominators for bringing the excellent work of ESE’s students to wider attention.

Check out more photos from the ceremony below: