Double QMUL success in BBC’s New Generation Thinkers competition

Queen Mary University of London (QMUL) has again secured two of 10 places on a BBC-led competition to find young academic broadcasters of the future. As 2014 winners of AHRC/BBC Radio 3's 'New Generation Thinkers' scheme, Dr Joanna Cohen and Dr Tiffany Watt Smith have the chance to develop their own Radio 3 programmes, based on their research, and to appear regularly on air. 'New Generation Thinkers', run by BBC Radio 3 and the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC), is a nationwide search for early-career researchers who are passionate about communicating to the public. This is the second year that QMUL has achieved a double win in the scheme. Dr Cohen, from the School of History, is researching how Americans turned consumerism into an act of good citizenship between 1781 and 1865. She is also examining the circulation and consumption of images of wartime violence in the Atlantic World. "One of the things I loved about this competition is that it aims to inject creativity and critical thinking into the public sphere," comments Dr Cohen.