Celebrating Student Success

In addition to these strong degree results, 12 LMH students were recognised with University prizes and awards. Students received University awards in Modern Languages, Law, Mathematics and Computer Science, Biology, Psychology and Economics, as well as a commendation for exceptional examination performance in Medicine.

These individual awards are indicative of the overall level of academic success our Finalists have achieved this year. Of our 111 Finalists, 45 achieved Firsts and 61 achieved 2:1s – accounting for 95.5% of students overall. Some subjects saw particularly strong results this year, including Chemistry (100% Firsts), History (5 Firsts),English (4 Firsts), Fine Art (2 Firsts), Music (3 Firsts), Mathematics (6 Firsts), and Biochemistry (3 Firsts). Seven of the eight fourth-year Mathematics and joint-school students whose degrees had been classified in 2025 also received Distinctions in 2026. Five former LMH Foundation Year entrants also completed FHS in 2026, bringing our total LMH FY UG graduates to 46.

One of those recognised was James King (MBiol, 2022), who received the Casselton Prize, which recognises the best final research project dissertation in the field of Evolution and Development.  

James’s research combined genome-wide transcriptomic and epigenomic analyses to investigate the gene regulatory networks that drive cellular responses to environmental stresses in animals across different evolutionary groups.

“I am honoured to receive the Lorna A. Casselton FRS Prize for Developmental Biology and Evolution for my Master's thesis on this work,” James said.

“I am especially grateful for the valuable support of LMH donors, which allowed me to work with ATAC-seq and RNA-seq as advanced molecular techniques that were central to my research and findings,” he said.

James plans to build on the experience gained during his Master’s year as he moves on to pursue his DPhil, continuing his research into comparative and functional genomics, with a particular focus on genetic medicine.

Postgraduate students have also recorded strong results this year. While many results for taught Master’s programmes will not be finalised until October, 22  Distinctions and 30  Merits have so far been awarded among a cohort of around 145 students.

Distinctions have been achieved in subjects including Economics, English, Law, History and Modern Languages.

Among LMH’s postgraduate taught degree-seeking students, Caroline Maschka (MSc Economics for Development, 2025), received the Luca D’Agliano Prize for the best dissertation in her cohort.

Her dissertation examined whether Uganda’s large-scale rural electrification programme has contributed to local economic development over the past two decades. Using satellite and census data, Caroline studied changes in economic activity across 62,000 villages.

The research has a personal connection for Caroline. Before coming to Oxford, she worked in Kananga in the Democratic Republic of Congo, where, she says, 90% of households lived without electricity. Her research used new data sources and supervised machine learning to investigate the economic returns of expanding electricity access.

“Receiving the Luca D'Agliano Prize for the best dissertation signifies to me how economics is embracing new data sources and machine learning econometrics in ways that push us to answer harder questions in data-scarce or new contexts,” Caroline said. “It marks a wonderful end to my time on the MSc Economics for Development.”

Her next step will see her take her interest in energy and economic development beyond Oxford. Caroline will join the ODI Fellowship scheme, which matches young professionals in global development with government placements all over the world. She will be working in Cambodia as an economist and adviser to the Minister of Energy. 

In the course of 2025-26, 39 D Phils have been awarded in a broad range of subjects across the four Divisions of the University, including, but not limited to: Classical Archaeology, History, English, Law, Politics, Auto Intelligent Machines and Systems, Physiology, Anatomy and Genetics, Computer Science, Theoretical Physics, Population Health, Clinical Neurosciences and International Development. 

We are incredibly proud of all our students’ achievements and we are delighted to launch them towards an equally successful future.