Student projects and placements
By working on active research projects with our partners in the city and beyond, unique opportunities are created that help build skills and experience.
Many of our postgraduate students also undertake placements with our collaborators, building networks and experience for the future.
One of the groteques at York Minster. Photo: Dav Smith
Grotesques on the Minster
In 2021 we established a series of placements for postgraduate students to undertake 3D recording of 15th-century grotesques on York Minster. These placements were run in partnership with the Minster stoneyard, exploring recording and documentation methods as part of commissioning and creating replacement carvings by the stonemasons.
Project lead: Dr Dav Smith
Stycas, kings and Vikings: the copper-alloy revolution in 9th-century England
One of our PhD students, Lucy Moore, is working with collections at Yorkshire Museums Trust to reassess their collection of copper-alloy stycas, minted in 9th-century Northumbria. These are the most common early medieval English coins, and new research suggests that use and even production continued under Viking control. Comparison of these imitations with official Northumbrian stycas, and examination of stycas within their contexts (hoards, settlements, Viking camps), will enable a clearer understanding of their use and dating. This will provide new evidence for the impact of the Vikings on the 9th-century English economy.
This project is a collaboration with the Yorkshire Museum and is funded by the White Rose College of the Arts & Humanities.
Project lead: Professor Dawn Hadley
Styca of Aethelred II of Northumbria. By NumisAntica - http://www.numisantica.com, CC BY-SA 3.0 nl, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=38495094
York Railway Station damage following the 29th April 1942 raid on the city. Image: York Press/ Northern Echo
Raids over York
Our students have been working with partners across York to help produce an interactive online map and other digital media for the upcoming 80th anniversary of the Baedeker Raids of York in 2022.
This is a collaboration with multiple city partners, including York Civic Trust, York City Council, Explore York Libraries and Archives, York Oral History Society, the York Architectural and Archaeological Society, and the Institute for the Public Understanding of the Past.
See some of the students' work here
Project lead: Dr Helen Goodchild