Welcoming our new Emerging Scholars for 2026

In Summer 2026, the Emerging Scholars Programme is embarking on a new collaboration with Quarry Bank Mill and welcomes five new dynamic researchers to the team.

Rajeshree Bhakat

Rajeshree is currently pursuing an MA in History at the University of Manchester where her research centres on early modern transnational trade networks and colonial economies. Her dissertation, 'Merchants, Middlemen, and the Dutch Empire: Reassessing Indigeneous Agency in VOC Trade with the Indian Subcontinent (17th-18th Century)', examines the commercial operations of the Dutch East India Company and foregrounds the role of intermediaries in facilitating global trade. This work challenges Eurocentric narratives of empire by highlighting indigeneous merchants, brokers, and maritime networks as catalysts for commerce rather than passive participants in colonial systems.

Helena C0nybeare

Helena is a final year Politics and Modern History student at the University of Manchester, with a passion for the wider decolonisation agenda within education. She is strongly committed to producing inclusive public history outputs which engage North West communities in Britain's historical ties to exploitative colonialisms and the Transatlantic Slave Trade. Helena's studies have focused on highlighting the interdependence of racial and gendered factors in colonial contexts. She is currently researching for her undergraduate dissertation, which examines how women's experiences of violence have been invisibilised in narratives of the Congo Free State, and endeavours to examine state archives from a more critical perspective.

Maleehah Rehman

Maleehah is a final year Politics and Modern History student at the University of Manchester. Throughout her studies, she has focused on the politics of immigration and media analysis, as well as International Relations, and postcolonialism. She has worked on reforming the curriculum as President of the Diversify Politics initiative and has experience in community engagement, project management and production. You can read one of her published articles, "UK Race Riots: Reflecting on 'Good Immigrant' discourses seven months on" here: https://diversifypolitics.wordpress.com/2025/03/07/uk-race-riots-reflecting-on-good-immigrant-discourses-seven-months-on/.

Anna Palmer

Anna graduated in History and American Studies in 2025 and is currently undertaking a Masters in History at the University of Manchester where she focuses on 20th Century cultural politics. Anna's time at Manchester has inspired her to research Manchester history further and she is currently researching the development of the city's queer nightlife throughout the 1980s and 1990s.

Mae Murphy

Mae is a final year English Literature and History student at the University of Manchester.