2025 FinGeo Doctoral Dissertation Prize Winner: Dr. Andra Sonea

The FinGeo Steering Committee is pleased to announce that the 2025 FinGeo Doctoral Dissertation Prize has been awarded to Dr Andra Sonea, from the Centre for Interdisciplinary Methodologies, University of Warwick, for her outstanding thesis, “Everyday Banking, a Critical National Infrastructure in Transition: The Case of Access to Banking in the UK.”

Andra Sonea has recently completed her PhD in Urban Science at the University of Warwick. Currently a postdoctoral researcher at the Centre for Interdisciplinary Methodologies at the same university, she has previously held a research fellowship with the Oxford Future of Finance and Technology Initiative at Saïd Business School, University of Oxford. She also holds a BA in Political Science from the University of Bucharest and an MBA from London Business School.

The prize committee received several excellent submissions this year. Dr Sonea’s dissertation stood out for its rigorous and innovative analysis of the critical yet often overlooked role of everyday banking practices in shaping national financial systems. Reviewers commended the thesis for its insightful integration of quantitative spatial analysis and qualitative research methods, producing a sophisticated and multidimensional account of access to banking in the UK.

The Steering Committee warmly congratulates Dr. Sonea on this well-deserved recognition and thanks all applicants for contributing to another strong year of doctoral scholarship in financial geography.

A summary of Dr. Sonea’s research will be featured soon on the FinGeo Blog, where she will reflect on the key findings and implications of her work. Dr. Sonea can be reached atA.Sonea@warwick.ac.uk.