News

Trinity Student Wins International Biology Award

Recent graduate of the School of Natural Sciences, Sive Finlay, was announced as the winner of the Best Biology Student 2012 in the Science, Engineering and Technology (SET) Awards, following an interview with a Society of Biology judging panel.  The SET awards provide a showcase for educational excellence by publicly recognising the exceptional achievements of both students and universities.

Sive managed to beat off competition from two other biology finalists when she presented her project on the parasitic attack of bees by nematodes.  The other two finalists for the Best Biology Student category were Katrina Spensley, University of Oxford for her work on population structure of malarial protein, and Abhishek Trehan, University of Cambridge for his work on calcium signalling in glioma cell migration.  The three finalists were shortlisted from a large pool of high quality applicants from across Europe.

The Society of Biology judging panel was made up of Dr William Marshall, Ann Fullick, Dr Pat Goodwin and Dr Lesley Batty. The judging criteria looked at the applicants’ scientific knowledge, the level of achievement of the student and their project, originality that the student applied in their project, and the overall quality of candidate.

Society of Biology Judging Panel member Ann Fullick said: “The work that Sive had done on bumble bee queens was elegant, fascinating, covered a wide variety of aspects of biology and had a clear relevance to a major issue - the problem of the loss of pollinators worldwide.”

More information on the School of Natural Sciences can be found online.