2017 CDT PhD Photocomp - Winners Announced!

We are pleased to announce the winners of a photo competition for current postgraduates at EPSRC Centres for Doctoral Training. The competition was carried out to celebrate British Science Week 2017 and was sponsored by FindAPhD.

A wide range of PhD students took part by submitting photos that expressed different aspects of their research.

The competition featured three categories, with students posting photos of innovative (#CDTinnovation) and funny (#CDTfunny) aspects of their research, as well as a selfie (#CDTselfie) of themselves at work.

The best picture in each category won a prize of £50 plus a 1TB Seagate external hard drive. The runner up in each category won a 1TB Seagate external hard drive.

FindAPhD also selected one overall winner to receive an extra £100 prize.

We've enjoyed judging the entries and can now reveal the following winners:

A category celebrating the groundbreaking work carried out by PhD students at CDTs across the country.

• First Prize - Yao Lu of the EPSRC CDT in Moledular Modelling & Materials Science at University College London - Water is framed by superhydrophobic painting and shapes like jelly
• Second Prize - Oliver Vanderpoorten of the EPSRC CDT in Sensor Technologies and Application at the University of Cambridge - Fluorescently labelled BAG neurons in C.Elegans - a simple model organism to study neurodegenerative diseases

A category celebrating the occasionally humourous side of PhD research and its results.

• First Prize - Sam Stanfield of the EPSRC/MRC CDT in Optical Medical Imaging at the "University of Edinburgh and the University of Strathclyde - That Monday morning office feeling...
• Second Prize - Emma Lonnen of the EPSRC CDT in Physical Sciences for Health (Sci-Phy) at the University of Birmingham - When you've been on the microscope too long and start seeing things in your cells

A category celebrating the people behind the great research carried out at CDTs: the PhD students themselves.

• First Prize - James Garforth of the CDT in Robotics and Autonomous Systems at Heriott-Watt University and the University of Edinburgh - Valkyrie is too important to take her own CDT selfie.
• Second Prize - Jack Bartlett of the EPSRC CDT in Condensed Matter Physics (CM-CDT) at the University of St Andrews, Heriot-Watt University and the Max Planck Institute for Chemical Physics of Solids - A sample's view

Finally, we picked one overall winner whose picture particularly impressed the judges.

Stefania F. Musolino comes from Italy and obtained her Masters degree in Chemistry and Pharmaceutical Technologies from the University of Pisa in March 2014.

She carried out her Masters thesis under the direction of Prof. Paolo Crotti. In 2014 Stefania joined the CRITICAT CDT program at the University of St Andrews.

Her PhD project is focused on the kinetic resolution of alcohols under the joint supervision of Dr James Taylor and Prof. Andrew Smith. Outside of chemistry she is interested in reading and scientific communication.

Stefania's winning entry was entitled: "Chemistry through the glass" :

Well done to Stefania, the other winners and all the great entrants who submitted pictures to this year's CDT Photocomp!