08 May 2007

Success for UCC in "Irish Universities Promoting Science" Postgraduate Competition

Professor Patrick Fitzpatrick, Head of the College of Science, Engineering & Food Science, UCC would like, on behalf of the College, to congratulate Dawn Griffin of the Department of Chemistry on her success in the second "SCIENCE SPEAK" national postgraduate presentation event, hosted by the RDS and the "Irish Times", in association with the "Irish Universities Promoting Science" initiative which took place in the RDS, Dublin on 3 May last.

Dawn, winner of the recent "Science For All" postgraduate presentation competition at UCC, took second place (to TCD) in the inter-varsity final, with her talk titled: "The Chemical Fingerprinting of 'Super Ecstasy".

Seven postgraduate Science students, one from each of the Irish Universities, gave a ten minute presentation on their PhD research in lay non-scientific terms followed by five minutes of questions from the judges and from the floor. The event was compered by Pat Kenny of RTE and the prizes, which were presented by the Government's Chief Scientific Advisor Professor Patrick Cunningham, were sponsored by the Wyeth BioPharma company.  The panel of judges, chaired by Peter Brabazon, Programme Director of Discover Science & Engineering, also included Kathriona Devereux presenter of RTE's "Scope", Dick Ahlstrom, Science Editor of the "Irish Times", John Creedon of RTE Radio 1 and Eanna Ní Lamhna, president of An Taisce, Lecturer with Dublin Institute of Technology and presenter RTE.

"The importance of this public event cannot be over-emphasised with the ongoing national need to promote science as a viable and important career choice and also its relevance to everyday life generally", said Professor Fitzpatrick.

 The "Irish Universities Promoting Science" initiative involves the Science Faculties/Colleges of University College Cork, University College Dublin, University of Dublin Trinity College, Dublin City University, NUI Galway, NUI Maynooth and the University of Limerick all working together in the promotion of science and science education nationally and internationally.  The flagship website www.universityscience.ie, provides a wide range of information about Science programmes offered by the Irish universities, research and career opportunities and other related articles.

439MMcS


« Back to 2007 Press Releases