The Brian Chambers award in 2015

Information about the entrants and winners in 2015.

In its first year the award attracted entries from 16 countries, spread across every continent except Antarctica.

The judges were impressed by the overall standard of the submissions, and found the task of selecting the three winners to be perhaps more challenging than they had anticipated. Eventually, however they concluded that the research that justified winning the first prize was by Ms. Muneta Grace Manzeke, a PhD student with the University of Zimbabwe and the Soil Fertility Consortium for Southern Africa research group. Her entry described work looking at how the use of micro-nutrients in crop nutrition can have a beneficial impact on human health. Grace’s work is part of a wider project, funded by The Royal Society and DFID, involving Zimbabwe, Malawi and Zambia. It is supported by the University of Nottingham, in the UK. Her poster can be viewed here.

A short interview with Grace about her research has been recorded. To hear this, click on the small white ‘play’ triangle at the top of the new screen that will appear.

There were also two runner up entries, that were awarded £500 each. The first of these was from Admassu Markos, from Hawassa University in Ethiopia, who is studying the response of maize to potassium in southern Ethiopia.

A short interview with Admasu about his research has been recorded. (The first 50 seconds are somewhat confused, please bear with this!)

The second was from Jessica Bollyn, from KU Leuven, in Belgium, who is studying the use of phosphate-coated iron oxyhydroxide nanoparticles as highly efficient fertilisers in tropical soils.

A short interview with Jessica Bollyn about her research.

The posters of the other seven finalists can be viewed here.