Congratulations to Emily Xu who has been named GSK UK Young Scientist of the Year 2018 at The Big Bang Fair in Birmingham.
Emily, who attends James Allen’s Girls’ School in London, undertook a Nuffield Research Placement at Imperial College London under the supervision of Bradley Ladewig in the Department of Chemical Engineering.
Nuffield Research Placement student and GSK UK Young Scientist of the Year Emily Xu.
It was Emily’s Nuffield project that led to her being awarded the Young Scientist of the Year title. Over her five week placement in summer 2017, Emily undertook a project on Chiral separation of racemic mixtures using liquid phase separation techniques with homochiral metal organic frameworks.
The project required the synthesis of novel chiral metal organic frameworks and for Emily to test their separation properties for chiral molecules. Emily presented this work with over 200 other finalists from across the country, including over 60 of her fellow Nuffield students.
The judging panel for the national award, open to 11- to 18-year-olds who completed a science, technology, engineering or maths project, included Nikki Yates, the Senior Vice President of Pharmaceuticals Europe, GSK and Lizzie Daly, the wildlife biologist and presenter.
Other prize winners
We were delighted to see several more of our students win prizes, including Manisha Waterston from Notre Dame High School, who was the winner of the University of Oxford Engineering Innovator Prize with her project Music for the Eyes.
Manisha Waterson, winner of the University of Oxford Engineering Innovator Prize.
Additionally, Harriet Graham from Lockerbie Academy, Ravinder Kaur from Nottingham Girls’ Academy and Rachael Gump from Callington Community College, were all Runners Up in the Senior Science category.
Caden Dias-Bandaranayake from Bexhill College won a place at the 60th London International Youth Science Forum 2018 for his project Investigating concentration of Interleukin 5 in fire instructors.
Nuffield student Callum Langley exhibiting his project at the Big Bang Fair.
Nuffield student Jonathan Douglas exhibiting his project at the Big Bang Fair.
About Nuffield Research Placements
Nuffield Research Placements provide over 1,200 placements each year. We work with a wide range of employers, including universities and research institutes, local government and public sector agencies, tech and pharmaceutical companies, think tanks and market research agencies.
We have a focus on supporting students who do not have a family history of higher education and those from lower socio-economic backgrounds and reaches more of these students year-on-year. The Nuffield Foundation covers travel costs for all students and provides an additional bursary for those from the most disadvantaged backgrounds.
If you’re a student, find out how to apply for a placement here >>
