Biology students awarded prestigious Beaumont Awards
Two BSc Biology students have been awarded the prestigious Beaumont Award.
We are proud to announce that two of our BSc Biology students, Amelia Kitchener and Olivia Maskill, were amongst the 24 final-year students from the University of Leeds to receive the Beaumont Award for their inspiring final year research projects.
Amelia Kitchener
Amelia’s project, entitled UV-C light as a viable method to reduce the presence of Salmonella bacteria in poultry feed looked at UV and whether it was a viable method to reduce Salmonella presence in poultry feed. Amelia’s research found that UV was an effective method of reducing Salmonella presence. Reduction in the transmission of Salmonella to humans in turn reduces the use of antibiotics, a problem which is particularly pertinent in today’s society.
Olivia Maskill
Olivia’s project, entitled How to close the yield gap? A practical method of mycorrhizal bioremediation for the next century is all about fungus. For her project, Olivia looked at the ability of fungus to take up toxic metals from the soil and use in bioremediation techniques for mining lands. Heavy metal contamination effects around 10 million people globally and roughly 1.2 million square kilometres of land in the EU alone. As part of her project, Olivia set up a new model to remediate this land and increase European biofuel yields by 317%.
About the Leeds Beaumont Award
The University of Leeds Beaumont Award recognises research projects in the areas of Biological, Environmental and Physical Sciences, Engineering, Medicine and Health undertaken by undergraduate students from any discipline. This might be a Final Year Project, a research project, or related to an internship pursued at the University. This year, the judges were looking for projects which ‘display the greatest potential to impact on society.’
The awards are inspired by the life and work of Michael Faraday, whose discoveries were crucial in the development of technology innovation.
The sponsor of the awards is Professor Adam Beaumont, Founder and CEO of aql, a Visiting Professor in Cyber Security at the University of Leeds.
Congratulations to all of this year’s winners and to Amelia and Olivia!
