Winner Reports

Joanna Buckley describes taking part in IAS, and what she did with her prize money… Joanna Buckley, winner of the Nitrogen Zone in June 2010, has written about taking part in I’m a Scientist. Have a read to find out what being an IAS scientist is really like, and to see what Jo did with her prize money. It only seems a few weeks since I was gearing up for ‘I’m a Scientist. Get me out of here’ in the summer of 2010. I was relatively new to Twitter at that time and joined, probably like most, because I wanted to be all hip and groovy like Stephen Fry. It was there that I heard about IAS and quickly signed up. After the scientists were chosen, it became apparent that there were four of us from the University of York taking part. We met up, talked tactics and became really … Continue reading →

During September Joanna carried out her brainology tour. This was funded by the money she won through taking part in I’m a Scientist. She travelled to science museums and schools in Glasgow, Manchester and Liverpool. The workshops were geared for school children of all ages and highlighted the research into the brain, looking at topics such as spatial awareness and why the two sides of the brain function differently. The brainology tour aimed to give a greater understanding about how the brain can co-ordinate things like movement, hearing and anger. The brainology tour also covered why brain disorders, such as Alzheimer’s disease, occur.

Part of the fun of science is that plans regularly change and develop as research evolves. Dean’s plans for what he spent his I’m a Scientist winnings on have changed a little, and he has kindly updated us with what he spent the money on: My plan changed a little again and I bought a half-decent video camera and all the equipment to go with it – tripod, memory cards, case and 3 years replacement plan – for the people who run Bath Taps in Science festival for £250. This was so they can tape training videos and some funky stuff to put up on TV screens. They appear to be very thankful and will use it to make clips of this year’s event in March. The other £250 has gone to helping 50 pupils from Harwell Primary School get transport to Rutherford Appleton Laboratory for a visit and talk on … Continue reading →

My original intention for spending the money was to provide support for schools to visit Rutherford Appleton Labs. However, it seems that usually extra support isn’t needed. The schools that are further away don’t want to take too much time travelling and the ones who are closer can usually afford to pay for themselves.  So I decided to leave half the money, £250, available for schools to apply to if they need financial support for any of the events that the lab runs. This should be enough to help one or two schools who couldn’t otherwise go. The other £250 will be used for Bath Taps into Science (http://www.bath.ac.uk/math-sci/bath-taps/). This is an annual science festival run during March in Bath (see the picture on the left). It’s set up in a huge hall. Different organizations have a few tables and people (a “stand”) and show off something to do with … Continue reading →

Ben Still won the Sodium Zone all the way back in June 2010. After his win Ben said “I will spend my winnings wisely!“, and so he has… Ben spent his money on setting up the Super K Sonic Booooum. This is a twenty-two meter long ‘river’ of water. People took a boat ride with Ben or someone he works with and learnt about Neutrino Physics on the journey. In order to go on the ride people had to wear white suits, wellies and hard hats! Over the days of the event they had over 600 visitors who took the boat ride and then participated in lectures afterwards. Ben enjoyed I’m a Scientist so much that he took part, and won again, in the STFC sponsored Subatomic Zone in the event last November! Ben’s plans for his second IAS prize money is to put it towards producing some podcasts and … Continue reading →

I have used a small amount of the money to help me with a brilliant idea for the Cheltenham for the science festival. A group of about 8 of us did some `Science Busking’ – that is turning up unannounced at venues (mostly pubs) and getting people talking about science in bars, cafes, and in the street. It went really well! http://www.scandle.eu/news/science-2018down-the-pub2019-at-the-cheltenham-science-festival I built and took along a number of small portable demos to help with this, the photo shows me beginning to solder one of these together. It is a lot of work and some of the bits are pricey, but the nice thing about small portable gear is that it can be used over and over again in many situations, like school visits, so it is worth putting in time and effort to build it properly. While I was at the festival I got together with old friends … Continue reading →

My prize winning funds were used to finance a science communication trip to the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) conference, which was held in Chicago from the 4th until the 8th of June this year. With over 50,000 doctors, pharmaceutical executives and researchers attending, it was full of exciting news about new treatments and potential pipeline candidates. I attended as many of the talks and seminars as possible in the four days and used the time to communicate my research to the scientists and researchers at the cutting edge of cancer research. I also kept a beady eye out for promising new drugs which I helped publicise when I got back to London; hopefully these drugs will help future patients with their fights against cancer. Kiran Meekings Winner of the Lithium Zone

I plan to use the money to promote the PAPA project (www.projectpapa.org, www.empoweringcoaching.co.uk) which is a large European research project beginning this September. The Project aims to educate football coaches all over Europe (the UK, Spain, Greece, France and Norway), helping to provide more positive experiences for those children who take part in youth sport football, and increase the amount of children taking part in football and youth sport in general! The project is supported by the FA and hopefully Aston Villa!! As part of my research I will be using a Mobile Health Bus. We will park this at schools and football pitches where volunteers will be able to take part in the research there and then! Our idea is that Aston Villa may be able to come along with us on these days. We will use the money to promote this so more children know about the research … Continue reading →

I am just writing to thank everybody involved in ‘I’m a Scientist – Get me out of Here!’ in April 2010 on behalf of Bishop Kivengere Girls’ School Uganda. The school children in the UK voted for me to win the Hydrogen Zone in March. Due to large class sizes (50+) and lack of resources, the girls here get limited practical science teaching. Also, not many girls take science because they think that it is a subject for boys only. I hope I am helping to change their mind on that! Thanks from the school! I used part of the £500 that I won towards a digital projector for the school. The girls can now watch films on science (and Geography, History, English Literature and even High School Musical!), to help them understand. The remainder of the money was put towards buying some basic science equipment (multimeters, prisms etc) and … Continue reading →

It’s a couple of months since I learned on Twitter that I had won the Imaging Zone of the June 2010 round of the “I’m a scientist, Get me out of here!” competition. I was absolutely delighted. But at the same time I was utterly exhausted after an intense fortnight of interrogation. I have since recovered my energy levels but the buzz of excitement from the whole event is still with me. I’m so glad that I signed up to join in and not just because I acquired my magnificent new nickname: the GingerNinja! What made the most lasting impression on me were the sheer enthusiasm of all the students who posed questions AND their very obvious concern to see how science can be used to make the world a better place. It was fantastic to be tested by so many challenging questions (I’m still thinking about magnets!) and to … Continue reading →

I love books – the old fashioned kind, printed with ink on paper. As a kid, books were my source of education, inspiration and entertainment. As an adult, I still find there’s something oddly satisfying about picking up a sheaf of printed and bound pages and immersing myself in them. So it’s perhaps not surprising that, when it came to using my prize money from I’m A Scientist, get Me Out Of Here, I ended up turning to books. Knowing how to use the £500 prize for being the last scientist standing in the Silicon zone on I’m A Scientist was something of a challenge in itself. The rules of the competition stated that “The money must be for publicising or communicating the scientist’s research (or research area).” It sounds simple. But £500 lies in that awkward region where it’s too little to do something really big with, but too much to … Continue reading →

Dear students, You’ll be pleased to know as promised I’ll be off to the BSA Science Communication Conference next March where I’ll meet other scientists talking about the best ways to communicate our work. I’m chatting to @modsoph and @modshane about talking about the experience of being in I’m a scientist, hopefully encouraging more scientists to take part. I’m also putting together a microbes event on how bacterial ‘Move, Smell and Talk’ for the  British Science Festival, but as there is lots to arrange I won’t be able to make Birmingham this year so it will be unveiled next year in September – so look forward to hopefully meeting some of you there! Since doing I’m a scientist I’ve also been busy running the biochemistry UNIQ summer school, which saw 30 6th form students come to Oxford for a week to experience what life is like for undergraduate biochemists. While … Continue reading →

I think I need to say, first of all, how much I enjoyed taking part in IAS – although the number of e-mailed questions was fairly daunting and the speed of the live chats left me physically and mentally exhausted (ok, I may be exaggerating a little here), it was amazing to see the diversity of questions and views on such a wide range of scientific (and not so scientific) areas. I never ever expected to win it; there were some fantastically knowledgeable and engaging scientists in my zone, so I was totally overwhelmed by it all. So thankyou for giving me that opportunity and experience. So, on to the prize winnings!  In the original information that I had read on the scheme, the winnings could be spent on communicating science or science education.  I decided from the start that I would spend my money more on the education side of … Continue reading →