Student Emma wins award for contributions to science

 

 

This month we continue to celebrate some of our very deserving students who have been nominated for (and won) the Jack Petchey Foundation award.

 

Science student Emma was nominated by her physics teacher and personal tutor Razi Hassan, who said "As well as being a model student with a fantastic work ethic, Emma has this year during lockdown secured work experience and will appear as a co-author on a scientific paper published by the Fraunhofer Institute. From what I can gather, getting co-authorship on a published paper is a first for a Woodhouse science student, so Emma would be a fully deserving recipient of the prize."

 

We caught up with Emma to find out more...

 

"I did work experience online with the Fraunhofer Institute in Germany. They are working on a project to find combinations of drugs to treat Covid-19. Combinations are beneficial because it means producing and distributing smaller quantities of each drug but it is difficult because in some cases drugs will interact with each other in unexpected ways. I compiled spreadsheets of data in the initial stages of the project, allowing the team to see which combinations might work. This was the work that led to the mention of co-authorship, should the paper be published.

 

Woodhouse has really motivated me. All of my teachers have taken the subjects as far as my friends and I have wanted to, and pushed us to discuss topics beyond the A level syllabus. After leaving Woodhouse, I hope to study physics at university but I have no plan beyond that.

 

I was really excited to get the Jack Petchey award, and very grateful that I had been nominated, especially as I know that so many Woodhouse students work so hard and take part in such impressive projects. I would like to spend the money on the Physics department... perhaps a women in physics event of some sort."

 

A fantastic achievement from an incredibly motivated student. We've an inkling Emma may return to Woodhouse in years to come to run her own Women in Physics project.