We want to thank you to those who attended the SENSE celebration event last month and we are delighted to announce our first SENSE annual prize winners for Cohort 1. This year’s prizes were sponsored by the UK Space Agency and presented by Beth Greenaway (Head of EO & Climate) at the celebration event. Whilst we wish we could recognise all are amazing students’ achievements the SENSE prizes were created to recognise students how have gone above and beyond in different areas of their PhD. Thank you to those who provided nominations, it was difficult for the panel to select the winners.
Find out more about our outstanding students below!
Best Paper Prize: Emily Dowd
The paper describes the first validation of high-resolution satellite derived methane emissions from an active a gas leak in the UK. Emily drove the scientific collaboration and led the publication. She also established and led the collaboration with the UK Met Office, the Canadian Commercial Satellite company GHGsat, Royal Hollaway, RICARDO and the University of Bristol.
The paper was selected as a highlight paper by the journal due to its innovative nature and significant results. Emily’s work gained a lot of exposure through the media, conferences and other presentations including the paper already being viewed nearly 2,000 times, far more than other papers of its age in AMT.
Best Outreach: Calum Hoad
Calum is awarded this prize for his multitude of engaging outreach projects carrying his knowledge, expertise and enthusiasm to a wider audience.
Calum is a co-founder of SatSchool, who you have already heard present today. Calum played a key role in securing funding for the project. He has held the roles of secretary, chair and going into schools personally reaching ~300 high-school students so far.
In addition, Calum has independently undertaken activities including Meet the Scientist event, being on panels about research in schools, a developer of tour from space used at science festivals and available on the SENSE website.
Calum also mentors undergraduate students to develop their own activities and gain confidence through the GeoSciences Outreach and Engagement course.
Best External Engagement: Bryony Freer
Bryony Freer is awarded this prize because of her commitment to knowledge exchange.
Bryony has taken an active role in promoting Antarctic issues, climate change and remote sensing science to a broad range of audiences. Her activities include giving talks and engaging with questions at high-profile public events (including Ice Worlds at the Royal Maritime Museum and the Be Curious Research Festival), interacting with policy makers and the public (COP 26) and with school children.
Bryony also undertook an extremely successful placement with ISARDSAT where she visited their Barcelona offices. She also spent time at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography conducting her research and disseminating her findings including visiting NASA. Bryony has since developed these connections and work to win a prestigious Schmidt Science Fellowship hosted at Scripps in the US which she will be undertaking after completing her PhD with SENSE.
We look forward to seeing the nominations for next year and once again congratulate this years winners and all our SENSE students for all their amazing achievements!