The Ten NESTA FameLab Finalists have been named....
The Ten NESTA FameLab 2009 Finalists are:
Matthew Baker
Matthew grew up in New Zealand, then moved to Australia where he was schooled and took his degree in Maths and Chemistry at the Australian National University, and is currently studying a PhD in molecular motors at Oxford University looking at the bacterial flagellar motor.
Lewis Dartnell
Lewis started out with a Biology degree at Oxford University before moving on to a PhD at University College London's interdisciplinary centre, CoMPLEX. Lewis is currently an astrobiology researcher at UCL looking in the possibility of microbial life surviving on Mars. In 2007 he published a popular science book introducing astrobiology, "Life in the Universe: A Beginner's Guide".
Simon Foster
Simon studied Physics with Space Science at Southampton where he stayed on to complete a PhD in Solar-terrestrial Physics looking at solar irradiance. He then moved to Imperial College London as an INSPIRE research associate, bringing cutting edge research out of the laboratory and into the classroom. Simon now works as a science teacher in London and is developing a website to help students pass their GCSE exams.
Georgina Humphreys
Growing up in London and Shropshire Georgina now lives in Glasgow. She studied her BSc and MSc at Edinburgh University and stayed in Edinburgh for two years working for the NHS. She undertook MSc and research assistant post in infectious diseases at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, which led to her current position at the University of Glasgow where she is completing a PhD on Malaria in mosquitoes. Georgina won a national science communication competition in 2008 at the Liverpool Science Festival.
Alistair Linsell
Alistair is from the village of Painswick in Gloucestershire and is currently in the second year of his undergraduate chemistry degree at Durham University. Aside from chemistry his interests include the theatre, improvised comedy and martial arts.
Matt Parker
Matt is best described as a Stand-up Mathematician who does everything in his power to make more people excited about Mathematics. After studying Mathematics and Physics in Australia, Matt now works as a Maths teacher in a London secondary school.
Andrew Pontzen
Andrew, born near Oxford, is about to complete his doctorate and has just been appointed to a Junior Research Fellowship at Emmanuel College, Cambridge. During his PhD he has worked on background cosmic microwaves and the formation of galaxies. He has also been extensively involved with outreach work.
Zoe Schnepp
Zoe is a final-year postgraduate chemistry student at the University of Bristol and for the last three years she has being growing nanowires of electronic materials. Outside of the lab Zoe gives talks and demonstrations to school groups for the Bristol ChemLabS outreach project, encouraging students to look at chemistry in a completely different way.
Becky West
Becky studied Zoology at Bristol University and worked for a time at Bristol Zoo. Becky is now a science teacher working in London, specialising in A-Level Biology and Psychology and also runs a number of extra-curricular activities, including a gardening project and a science discovery club.
Tom Whyntie
Tom completed his undergraduate degree in Experimental and Theoretical Physics at the University of Cambridge. He is currently studying a PhD at Imperial College London and is based at CERN, working on the Compact Muon Solenoid (CMS) experiment at Large Hadron Collider trying to take pictures of what our universe might have looked like a few billionths of a second after the Big Bang. Tom has received awards from the Institute of Physics for his lecturing, performing around the UK and abroad.
The ten finalists will attend a all inclusive MasterClass training weekend and then compete for the NESTA FameLab 2009 title at the Cheltenham Science Festival, Friday June 5th at 4.30pm. Tickets are still avaliable from the Cheltenham Science Festival.