Elsie Moore, a 15 year-old student at The Thomas Hardye School in Dorchester, won The Physiological Society’s national ‘Women in Physiology’ school poster competition.
2015 marks 100 years of women’s membership of The Physiological Society. To celebrate this milestone, The Society is running a number of activities throughout the year to look back at the contributions of women to physiology.
Schools were invited to join this celebration by taking part in a poster competition focusing on the achievements of women who’ve won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. To enter, students had to select one of the five most recent winners of the Nobel Prize, research her discovery and then produce a poster summarising their findings.
The shortlisted entries were presented at The Society’s annual scientific conference, where scientists were invited to vote for what they considered to be the best poster.
Elsie produced her poster on Christiane Nüsslein-Volhard, who was part of the team that discovered the key genes responsible for early embryonic development, and received the most votes for her originality and creativity.
Chief Executive of The Physiological Society, Philip Wright, said, ‘Competitions like this illustrate the significant role of women scientists in driving forward our understanding of physiology and help raise awareness in younger generations. Congratulations to Elsie on winning the competition.’
Mr Lewis, a teacher at The Thomas Hardye School, who ran the competition added, ‘This competition provided a focus for the whole of year 9 to research science in a real world contest, whilst giving them the opportunity to be creative. It boosted the profile of women in science and was a great way of promoting physiology.’
As part of the prize, Elsie received a certificate, £50 Amazon gift voucher and a personal message from Nobel Prize winner Christiane herself.
The final prize was a visit from Dr Carmen Coxon, a Research Assistant from the University of Bristol, to The Thomas Hardye School on 14 October 2015, during which she gave a lesson to Elsie’s class as well as a lecture to the school’s sixth form.
ENDS
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Notes for Editors:
- A summary of The Society’s Women Centenary celebrations is available here: http://www.physoc.org/diversity
- More details about The Society’s ‘Women in Physiology’ poster competition, including the winning poster, are available here: http://www.understanding-life.org/competitions/women-physiology-poster-competition
- The Physiological Society brings together over 3500 scientists from over 60 countries. The Society promotes physiology with the public and parliament alike, aims to bring physiologists and the public together through outreach and engagement activities which raise the awareness, understanding and appreciation of physiology. It supports physiologists by organising world-class conferences and offering grants for research and also publishes the latest developments in the field in its leading scientific journals, The Journal of Physiology, Experimental Physiology and Physiological Reports. www.physoc.org
Contacts:
Dr Helga Groll, Media and Communications Officer, The Physiological Society
+44 (0)20 7269 5727, pressoffice@physoc.org