Honours
Dr Alison Ashcroft, Professor Sheena Radford and Dr David Smith (Institute of Molecular and Cellular Biology) have won the 2009 Ron Hites Award for outstanding original research publication in the Journal of the American Mass Spectrometry Society. Their paper describes the separation and identification of protein conformers by ion mobility spectrometry-mass spectrometry.
Professor Bruce Yardley (School of Earth and Environment) has been awarded a Humboldt Research Award by the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation. The award is given to academics at the peak of their careers whose fundamental discoveries, new theories or insights have had a significant impact on their own discipline and who are expected to continue producing cutting-edge achievements in the future.
Dr Dave Lewis (Institute of Membrane and Systems Biology) is one of six bioscience academics in the UK shortlisted for the Centre for Bioscience’s National Teaching Award 2009, in recognition of his outstanding learning and teaching practices. The winner will be announced on 16 June at the Science Learning and Teaching Conference.
Professor Duncan Mara (School of Civil Engineering) was honoured for his 35 years of research into low-cost methods of treating wastewater at the International Water Association’s ninth international conference on waste stabilisation ponds, held in Brazil. Research fellow Dr Rafael Bastos (School of Civil Engineering) gave a 20-minute tribute to Professor Mara and presented him with a commemorative plaque.
Dr Kuldip Bharj, lead midwife for education (School of Healthcare), has been invited to join the Prime Minister’s Commission on the future of nursing and midwifery services in England. With 34 years’ experience of midwifery research and practice, Dr Kuldip Bharj, was awarded an OBE for services to healthcare and the community in the New Year’s Honours.
Dr Darren Duxbury, Dr Rob Ranyard and Dr Barbara Summers (Centre for Advanced Studies in Finance) are co-authors of a paper on perceptions of price changes and inflation published in the Journal of Economic Psychology, which has received a Citation of Excellence award as one of the 50 most highly cited papers of 2008.
Professor James Walker (Leeds Institute of Molecular Medicine) has been appointed as the new chair of the Confidential Enquiry into Maternal and Child Health, which publishes national and local reports on maternal, perinatal and child health.
Professor Graham Stuart (School of Earth and Environment) has been awarded the New Zealand Geophysics Prize for 2008 for co-authoring a Nature article on ‘The role of fluids in lower-crustal earthquakes near continental rifts’. Read it online at http://tinyurl.com/cmkzs3
Research nurse and PhD student Mwidimi Ndosi (Academic and Clinical Unit of Musculoskeletal Nursing) has won the Arthritis Research Campaign Prize in Rheumatology for Allied Health Professionals for his research article, ‘What do patients want to know about their arthritis? – The Educational Needs Assessment Tool.’ The award consists of an ARC silver medal and £1000 and is presented to a rheumatology nurse for a piece of written work based on their research or project in rheumatology.
Two papers by Professor Oliver Phillips and Dr Simon Lewis (School of Geography) published in Nature and Science have been selected by NERC as UK environmental science research highlights in the 2008-2009 NERC annual report.
Four Leeds scholars achieved a clean sweep for Leeds’ philosophy department (School of Humanities) at the 2009 Young Scholars Essay Competition, hosted by Oxford Studies in Metaphysics – an unprecedented achievement. Dr Jason Turner won first prize for his paper ‘Ontological nihilism’, while the joint runners-up were Dr Robert Williams and Dr Elizabeth Barnes for their paper ‘A theory of metaphysical indeterminacy’, along with Dr Ross Cameron for ‘Truthmaking for presentists’.
Professor Barry Clarke (School of Civil Engineering), has been elected as president of the Engineering Professors Council, which represents more than 1,400 academics responsible for engineering teaching and research in higher education. Professor Clarke has also been elected as the next vice-president of the Institution of Civil Engineers (ICE), starting from 2012. ICE has more than 80,000 members and is the world’s oldest professional engineering body.
Residential & Commercial Services (RCS) is the first facilities management and catering services department in the UK to achieve the Customer First national standard, which confirms the commitment of all staff within RCS to delivering a high standard of customer service in all areas.
Leeds biochemistry student Jacob Heintze, from Germany was named regional winner for Yorkshire in the British Council’s Shine awards, which celebrate the achievements of international students and their contribution to the UK.
The overall winner of the School of Earth and Environment’s photo competition 2009 is research fellow Dr Mark Thomas, for Man vs the Volcano, taken in Montserrat, in the ‘Dynamic earth’ category. See all the photos online at www.see.leeds.ac.uk/photocomp
