Student wins place in FameLab final
Published on 6 December 12
Life Sciences MSc student Caitrin Crudden won audience vote to progress to national final of prestigious science communication competition.
Caitrin was one of three postgraduate students from the University (Liz Granger from Life Sciences and Ishara Kamalanthan from EPS also competed) who battled it out with the region's finest science communicators at the live regional final on Saturday 24 November for a place at the national final.
FameLab is a competition which aims to discover new talent to engage the public in science and engineering. Contestants were given just three minutes to pitch a concept in science or engineering to the panel of judges.
Although Caitrin was not the winner of the heat, her wild card vote means that she will be considered alongside those from other regions and the strongest will be selected to form the line-up for the final of FameLab UK, the UK’s biggest competition to discover new talent to engage the public in science and engineering.
Caitrin, who is studying for an MSc in Cancer Research and Molecular Biomedicine, said: “My first talk (in the initial heats) was on the use of the zebrafish as a new and exciting in vivo model for studying cancer research.
"At the regional final, I talked about the manipulation of the human immune system to recognise and eliminate cancer cells in a similar way that it does with external pathogens.
“One of my aims is to bring research and science to a lay audience in a refreshing and interesting way, so I tried to encompass humour and popular culture references into my talks, including reality TV, sushi and flattening your granny, to name but a few.”
You can find out more about FameLab here.