Congratulations to all of our Nuffield Research Placement students who were finalists in last night’s Big Bang Competition at the NEC in Birmingham.
We were delighted to see several of our students win prizes, including Chantal Goulder from Queen Elizabeth Sixth Form College, who was the winner of the Senior Science prize with her project Investigating charge-transfer states in organic donor-receptor molecules.
Mhairi McCann from St. Columba’s High School, Christine Addae-Kyrereme from Portsmouth High School and Marcus Boyd from Calderglen High School, were all Runners Up in the same category, and Rose McNelly was the recipient of the London International Youth Science Forum prize with her project on Sequencing the Genome of the European Polecat.

Nuffield students Mattyn, Emma, Chantal (winner in the senior science category), Sandhya, James and Jiaqi.
About the Big Bang Competition
The Big Bang Competition recognises and rewards young people’s achievements in STEM. This year’s judging panel for the awards included Dr Maggie Aderin-Pocock, MBE, space scientist and TV presenter, and Jason Bradbury, host of The Gadget Show. Our winners will be invited to showcase their project for a further two days at the Big Bang Fair.
Mhairi McCann, Runner-Up in Senior Science category with her award.
About Nuffield Research Placements
Nuffield Research Placements give sixth formers and college students the opportunity to undertake research in science, technology, engineering and maths (STEM) workplaces across the UK.
These placements change lives. They give students – particularly those who don’t have a family history of going to university or who attend schools in less well-off areas – the opportunity to gain first-hand experience of a professional research environment. This can be invaluable for making future education and career decisions, enabling our students to go on to become the scientific researchers of tomorrow.
More pictures from the Big Bang Fair
Rose McNelly, winner of the London International Youth Science Forum prize for her project on Sequencing the Genome of the European Polecat.
Mariyam Bi with her project on mobile phone microscopy.