Allan Ure Memorial Bursary Past Winners
2017
Two very strong candidates presented themselves for the 2017 award. As a result, the committee decided to award bursaries to both candidates:
Solomon Omwoma Lugasi
Jaramogi Oginga Odinga University of Science and Technology, Kenya
Solomon Omwoma Lugasi used the bursary to buy consumables and necessary items for his research project.
Adetunde Oluwatowyin (nee Adetunde)
University of Lagos, Nigeria
Adetunde Oluwatowyin (nee Adetunde) used the award to buy chemicals and consumables.
2015
Zuzana Gajdosechova
The main focus of my PhD research is on mercury speciation in the livers and brains of stranded pilot whales (Globicephala melas), which exhibit surprisingly high tolerance to this global pollutant. We found unprecedented levels of mercury in the brains and our speciation data showed formation of mercuric selenide, an inert mercury compound.
2013
Ásta Heiðrún E. Pétursdóttir
University of Aberdeen
Her work focuses on the speciation of arsenic in seafood, and she was looking into the formation of lipid soluble arsenic species (arsenolipids) found in seaweed. This is of increasing importance because seaweed is growing in popularity in various sectors, e.g. it is used for cooking, eaten as a snack as well as used in various skincare products. In her work she uses novel analytical techniques for the separation, quantification and identification of different arsenolipids in the seaweed. She used the award to attend the 5th International Congress on Arsenic in the Environment held 11-16 May 2014 in Buenos Aires, Argentina.
2012
Two very strong candidates presented themselves for the 2012 award. As a result, the committee decided to award bursaries to both candidates:
Patricia Coelho
University of Surrey
Patricia has been working towards a PhD on environmental and occupational exposure to mining residues. She has been using different atomic spectrometry techniques in order to analyze blood, urine, hair and nail samples collected from exposed populations.
The bursary enabled her to make an oral presentation at the “9th International Symposium on Environmental Geochemistry” held at the University of Aveiro, Portugal.
Adriana Matamoros-Veloza
University of Leeds
Adriana obtained her PhD in the Department of Environmental Geochemistry at Leeds in January 2012 on the subject “Inorganic pathways controlling selenium mobility in natural environments". She continued to work at Leeds providing technical support in analytical environmental chemistry to ongoing projects in the Environmental Geosciences Research Group.
The bursary helped Adriana to present her research at the 29th International Conference of the Society for Environmental Geochemistry and Health, in Toulouse, France in July 2013.
2011
Bushra Al-Wahaibi
University of Strathclyde
Bushra was doing research on the human bioaccessibility of potentially toxic elements in soils using different extraction methods.
The bursary was intended to enable Bushra to spend a week at the British Geological Survey in Keyworth, Nottingham (UK) with Dr Mark Cave and Dr Joanna Wragg who are also involved in studying human bioaccessibility and are leading experts in this field.
2009
Azlan Kamari
University of Glasgow
Azlan is studying the remediation of water and soil contaminated by heavy metals and evaluating the potential of chitosan and its derivatives to remove heavy metals.
The award will allow him to attend the 15th International Conference on Heavy Metals in the Environment (ICHMET), held at the Gdansk University of Technology, Poland in September 2010.
2008
Nicholas Lloyd
University of Leicester
For collaboration with the British Geological Survey investigating the environmental fate of depleted uranium particulates in a contaminated region of the USA using ICP-MS detection.
The work was presented at the Goldschmidt Conference, Vancouver, July 2008.
2007
Dr Rebeca Santamaria-Fernandez
LGC Ltd.
Dr Santamaria-Fernandez has a strong background in environmental analysis, with a PhD from the University of Plymouth, UK, researching the development of new sequential extraction methodologies for trace metals in soils, sediments and biotracers and appointed a Marie Curie Post Doctoral Research Fellow position within the Food Authenticity R&D Team at Eurofins Scientific Analytics, France.
She presented her recent work at LGC on the use of isotope ratios for counterfeit drug detection at the Winter Conference on Plasma Spectrochemistry in Temecula Valley, USA, January 2008.