Prestigious Margaret Steel Scholarship Awards

CDT students Foteini Zagklavara and Jessica Proctor are amongst the three students awarded the Margaret Steel Scholarship. The award is a generous £1000 prize awarded female students who showed a particular aptitude for innovation and want to develop an idea.

Foteini developed an interest in the Biomedical applications Engineering can have, and how Engineering can be used to help develop or facilitate the treatment or diagnosis of patients. As part of her PhD, she develops new experimental techniques that will allow Biologists to detect the different types of DNAs that exist in samples. Foteini explains “The idea of building this device is driven by the need to provide a fast and robust way of identifying quantitatively and qualitatively the different types of DNA that a biological sample might contain, as well as the specificity of the DNA molecules in that sample.”

Jessica's PhD focuses on gaining a deeper understanding of airborne transmission of pathogens within the indoor environment. She is extremely passionate about the work she conducts in hospitals that is focussed on understanding routes of infection in those with cystic fibrosis (CF) and coming up with ways to mitigate infection risk. Jessica would like to design a medical bioaerosol sampler to sample patients cough/exhaled breath in hospitals that is easy to use and analyse. She says “Investigating key features of 'super producers' (people that breathe/cough out higher quantities of bacteria than the average patient) can aid with preventative measures and research into the field of airborne transmission.”

Read more about the prestigious Marget Steel Scholarship, awarded to three EPS students.