Famelab 2006 final for MRC scientist
31 March 2006
Dr Sarah Forbes-Robertson, an MRC-funded cancer researcher at Swansea University's School of Medicine, has won the Wales heat of FameLab - the UK’s annual competition to find the best new talent in science communication. Finalists win a weekend masterclass in science communication and the overall winner will get a development deal with Channel 4 and take home a cash prize of £2000.
Sarah fought off tough competition from astro-physicists, nanotechnologists, biologists and engineers at Swansea's National Waterfront Museum on Sunday, March 19th, to make the Famelab final, which takes place at the Cheltenham Science Festival in June.
During the heats, Sarah gave a three-minute talk on the human genome to a panel of judges that included Vivienne Parry, science journalist and TV presenter and Professor Sir Martin Evans, Director of the School of Biosciences at Cardiff University. Having qualified for the semi-final, she then went on to face a series of questions on science and media before impressing the judges with a talk on limb development.
Sarah, 35, is a post-doctoral researcher in the School of Medicine's Human Cancer Studies Group. She said of her sucess: "I am amazed that I am through to the finals. All the talks were of such high quality and they all deserved to win. I thoroughly enjoyed the day though. I really have a passion for my subject and I love coming up with new and fun ways to explain what I do. A lot of people think that to understand science you have to be really brainy, but I think it's just a question of finding the right way to explain it.”
Sarah will face nine other scientists from Swansea, Newcastle, Edinburgh, London and Belfast at the Famelab final on 10th June 2006, at Cheltenham. Her challenge will be to give a five-minute talk on a scientific topic to a live audience.
FameLab (www.famelab.org) is an initiative of Cheltenham Science Festival in partnership with NESTA and supported by Pfizer, The Daily Telegraph, Channel 4, Research Councils UK and the British Council.
