Manchester undergraduates recognised by “junior Nobel Prize”

14 Oct 2016

The Undergraduate Awards (UA) has announced the winners of the 2016 programme, including two Global Winners and 11 Highly Commended Entrants from Manchester

Cited as the ultimate champion of high-potential undergraduates, and often referred to as a “junior Nobel Prize”, The Undergraduate Awards is the world’s largest international academic awards programme, recognising excellent research and original work across the sciences, humanities, business and creative arts.

In 2016, The Undergraduate Awards received 5,514 papers from undergraduates in 244 institutions and 121 nationalities - a record number of submissions. The Global Winner is the highest performing paper within its category and Highly Commended Entrants are those who were ranked in the top 10% of submissions.

The University's two Global Winners are:

Jamie Hargreaves in the Mathematics & Physics category with his paper, ‘The Role of Anisotropy in Nonlinear Elastic Models of Skin’.
Natalia Beghin in the Politics & International Relations Category with her paper entitled ‘Perverting the Panopticon: Feminism, Peace, and the prospect of a ‘new Totalitarianism’.

The Highly Commended Entrants from the University are:

Ryan George - Business category
Esther Olarewaju - Business category
Veneta Haralampieva - Computer Sciences category
Robert McCall - Economics category
Rosie Nolan - Economics category
Bethany Ryan - Education category
Utkarsh Jain - Mathematics & Physics category
Robin Trenbath - Politics & International Relations category
Ryan Fox - Psychology category
Ria Basu - Social Sciences: Social Policy category
Sammy Madhi - Engineering category

Speaking about this year’s Winners and Highly Commended Entrants, CEO of The Undergraduate Awards Louise Hodgson said: “This is a huge achievement for The University of Manchester and its students. UA received the highest number of submissions to date with only the best papers making it through the judging process - the competition was extremely tough and the Judges were astounded at the high quality of undergraduate research in the programme this year. Congratulations to this year’s successful entrants.”

Winners and Highly Commended Entrants are now invited to meet their fellow awardees at the annual UA Global Summit in Dublin on 8-11 November 2016. The attendees will be addressed by NASA astronaut Dr Mae Jemison, Shiza Shahid of the Malala Fund, MacArthur Fellow Kyle Abrahams, plus many more speakers and facilitators.