Caitrin’s wild card win could lead to FameLab final

27 Nov 2012

Life Sciences MSc student Caitrin Crudden won the audience vote and the judges’ wild card vote at the regional finals of FameLab on 24 November.

Although Victoria Martindale from Oxford Brookes University was the regional final winner, Caitrin’s wild card win means that she still has a chance of making it through to the finals in April 2013.

The wild card will be considered alongside those from other regions and the strongest will be selected to form the line-up for the final of FameLab UK, the UK’s biggest competition to discover new talent to engage the public in science and engineering.

Caitrin was one of three postgraduate students from the University (Liz Granger from Life Sciences and Ishara Kamalanthan from EPS also competed) who battled it out with the region's finest science communicators at the live regional final on Saturday 24 November for a place at the national final.

Contestants had just three minutes to pitch a concept in science or engineering to the panel of judges which included Victoria Gill, Matthew Cobb and Timandra Harkness. Each judge assessed the finalists’ presentations on three qualities: content, clarity and charisma!

Caitrin, who is studying for an MSc in Cancer Research and Molecular Biomedicine, said: “My first talk (in the initial heats) was on the use of the zebrafish as a new and exciting in vivo model for studying cancer research.

"At the regional final, I talked about the manipulation of the human immune system to recognise and eliminate cancer cells in a similar way that it does with external pathogens.

“One of my aims is to bring research and science to a lay audience in a refreshing and interesting way, so I tried to encompass humour and popular culture references into my talks, including reality TV, sushi and flattening your granny, to name but a few.”