School Lightning Talks 2016
November 2016
Twenty-seven researchers in the School of Natural Sciences provided two-minute snapshots of their fascinating work at the 4th annual ‘lightning talk’ showcase.
The aim of the talks was to demonstrate the incredible diversity of research taking place in botany, geography, geology and zoology, and from engineering colleagues, in Trinity.
Research topics ranged from the fungi that may ward off crop disease to the Papal tax receipts that are being used to map Ireland’s past, and from the rocks that could solve a long-lasting mystery relating to the Spanish Armada’s attempted refuge in Ireland to the development of an approach for assessing how conservation funds should be allocated to protect the world’s endangered species.
Head of the School of Natural Sciences, Professor Fraser Mitchell, said: “It was wonderful to learn of the sheer range of research being conducted across the School. The excitement and energy associated with each research project was inspirational and the ability of all speakers to convey the relevance and details of their research in just two minutes was amazing.”
The judging panel comprised Science Gallery’s Aine Flood, Trinity’s Press Officer for the Faculty of Engineering, Mathematics and Science, Thomas Deane, and Professor Mitchell.
The judges had a hard time selecting winners for the fabulous prizes donated by event sponsors Dunne and Crescenzi, The Westin, The Merrion and Science Gallery, but were delighted to award first prize to Tadhg Dornan for his talk ‘Concrete: An aggregate of problems.’
Carolina Rosca won second prize for her talk ‘The long-term memory of peat bogs’, while Rachel Byrne won third prize for her talk ‘Parasites in badgers – an untold story.’ There were also spot prizes for Anne Dubéarnès, Darren O’Connell, Christopher Chevallier, and Eoghan Corbett.