Inaugural Research and Innovation awards recognise world-class research at Queen Mary

26 May 2023

The awards ceremony, held on 25 May at the Law Society, brought together nominators nominees and their team members to recognise exceptional work and expertise delivered by teams and individuals from across the university in eight categories.  

Andrew Livingston FREng FRS, Vice Principal Research and Innovation and Professor of Chemical Engineering, said: 

"It was wonderful to celebrate excellent research and innovation from across Queen Mary which also showed our values and commitment to opening the doors of opportunity so clearly. I was incredibly impressed by the high standard of nominations we received, which made picking the shortlists very difficult. Congratulations to all our winners!" 

The award categories and winners were: 

Excellent Research Support  

• Helping to engage South Asians in research - Faiza Durrani, East London Genes and Health, the Blizard Institute 

Research Impact – culture civic and community  

• Monitoring and Assessment Tools for Rivers - Angela Gurnell and Geraldene Wharton  
• Guiding the global public health response to the 2022 mpox outbreak - The SHARE Collaborative 

Research Impact – enterprise and commercial innovation 

• New technology to sustain human skin tissue in order to eliminate preclinical testing errors - Rosalind Hannen, Blizard 

• Synthetic bone graft substitutes - Karin Hing, School of Engineering and Materials Science 

Outstanding early career researcher  

• Cancer prevention - Samantha Quaife, Senior Lecturer in Behavioural Science 
• Cancer prevention - Ozgen Deniz, Lecturer and Group Leader at Barts Cancer Institute 

Excellent interdisciplinary research project 

• Preventing Plastic Pollution - A project which brought together 18 partner organisations and has secured funding in excess of Euros14m.  

Outstanding research supervisor 

Overall winner 

Demonstrates an ability to create a disciplinary research environment which fosters the co-creation of knowledge, research and job opportunities, and impact activities between PhD students, supervisor, and external partners. – Julia Hornle, Centre for Commercial Law Studies 

Humanities and Social Science Faculty Winner 

Experienced, hugely energetic, and engaged PhD supervisor. Led the establishment of doctoral exchange programmes with Northwestern University and the University of Basel –– Miri Rubin   

Science and Engineering Faculty Winner 

Provides exceptional flexible supervision tailored to students and ensures they are engaged within their scientific community. Established a study group for PhD students of the Geometry and Analysis group which attracts participants from all around the world –Juan Valiente-Kroon 

Faculty of Medicine and Dentistry Faculty Winner 

Supports students to do exceptionally well, with many producing high impact research publications prior to submitting their thesis, winning awards and being selected for oral presentation at prestigious conferences – Richard Grose 

Outstanding technician 

• Leaderships skills, collegiality and commitment to technicians - Kate Thornton, Science and Engineering 

Vice principal’s award for Research Excellence  

• Exceptional grant capture record and publications - Chema Martin-Duran 
• Outstanding and longstanding research excellence and leadership - Paul Heritage 

A number of researchers were also highly commended for their contribution.  

Highly commended: 

Excellent Research Support 

• Consistently reaching beyond role to deliver research excellence and support to researchers -  Amerisida Dibra, Research Manager, School of Politics and International Relations 

• Commitment to going above and beyond to ensure there is a supportive research environment and work delivered meets high standards  - Jonathon Hills, Research Manager, School of Engineering and Materials Science 

Research Impact – culture civic and community  

• Using arts methodologies to empower care-experienced young children to articulate their needs - The Verbatim Project, Maggie Inchley and Sylvan Baker 
• Working at a population level, this project makes a significant contribution to reducing health inequalities, because more deprived populations eat more salt and sugar - Research Action on Obesity and Salt Unit 

Research Impact – enterprise and commercial innovation 

• Commercialising the outcomes of PhD research, founding a company to provide automatic mixing services for music production - David Ronan, School of Electronic Engineering and Computer Science 
• Multidisciplinary research and commercial approach, bridging dentistry, materials sciences and chemistry - Robert Hill, Dentistry 

Outstanding early career researcher  

• Writing the first ever monograph on French literary play and word games, collaborating with games designers and BBC-Arts and Humanities Research Council New Generation Thinker - Gemma Tidman, Leverhulme Early Career Fellow, School of Languages Linguistics and Film 
• Excellent research outputs in film studies, creative practices and Chinese studies - Kiki Tianqui Yu, Senior Lecturer in Film   
• Strong track record of publications, securing grant income, and commitment to equality, diversity and inclusion - Mona Jaber, Lecturer on the Internet of Things  

Excellent interdisciplinary research project 

• Queen Mary’s three faculties of and the Digital Environment Research Institute collaborate to develop an approach to minimise gambling-related harms - Preventing Gambling Harm  
• HIV and sexual health researchers across East London investigate inequalities that lead to poor sexual health and HIV, especially in minoritised communities - The SHARE Collaborative  

Outstanding technical support

• Exceeding standard duties, enabling the highest quality research, innovation, and knowledge transfer  - Martin Dodel, Barts Cancer Institute 

• Skill and contribution to preparations for REF 21, resulting in Drama maintaining its #1 ranking and Film being ranked #9 - The Film and Drama Technical Teams 

The Research and Innovation awards will be held annually to recognise exceptional research at Queen Mary. 

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