Animal Section :

Winner: Robine Leeuwis  (Norwegian University of Science and Technology)

Robine obtained her BSc and MSc degrees at the Radboud University in the Netherlands, before completing her PhD in Marine Biology at the Memorial University in Canada. She then joined the Jutfelt Fish Ecophysiology Lab at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology in Norway as a postdoc.

Her research focuses on how the environment -- especially anything related to climate change -- affects the physiology of fishes. She currently work on questions related to thermal acclimation and adaptation, whereby she uses zebrafish as a model species and artificial selection as a powerful experimental tool.

Previously Robine also studied Atlantic cod, goldsinny wrasse, sablefish, Atlantic salmon, and rainbow trout. She is interested in topics like immunity, cardiac function, respiration, plasticity, hypoxia, and temperature tolerance. She is always keen to put physiology in its wider ecological and evolutionary context, to collaborate, and to try out new methods in her research.

Cell Section :

Winner: Amy Yi Hsan Saik   (Universiti Tunku Abdul Rahman (UTAR))

Amy obtained her Bachelor of Science (Biomedical Science) and Honours (Pharmacology major) degrees from the University of Western Australia. She completed my PhD at Monash University in 2019 with a higher degree by research full scholarship. Currently, she works as an assistant professor at Universiti Tunku Abdul Rahman (UTAR), Malaysia. She is also the chairperson of the Centre for Stem Cell Research.  

Amy’s specialty is pharmacology. She is passionate about establishing disease models using specialized cells such as induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) and 3D organoids for pharmacological screening, especially for disorders that could be potentially treated with personalised medicine and cell therapy.

Her previous work involved the modification of bioactive compounds to enhance their anti-cancer properties. From there, she now focuses on using nanomaterials as an improved delivery system to enhance the properties of conventional drugs as well as bioactive compounds.

Plant section:

Winner:   Ewa Sybilska   (Institute of Biology Biotechnology and Environmental Protection University of Silesia in Katowice)

Ms Ewa Sybilska is a Ph.D. student in the ‘Plant Genetics and Functional Genomics’ group at the Institute of Biology, Biotechnology, and Environmental Protection, Faculty of Natural Sciences, University of Silesia in Katowice in Poland.

Fascinated by plant genetics, her research interests focus on plant adaptation to abiotic stresses. Under the supervision of Professor Agata Daszkowska-Golec, she is investigating the role of the cap-binding complex (CBC) in response to abscisic acid (ABA) during seed germination in barley (Hordeum vulgare).

Her work aims to elucidate molecular mechanisms and identify the CBC complex's signaling pathways

 Animal Section :

Winner: Patrice Pottier  (University of New South Wales)

I am a Postdoctoral researcher at The Australian National University under the supervision of Daniel Noble. I am also an Adjunct Associate Lecturer at UNSW Sydney, working under the supervision of Losia Lagisz and Shinichi Nakagawa. Before joining the I-DEEL and Noble lab, I did my BSc. and MSc. at the University of Tours (France). I worked with Marlène Goubault and Anthony Mathiron on aggressiveness and conflict resolution in parasitoid wasps. I then moved to the University of Alabama to work with Ryan Earley as a research assistant. There, I investigated the impacts of endocrine-disrupting chemicals on the behaviour and life-history of fish. I recently completed my PhD at UNSW Sydney with Shinichi Nakagawa and Szymon Drobniak, where I assessed the plasticity and resilience of ectotherms to global warming.

While my interests are broad, I am primarily interested in the responses of animals to rapid environmental change. Particularly, I strive to understand what drives the variation in plasticity and adaptation to changing temperatures. My research is question-driven rather than organism-driven, and I enjoy working with a broad range of organisms. I use a combination of data synthesis, meta-analysis, and laboratory experiments to address my questions in various species. I am also an advocate for Open Science and a member of the board of directors of The Society for Open, Reproducible, and Transparent Ecology and Evolutionary Biology (SORTEE).

Outside of academia, I love surfing, travelling, and eating all the vegan food the world has to offer.

Cell Section :

Winner:   Anne-Pia Marty   (University of Cambridge)

Pia has a Bachelor of Natural Sciences with a year of Political Sciences and Economics. She is currently a Master’s student in the University of Geneva and Tsinghua University in ‘Innovation, Human Development and Sustainability’ which basically means the study of science and how that impacts the world to make it more sustainable. She is interested in open source solutions and has a familiarity with the world of Open Hardware as well as that of Research.

Within the Open Bioeconomy Lab, Pia works on the Open Backbone. Her goal is to ensure plasmid stability without relying on antibiotics and also building an open source photometer as an easy-to-build, cheap and accessible lab tool which will also be a module for the open source bioreactor.

Plant Section :

Winner: Jian You Wang   (KAUST: King Abdullah University of Science and Technology)

Jian You Wang currently works at the Center for Desert Agriculture​, King Abdullah University of Science and Technology. Jian You does research in Agricultural Plant Science, Biochemistry and Botany. Jian You uses analytical biochemistry to identify metabolites and combines transcriptomic strategies to study growth-regulatory metabolism.