The shortlist for the Applied Microbiology International Awards 2023 has now been announced.
The AMI Awards programme is designed to celebrate the brightest minds in our field and promote the research, group, projects, products and individuals who continue to help shape the future of applied microbiology.
The shortlist for the AMI Product of the Year award was announced earlier this month - and now it’s the turn of the six Horizon awards.
Added to the existing three Horizon Awards (the WH Pierce Prize, the Basil Jarvis Prize, and the Dorothy Jones Prize) are three new categories - the John Snow Prize, the Christiana Figueres Prize and the Rachel Carson Prize.
Organisers Applied Microbiology International (AMI) received 142 nominations from a total of 27 countries.
The winners in all categories will be announced by AMI at the annual EMI lecture at BMA House in London on November 16.
The shortlist for the Horizon awards is as follows:
- Christopher Stewart, Newcastle University
- Abiodun Tola Seriki, University of Lagos
- Mashkoor Mohsin, University of Agriculture, Faisalabad
- Fernanda Mozzi, CERELA-CONICET, Argentina
- Benjamin Swift, Royal Veterinary College
- Thomas Thompson, Queen’s University Belfast
- Hans W. Paerl, University of North Carolina – Chapel Hill
- Rosa Vásquez Espinoza, Amazon Research Internacional
- Katherine (Kate) Duncan, Strathclyde Institute of Pharmacy and Biomedical Sciences
- Raquel Peixoto, King Abdullah University of Science and Technology
- John E. Hallsworth, Queen’s University Belfast
- Matthew Sullivan, Ohio State University
- Jim Lynch, University of Surrey
- Brajesh Kumar Singh, Western Sydney University
- Chioma Blaise Chikere, University of Port Harcourt
- Nur Ain Izzati Mohd Zainudin, Universiti Putra Malaysia
John Snow Prize
The John Snow Prize will be awarded to a scientist who has made a significant contribution to the expansive field of clean water and sanitation, such as the management of surface and groundwater contamination or human exposure to pathogens.
It is named after an English physician who was widely viewed as the father of modern epidemiology because of his ground-breaking studies of cholera. During the second cholera epidemic in London in 1848–49, Snow together with other British physicians founded the London Epidemiological Society to advise the government on ways to combat the recurrent epidemics.
Using a scientific methodology he was able to trace the source of the third cholera outbreak in 1854 to the Broad Street pump in Soho. His second major contribution was with his “Grand Experiment”, which lasted until 1855, in which he demonstrated the harmful effect of contaminated water by comparing waterborne cholera in London neighbourhoods receiving sewage-contaminated water as opposed to those receiving relatively clean water coming from upper River Thames away from urban pollution.
Christiana Figueres Prize
The Christiana Figueres Prize is awarded to a scientist who has used microbiology to help further our understanding of climate change or directly in solutions that can lower greenhouse gas emissions or turn renewable resources into low-carbon and low-cost electricity, fuels, chemicals or materials.
Christiana Figueres started her climate action leadership almost 30 years ago, founding the Centre for Sustainable Development in the Americas in 1995. She was a negotiator of the United Nations Convention on Climate Change and the Vice President of the Bureau of the Climate Convention representing Latin America and the Caribbean.
Ms Figueres has provided senior strategic guidance on climate change issues to organisations such as C-Quest Capital, Italian energy company Eni, S.p.A, World Bank, the Global Commission on the Geopolitics of Energy Transformation, Carbon Rating Agency Carbon, and Project Catalyst.
She has received countless awards and goverment recognitions including the are-millennium-award (2017), Lifetime Achievement Award bestowed by Ethical Corporation (2018), The Edinburgh Medal (2019), Apolitical’s 100 Most Influential People in Gender Policy (2021), the International Eco-Hero (2022) and appointed Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire (2022).
Rachel Carson Prize
The Rachel Carson Prize will be awarded to a scientist who has used microbiology to help further our understanding of ocean biodiversity or directly in solutions that conserve and sustainably use marine resources for sustainable development.
It is named after the American marine biologist and writer who catalyzed the global environmental movement with her 1962 book ‘Silent Spring’ outlining the dangers of chemical pesticides on the ecosystems and on humans, including causing cancer. She also accused the chemical industry of spreading misinformation and public officials of accepting industry claims uncritically.
Following her publication, President John F. Kennedy’s Science Advisory Committee Report validated Carson’s research, leading to a nationwide ban on DDT and other pesticides and sparked the movement that ultimately led to the creation of the US Environmental Protection Agency.
In 1936 Ms. Carson became the second woman hired by the US Bureau of Fisheries where she was then Editor-in-Chief of all publications for the US Fish and Wildlife Service. She won a National Book Award, a national science writing-prize and a Guggenheim grant. Ms. Carson also received medals from the National Audubon Society and the American Geographical Society, and induction into the American Academy of Arts and Letters. She passed away 2 years after the publication of ‘Silent Spring’ but in 1980 was posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
To find out more about AMI’s Grants and Awards programme, visit https://appliedmicrobiology.org/membership-community/grants-awards.html.
