Hampshire: University of Southampton students named Europe’s best young scientists
Two University of Southampton students have been named as Science Students of the Year at the prestigious SET Awards, Europe’s most important awards for science, engineering and technology undergraduates.
Alex Bromhead, who was named the Best Earth Science Student (Rio Tinto Award), and Christopher Frohmaier, presented with the Best Physics Student (BG Group Award), received their awards in front of an audience of leading academics and industrialists at a ceremony at Kensington Town Hall in London. Over 40 students, with five from Southampton, were shortlisted in 14 different categories and judges paid tribute to the exceptional quality of this year’s work.
Bromhead, who recently graduated from Ocean and Earth Science at the University, was shortlisted for his project ‘Mushy Cumulates Reveal the Workings of Explosive Volcanoes’, which was based on his study of cumulate material (frozen fragments of the magma chamber) derived from the Las Canadas volcano on Tenerife to explore the magmatic processes within the volcano prior to huge eruptions.
Frohmaier was nominated for his project ‘Blue Straggler Stars in the Globular Cluster M30’, which investigated the nature of this unique and enigmatic variety of stars that appear to defy the normal stellar ageing process. Judges were also impressed by his outreach work to promote physics and astronomy to thousands of schoolchildren, including a space balloon experiment that launched a teddy bear into the stratosphere.
