The Faculty of Science and Technology’s Dean’s Award for PhD Excellence for a student in their second year has been awarded to STOR-i student Hugo Winter. This competitive award is made in recognition not only of his research achievements but also his broader contribution both in terms of the impact of his work and his engagement with external stakeholders and contribution to the training environment in Lancaster’s STOR-i CDT.

Hugo is working on a project co-funded by the Met Office on “Statistical Methodology for the Spatial Extent, Duration and Severity Aspects of Meteorological Extremes”. His research marries new statistical methodology with the concerns and tools of climate scientists to address key questions for society.

One example includes his development of new methodology for deriving the risk of occurrence of heatwave events such as that experienced across Europe in 2003 which caused around 40,000 heat-related deaths and cost the farming industry around £11 billion. He has also assessed how these risks evolve throughout the next century under a range of climate change scenarios.

Hugo will receive a top-up to his stipend in his third year of £1,000.

The Nick Smith prize is awarded to the best Statistics PhD student or students of the department during their 18-month appraisal, on the basis of their excellence in research. It is named after a statistics lecturer in the Department who tragically died in his early career.

This year the departmental Research Committee awarded the Nick Smith prize to Amy Cotterill. The prize is awarded for Amy’s thorough and high-quality work in medical statistics.

Her research demonstrated mathematical ability, statistical maturity and strong applied skills. Moreover, the committee also highlighted that Amy had developed excellent consultancy skills with Novartis, and showed the ability to work additionally on a range of other projects alongside her PhD work. This is leading to an impressive early publication record for her.

Amy receives a prize of £500 in cash.

Professor Brian Francis, Postgraduate Research Tutor, said "Hugo and Amy’s awards both recognise their individual successes and progression in their PhDs – but not only in their academic work, but, just as importantly, in developing external contacts, writing papers for top journals and in enthusiastically contributing to the academic statistical community. They are very well deserved!"

A number of our taught postgraduate students have also had their efforts recognised by the award of prizes. STOR-i MRes student Sean Moorhead received one of the Chancellor's Medals, which is presented annually for exceptional performance at undergraduate and postgraduate levels. The Medal marks the long service of the former Chancellor HRH Princess Alexandra and was presented by the then Chancellor Sir Chris Bonington at the December graduation ceremonies.

Also receiving prizes for their work on the MSc in Statistics were Glen Martin who won the CETL prize for ‘excellence in learning’ and the Royal Statistical Society Student Prize for ‘outstanding performance’ on an accredited course, and Neil Bennett who received the Tessella Industrial prize for ‘best computational project’. They are shown in the picture above receiving their prizes from the Dean of the Faculty of Science and Technology, Professor Mary Smyth, along with other postgraduates from the Faculty, at a reception following the recent graduation ceremony.

In addition, Tomas Rouse was awarded the MSc Statistics PSI (Statisticians in the Pharmaceutical Industry) prize for academic excellence in medical statistics.