Student Competition 2006

The annual CUDOS Student Competition took an interesting turn this year. Instead of the usual technical/scientific research, the students were asked to write a short popular science article about their own research at CUDOS. The task was to present their own research to the intelligent lay person (in a form that could be found in popular science magazines such as New Scientist or COSMOS) within 500-1000 words (Full details).

The competition was organised by Martijn de Sterke, CUDOS Education and Training Coordinator.

The judges were:
Ross McPhedran - CUDOS Chief Investigator at the University of Sydney
David Ellyard - Science Communicator and ASC National Treasurer
Sara Phillips - COSMOS Magazine Deputy and Online Editor
Particular thanks go to the two external judges who brought their professional expertise to the task.

The standard was high and all submissions were considered meritorious. The following winners were announced at the CUDOS workshop in Hervey Bay on Wednesday 9th August 2006.

1st Prize
Peter Domachuk - Music of the Spheres (can also be found on COSMOS Online where it was published on 10th August 2006.

2nd Prize
Dane Austin - An Explosion of Colour

3rd Prize
Luke Stewart - Smart Gemstones

Highly Commended
Aaron Matthews - (not available)
Steven Morrison - Journey to the surface of photonics
Christian Rosberg - Photons: young slaves of a technological society
Nemanja Jovanovic - Could computer clock speeds and the internet's bandwidth really be limited by ultrafast lasers?
Amrita Prasad - Gifted glasses to Lure Light: The age of Optics

Meritorious Participation
Joe Mok - Putting breaks on the lightening fast
Hong Nguyen - Nanowires brings the next revolution
Jamie Vahn - The Photonic World Cup: Towards all-optical integrated circuits
Ivan Garanovich - Cattching all colors of the rainbow

Martijn introducing the prize ceremony

Ross McPhedran awarding prizes and Peter Domachuk modelling his new COSMOS cap