Sign in. It’s quick, free and it’s up to you.
An account is an optional way to support the work we do. Find out more.
A DUBLIN-BASED scientist has been named as one of the winners of the prestigious 2012 L’Oréal-UNESCO UK & Ireland For Women In Science Fellowships (FWIS).
Dr Silvia Giordani is from the school of chemistry at Trinity College Dublin and won £15,000 prize money.
The award was also given to three other international scientists on the night, who are all working on postdoctoral studies.
Funding
The aim is to award outstanding female scientists with money that they can spend on whatever they may need to continue their research – this can range from scientific equipment to covering childcare or travel costs.
Dr Giordani commented on the night that without this funding, she would be unable to carry out her research, and this sentiment was echoed by John O’Halloran from University College Cork, who was one of the judges.
She said it can be “ridiculously” hard to get funding sometimes, particularly since the recession, so an award like this enables her to further her work.
Trinity
In total, Dr Giordani, who is from Bergamo in the north of Italy, has spent eight years in Ireland at TCD, as well as a spell completing her PhD at the University of Miami in the United States.
She received a Marie Curie Fellowship award to go to Trinity College and has also received the President of Ireland Young Researcher award, which enabled her to return to the college in 2007.
What is it that she enjoys about working at TCD? “The facilities – it’s a very good university,” she said, adding that the move to the new Trinity bioscience institute has been particularly great as it has meant a lot of integration between scientists from different spheres.
Female scientists
The award was a great opportunity for connecting and networking and also big exposure for Dr Giordani – plus it was an opportunity for her to make new contact with other female scientists, she said.
At at time when more girls are being encouraged to study science, Dr Giordani feels that inspiration and role models are important.
Young people need role models; especially young girls need female role models to feel they can do it.I like outreach; I do quite a bit of outreach myself.
Dr Giordani does a mentoring programme with her old high school in Italy, where she mentors a group of 10 students.
I always tell them there are not too many women in science but the ones that I meet are really good and curious.
“Stay curious and ask questions but also believe in yourself,” she advises them, adding that seeing another woman working in the science field can inspire young women. Above all, she believes “there is no substitute” for hard work.
Project
Dr Giordani is currently working on a project for applications in new bio-medical diagnostic tools. She heads up a five-person research team at the college, and grants and funding have been instrumental in allowing them to continue their work.
Of her work, Dr Giordani said:
We are aiming to design small, molecular or nanosized, devices that can carry out a series of different functions within the context of smart and responsive medicine.The starting point is a carbon-based material that is compatible with living biological systems. Once we have solubilized this platform, we attach one or more components to it in such a way that the resulting device can carry out a pre-programmed task.
The team is currently examining components that allow it to track and monitor the location of the device, and are also exploring the possibilities for using this platform as a vehicle for targeted and controlled drug-delivery within a biological system.
They also hope to equip the device with components that will allow them to switch it on and off using different types of “remote control”, or external stimuli.
Dr Giordani described it as exciting to be “able to do things in that area that is new and nobody has done before”.
Now that she has won her award, Dr Giordani told TheJournal.ie that she is looking forward to the next phase in her work, and seeing how her research team progresses.
To embed this post, copy the code below on your site
Retrofitting is only available to the people with plenty of cash . Same as most other benefits .
All I read in the above article is that we need to lower our living standards drastically. I do not trust anyone who tells me we need to eat less meat and then replace it with processed crap.
@An Drew Bearla: Yes, all that came out of the big meeting in Davos is that we must stop eating meat and dairy or the world will starve, and we must share our cars or cycle or walk, all the mullarkey Ryan is spouting and all from a bunch that then sat down to a four course meat laden lunch after flying in on 1500 private jets. The narrative to blame the ordinary consumer and deflect away from their lavish carbon laden lifestyles is ridiculous. Animal farm springs to mind
Will do this, will improve that. All talk and no action. The government has no motivation to implement any of these policies. Still using diesel commuter trains ffs.
@Tomo: We are making progress faster than ever before. I would live to speed it up too, but denial of what’s happening is nor helpful.
Bottom line is what comes out of our chimneys and out of the vehicle tailpipes isn’t good for us and has resulted in worse health for our population and more deaths. Even if you think climate change isn’t real (it is) then only a fool would continue to not tackle us poisoning ourselves.
@Barry Somers: a few more new taxes will sort everything.
That’s the problem, the greens solution is to tax the problem with no alternative. Of course, people are turning against it
@Jim Buckley Barrett: Not true.
@Nicholas McMurry: Yes it is true. Tax tax tax from a fella that knows about as much about climate change as my 8yr old. All the solutions Eamo is pushing for at present are financially or infrastructurally unviable like hydrogen which is inhibitively expensive to make or offshore wind which we have no way due to planning restrictions and lack of infrastructure make, but which are the chief objectives of E3G which ol Eamo is/was a senior associate of, as usual the self serving bull we have gotten used to in Irish politics. Any man that signs off on tax incentives for fuel for private jets and the writing off of carbon footprint for such is not green. No viable alternatives for anything, no reduction in our carbon footprint despite all the waffle, lying about our agricultural footprint throwing our farmers and food producers under a bus because they are a soft target while letting big corporations off the hook by giving them all our carbon credits from our grasslands, hedgegrows and forestry. Ireland is not one of the worst polluters as we are so often told to justify taxing the life out of us we just fall foul of the carbon credit rules that the large industrial countries set up to make themselves look far better than they really are, America, Germany France etc
@Nicholas McMurry: of course its true, if the government and greens in particular wanted to actually do something that wasn’t a punitive tax measure, it would be a shock.
Insulation is the most effective measure, yet they persist in making the retrofitting policy, part of the convoluted seai scheme which requires “trained” certified installers, when homeowners could, depending on their current skills learn to install it just as effectively themselves, by watching a few instructional videos, just like the “trained” installers did…
Subsidising insulation for domestic projects with a zero vat rate, would encourage more people to retrofit insulation to their homes themselves, reducing the amount of heating from all sources, along with particulate and carbon emissions across the board.
Better put the old age pension up. Where will all the food come from? More homes will be needed.
Anyone find those TRVs (main image) a complete waste of time?
I find that after a year the da*n thing is stuck on full heat. (I’ve checked the pin underneath and it seems to move freely) Was this just another way for the plumbers to make a few bucks :) ?
So, if we live in England or Wales and insulate our homes we could live for 836,000 years. I don’t want to live that long.
Why does an article in an Irish publication write about a foreign country without stipulating that it is a study done in that foreign country?
have your say