The British Council Cyprus and the European Office of Cyprus held the second national talent competition in Science Communication following the big success of FameLab 2011.

The final FameLab competition  was held in RIK Studio 3 on Wednesday 25 April.

The winner of each country final has won an all-expenses paid trip to the UK, where they will compete in FameLab International 2012,that is taking place as part of the Cheltenham Festival between 12 and 17 June 2012.   http://cheltenhamfestivals.com/science .

1st prize: €2,000 – Ioannis Karypides

Ioannis Karypides is 25 years old and he is from Cyprus. He studied Medical Laboratory Sciences at the Institute of Medical care in Greece. Since he graduated in 2010, he has been working and gaining experiences in private laboratories, undertaking different kind of courses relevant to my field as well as participating and presenting in congresses of Biomedical Science in Greece and Cyprus. He has several hobbies like: Djing, playing darbuka, fishing, and motorcycles. What he really loves is talking about science and he is really exited to say that FameLab has been a part of his life for the past six months. He is very glad that he has been given the chance to meet people who share the same passion as him and look forward to hearing and sharing new ideas as well as expanding my knowledge on science communication.

2nd prize: €1,000 – Loukia Taxitari

Loukia is a cognitive psychologist with a specialisation in language development in the first years of life. Her background involves studies in Greek Language and Literature from the University of Athens, as part of which she studied Greek and General Linguistics. Then she continued with an M.Phil. in General Linguistics followed by a D.Phil. in Experimental Psychology both at the University of Oxford. Having completed her studies she had a short post-doctoral position at the University of Potsdam, Germany, and in the last academic year she has been teaching Psychology courses at the University of Cyprus.

3rd prize: €500 – Stelios Yiatros

Stylianos (or Stelios, as he is most commonly known) is a Lecturer in Structural Engineering at the Department of Civil Engineering and Geomatics of the Cyprus University of Technology, since October 2011. In 2006, Stelios graduated from Imperial College London with an MEng in Civil and Environmental Engineering and then pursued a Doctorate in Nonlinear Structural Mechanics with a scholarship from the same university. In the same year, he was a member of the 2006 volunteering team of engineering students from Imperial, visiting El Salvador after a devastating earthquake to build earthquake resistant school buildings and sustainable sanitation infrastructure in remote communities, in collaboration with local NGOs. His research interests include modelling instabilities in thin-walled and laminated structures, sustainable construction, sustainability in engineering design and in innovative teaching techniques for the teaching of engineering.  His work on engineering sustainability was awarded the Trevithick Prize for the Best paper in the field in 2007 by the Institution of Civil Engineers. When he is not talking about engineering Stelios enjoys reading about history and current affairs, participate and follow sports, traveling and movies.

THE JUDGES

The panel of judges who choose the winner and gave the contestants feedback are:

Dr Philippos Patsalis, Chief Executive Medical Director, the Cyprus Institute of Neurology and Genetics

Dr Vassilios Tsakalos, Director General, Research Promotion Foundation

Dr Nicos Peristianis, Executive Dean, University of Nicosia

Dr Myrtani Pieri, last year’s National and International FameLab winner

Ms Elena Papadopoulou, Actress

Organisers of the competition were the British Council and the European Office of Cyprus and co-organiser the Research Promotion Foundation. Sponsors were the University of Nicosia, TOP Kinisis and Cyprus Mathematical Society. Media sponsors were the CyBC TV channel and Politis Newspaper.  The competition was held under the auspices of the Ministry of Education and Culture.

For more information on Famelab Competition please contact monica.tantele@cy.britishcouncil.org