Undergraduate Awards Izzy Howlett with medal at ceremony in Dublin 650

Izzy Howlett, a student from the University of Glasgow, has been presented with the Thomas Clarkson Gold Medal at The Global Undergraduate Summit in Dublin, Ireland.

Izzy, who recently graduated from the School of Social & Political Sciences, was the Global Winner in the Social Sciences: Sociology & Social Policy category for her paper “A Descriptive Study of The Documents Presented to Patients Following Down Syndrome Screening.”

Also attending from the University of Glasgow was Natalia Brzozowska who was Commended in the Life Sciences category for her papers “Dysregulation of microRNAs miR-986, miR-281-1 and miR-281-2 affects Malpighian tubule function and morphology in Drosophila melanogaster” and “Is circular RNA CDR1as a stabilizing reservoir for miRNA rather than an inhibitory sponge?”

Two other Glasgow students – College of Arts Denis Topalović and College of Social Sciences Olivia Carlin were both Highly Commended for two essay submissions. Denis was commended in the Literature category and Olivia was commended in the Business category.

A group of the world’s top performing students gathered in Dublin to take part in the Global Undergraduate Summit, a three-day conference where students from 60 universities, 19 countries and 25 different categories gathered to collaborate and share research.

In total, The Global Undergraduate Awards (UA) received more than 4,800 submissions to the 2018 programme from undergraduates in 333 universities from 46 countries. There is no other event of this scale or academic breadth and quality that is focused exclusively on the work of undergraduates.

Students presented their work from the 25 different categories showcasing this year’s top undergraduate work from across the sciences, humanities, business and the creative arts.

Executive Director of UA, Dr Garret Maher spoke of the significance of the Global Undergraduate Summit: “It is about much more than highlighting the top 150 contributors; it encourages cross-discipline collaboration, helps young students understand their responsibility to engage in issues of global importance and encourages debate in an atmosphere of solidarity.

"This experience will contribute to how they conduct their professional lives in the future; that Ireland is the source of this makes an impression on young women and men, many of whom will have positions of leadership and authority in the future.”

The Global Winners received the Thomas Clarkson Gray Gold Medal, named after the man who was described by the poet, Samuel Coleridge as ‘a moral steam engine’.

The Chairman of UA, Jim Barry, said the naming of the Medal after Clarkson was very deliberate. “As a young man, Clarkson had won his first prize for an essay on slavery and then dedicated his whole life to its abolition in the British Empire, something he saw achieved by an Act of Parliament in 1833.

"The Undergraduate Awards has exactly that ambition – that young men and women across the globe would address their academic talents to matters of significance in all fields of learning in the hope that it would spark their passion to be change makers and leaders into the future.”

The Undergraduate Awards (UA) is the world's leading academic awards programme, recognising innovation and excellence at undergraduate level. Cited as the ultimate champion for high-potential undergraduates, UA identifies leading creative thinkers through their undergraduate coursework and provides top-performing students with the support, network and opportunities whilst encouraging them over the course of the three-day UA Global Summit in Dublin to engage in issues of importance to global society.


First published: 23 November 2018