BACG Young Scientists Award
The BACG has established this annual award to recognise achievement by young scientists publishing work in the field of crystal growth. The winner will receive a cheque for £300 and an engraved medal. They will present the work as an invited talk in BACG 2025, after which the formal presentation of the award will be made by the President of the BACG during the conference.
The award is made annually to the candidate achieving the most significant advance in the understanding of the theory, practice or characterisation of crystal growth processes published in the scientific literature in the previous three calendar years.
Award Criteria
Entries, which are not restricted to members of the BACG, should be based on research carried out in a laboratory in the United Kingdom or the Republic of Ireland or by a UK or ROI national working overseas.
Candidates should be within 15 years* or less from the award of their first degree, at the time of the annual meeting. The work should be submitted in the form of a single paper carrying an acceptance date prior to the 15th anniversary of their first degree diploma. The candidate should nominate a suitable referee (Head of Department, supervisor or line manager) who may be contacted to comment on the paper and on the extent of the candidate's contribution to the work.
The entries are judged by the president of the BACG who may consult widely with national and international experts in the particular area of the entry to ensure that the work of the successful candidate is of the highest quality. BACG reserves the right not to award the prize in any particular year in which entries are deemed not have reached a sufficiently high standard.
The winner will present their work in a plenary session at the BACG Annual Conference and will receive a free conference and reasonable travel expenses in addition to the award.
Persons wishing to submit nominations for the award should forward a single publication together with supporting material (CV, reference letter ect.) to elena.simone@polito.it. For the 2025 award deadline for submission is the 30 of April 2025.
*Years that nominees missed from research due to maternity leave, health issues, or other reasons (contact us if you are not sure), will not count.
Previous Award Winners
2024
Pietro Sacchi - University of Manchester
2023
Lorenzo Metilli - University of Leeds
2022
Guo Mingxia - Imperial College London
2021
Vaselina Marinova - University of Sheffield
2019
Mark Holden - University of Leeds
2018
Sarah Guerin - University of Limerick
2017
David C. Green University of Leeds
3-D visualization of additive occlusion and tunable full spectrum fluorescence in calcite, Nature communications 2016, 13524 DOI:10.1038/ncomms13524
2016
Rachel Sullivan University of Manchester
2015
Kumar Khamar University of Limerick
Investigating the role of solvent-solute interaction in crystal nucleation of salicylic acid from organic solvents Journal Of the american Chemical society, 136, 11664, 2014
2014
James Atkins University of Leeds
The importance of feldspar for ice nucleation by mineral dust in mixed-phase clouds, Nature 498, 355–358 2013 DOI:10.1038/nature12278
2013
Kevin Back University of Manchester
2012
Colin Seaton University of Limerick
2010
Joanna Stevens University of Manchester
XPS studies of proton transfer in molecular crystals
2009
Andrew Bond University of Southern Denmark
The remarkable polymorphism of aspirin
2008
Benjamin J. Murray University of Leeds
The inhibition of ice crystalisation and formation of metastable ice in atmospherically relevant aqueous solutions.
2007
Catherine E. Nicholson Durham University
Direct measurement of critical nucleus size in confined volumes.
2006
Michelle A. Moram University of Cambridge
Growth of low disclocation density GaN using novel ScN interlayers.
2005
Fabien Silly University of Oxford
2004
Chun Min Chew University of Sheffield
2001
Carolyn Koh Kings College London
Mechanisms of crystal growth of gas hydrates
2000
Jonathan Hayes University of Bristol
1999
Papa Kofi Boateng King's College London
Computer Simulation of Crystallization from Solution, J. Amer. Chem. Soc., 1998, 120, 9600-9604
1998
Mashud U. Ahmed NEWI
Mechanism for photo-assisted MOVPE nitrogen doping of ZnSe
1997
Nicholas Blagden UMIST
1996
Tin Cheng Nottingham University
1995
Mark Aindow Birmingham University
Nominate an Awardee
Persons wishing to submit nominations for the award should forward a single publication with supporting material to the following email address:
l.seton@ljmu.ac.uk