The RMS Beginners' Competition takes place every year at the annual one day meeting of the The Society of Electron Microscope Technology (SEMT). The aim of the competition is to encourage those relatively new to microscopy to present their work before an audience at a scientific meeting. The presentation slot is always a highlight of the meeting, giving entrants the chance to deliver a relatively short and well-thought-out talk in an economical style.
Participants are allocated a 10-minute slot, to include a recommended seven-minute talk and three minutes for questions.
Previous Winners
2023 winner
Geri Topore (Imperial College London) won the 2023 Beginners' Competition with a talk titled 'STEM/APT for the study of magnetoelectric Aurivillius-phase thin films.' He said: “I am extremely grateful and very honoured to have received this award! Presenting in the Natural History Museum was a one-of-a-kind experience, and I would like to thank RMS and SEMT for giving me the opportunity to present my work so early on my PhD journey.”
2022 winner
Molly Hair, of Oxford Brookes University, with her captivating talk about her work on whole cell segmentation Volume EM, titled 'Patterns of organelle duplication and segregation in the Leishmania mexicana cell cycle revealed by 3D electron microscopy segmentation of mitochondrial cristae in volume electron microscopy data'.
2019 Winner
Minal Patel, of NPL, triumphed at the RMS Beginners Competition 2019. Minal's talk, titled Micro-mechanical Testing of Aged Thermal Barrier Coatings, won over the audience at the event, which took place at London's Natural History Museum.
Read a summary of the talks given by three of the participants in 2019
2018 Winner
Eduardo Frias-Anaya. Eduardo, who studied with the Open University, received the award for his presentation titled Molecular and ultrastructural characterisation of the ageing blood-brain barrier in female mice.
2017 Winner
Tony Fearns from the Francis Crick Institute with his presentation entitled "Elucidating the sub-cellular whereabouts of pathogenic mycobacteria" where he explained how TEM can be used to understand the environments faced by mycobacteria in host cells which is key in developing new therapies to fight tuberculosis.
2016 Winner
Sherif Elsharakawy, Queen Mary University of London
Multiple Length-Scale Imaging of Biomimetric Hierarchical Mineralized Materials
2015 Winners
Seyit Ali Kamanli, Royal Holloway University of London
Imaging and visualization of the life stages of Chinese mitten crab using Confocal Microscope and CT Scanning
Feargus Cooney, University of Exeter
Using Micro-CT to invesitgate whether the cognitive demands of a comlex breeding strategy in solitary wasps lead to changes in brain structure
2014 Winner
Jonathan Wheatland, Queen Mary University
3D multi-Scale Visualisation of Complex Flocculated Natural Sediments
2013 Winner
Radka Gromnicova, Open University
Small gold nanoparticles: potential carriers of therapeutics across the blood-brain barrier
2012 Winner
Janna Collier, Biomedical Imaging Unit at Southampton General Hospital
Haemophilus influenzae induced cellular and ciliary changes in epithelial cells
2011 Winners
Matthew Sharpe, University of Southampton
Cerebral vascular basement membranes change with age. Implications for the pathogenesis of Alzheimer’s Disease
Prasanna Gamage, Open University
Fate of functionally distinct neurons during ageing in the colon of mice