Dr Julie Keeble wins Outreach & Widening Participation Award
At the 2011 King’s Awards on 21st September, Dr Julie Keeble, Academic Fellow in the Department of Pharmacology and Therapeutics, was presented with the Outreach & Widening Participation Award. For the fifth year, members of the College community gathered at the Maughan Library to celebrate the excellence and innovation of staff, students and alumni.
Introducing the Awards, the Principal, Professor Rick Trainor, commented: ‘I would like to thank all the winners for their dedication and commitment. This is a time of unprecedented change for the higher education sector and there is no doubt that all universities face challenges ahead with the advent of the new student funding system. King’s is well-positioned to cope with these changes, but ultimately it is the enthusiasm, professionalism and passion of our staff, students and alumni which allow us to adapt while continuing to strive for excellence in everything we do.’
Dr Keeble said: ‘Science is a subject that people of all ages can engage in and yet many people do not appreciate the opportunities that studying Science can lead to. We need to inspire the next generation of “bright, young minds” because they will be carrying out our scientific research of the future. Furthermore, certain issues in science, such as the use of animals in research, need a greater public understanding and we, as scientists, should be addressing such issues.
‘There is a huge amount of fantastic research that goes on at King’s that school pupils and the general public simply do not see on a day-to-day basis, but would like to know a lot more about. Much of the time, it is the public who fund our research and we have a certain obligation to share it with them. These are all reasons why scientists at King’s and elsewhere should be doing Outreach and why I have been working with members of the School of Biomedical Sciences and other King’s staff and students to try and make this easier and more exciting.’
A full list of winners is available.