Congratulations to Dr Sandip Kamath from James Cook University, Townsville who captivated the audience and judges with an engaging presentation about shellfish allergies.
Dr Kamath’s research aims to improve testing for shellfish allergies and he hopes this will lead to the development of a vaccine for food allergies. Sandip is now preparing to represent Australia in the international FameLab finals at the Cheltenham Science Festival on 2-7 June.
Congratulations also to runner-up, David Farmer from the Florey Institute and the “People’s Choice” winner, Kiara Bruggeman from Australian National University.
“Winning the FameLab Australian Final has been an amazing experience, being chosen among some of the best science communicators in Australia. FameLab is an excellent platform for researchers to get our message through to the public about the contribution of science to humanity,” said Dr Kamath.
“Personally, FameLab has helped me immensely to create awareness about food allergies and provided me with an opportunity to talk about our world class research tackling the allergy epidemic,” Sandip said.
“Australia’s young scientists are stars, who deserve a place on centre stage. FameLab helps them develop the skills to perform, advocate and explain – and the 2015 finals revealed the powerful stories and discoveries coming from labs, research centres and museums across Australia,” said Helen O’Neil, The British Council’s Director in Australia.
“British Council Australia congratulates Sandip and I am looking forward to hearing how he goes at Cheltenham, but he and all the finalists have already shown they can engage and persuade audiences at a time when governments want to encourage investment in science technology engineering and mathematics (STEM),” said Ms O’Neil.
The 2014 FameLab Australia winner, Michael Smout, was also from James Cook University.
The night was hosted by ABC’s Robyn Williams and the judges were Helen O’Neil - British Council Australia Gillian O'Shaughnessy - ABC Perth and Prof Ryan Lister (UWA).