This award is given to a member of technical staff whose exceptional practical skills, commitment and vision has enabled the highest quality research, innovation or knowledge exchange.
Martin Dodel is a Research Technician in the Mardakheh Lab in the Barts Cancer Institute. He trained in Germany as a Biologielaborant, or Research Laboratory Technician, and then began his professional career in 2009 working on proteomics, followed by immunology, neurodegeneration and now molecular biology.
In the past year he has led the successful submission of a paper to Nature Methods, and been a middle author in papers in Nature Cell Biology and EMBO Journal. Martin has also been a listed contributor to a patent application, developed with Queen Mary Innovation, and a driving force in the establishment and benchmarking of the TREX method of assessing RNA-proteins interactions.
Beyond his duties in the Mardakheh Lab, Martin is also involved in training and development for new starters in BCI, and has provided technical support which has enabled proteomics research between research groups at QMUL and beyond, significantly enhancing the research profile of the university.
The panel concurred with Martin’s endorser’s statement that his achievements in the past two years alone are extraordinary for a research technician, and that they rival more senior academics’ outputs. They were also struck by the huge commitment Martin has to creating a collaborative, welcoming and supportive research culture in BCI, alongside pursuing agenda-setting scientific excellence.
Geography Technical Team, BBC Panorama (Geography, HSS). The Geography Technical Team are responsible for technical provisions in their school for both teaching and research. This year they contributed to research discussions, ran sample collections and data analysis to provide content for a BBC Panorama episode on the environmental impact of coastal landfill, led by Prof Kate Spencer. Highly Commended by the panel for providing the research that underpinned a highly impactful media moment, and for their efforts to create an undergraduate prize in Geography.
Sherman Lo (Central ITS). Sherman is a Research Software Engineer in QMUL’s central ITS team, developing and improving software used by researchers and helping them use our high performance computing facilities. In the past year he has rewritten a poorly performing code used by a medical research team, allowing them to run it in a few hours instead of ten days. Highly Commended by the panel for Sherman’s extraordinary technical achievements, his open approach to feedback and collaborative working, and his commitment to sharing this code with the wider research community.
Manuela Terranova Barberio; Sam Wallis; Darren Cox; Qasim Zia