Peter Wildy Prize Winners

“I am incredibly honoured (and surprised!) to receive the Peter Wildy Prize. Public engagement has been a passion of mine, and many members of the team, including our amazing collaborators and PE practitioners. It’s fun, although hard work, and it can’t be done alone, which is why this is a team prize. Making science accessible to all is at the heart of our microbiology and microbiome work, and through different forms of ‘storytelling’, we aim to inspire curiosity, encourage understanding, and hopefully ignite a love for science. This award is not just a recognition of our work, but also of the incredible impact that public engagement can have on bringing microbiology to life for everyone.”

“I’m absolutely delighted and honoured to win the Peter Wildy Prize! I’ve been coming to MicroSoc conferences since I was a PhD student, and I’ve seen the amazing prize lectures and huge array of exciting and creative engagement and education activities that go on within the Society and the wider microbiology community, so I’m really humbled to be recognised amongst this. I’d love to share this prize with my colleagues and the team in Sierra Leone that we’ve worked with to deliver our public engagement programme there, and all of the volunteers from students to professors who come along and get stuck in each time I run an Outbreak! session in the UK, they are the ones who make it such a fun and engaging experience for the students. I’m so grateful the prize recognises the impact of all their efforts.”

"It was a big surprise; I knew I had been nominated the year before, but I just really was not expecting it. I had looked at previous winners of the prize and I was so awed by the work they had done that I really didn’t expect to win such a prestigious prize."

"I cried. I actually cried! I cried ugly, sobbing tears of joy. The news came just before World Antimicrobial Awareness Week and the annual publication of our national surveillance report on antimicrobial resistance and utilisation (ESPAUR), both of which I lead for England. I had been extremely busy, I was exhausted. We all have our moments of “Is this all worth it?” and “Am I making a difference?”, so to have the news come through via email in the middle of some really challenging work really overwhelmed me. I was extremely happy. Although in that moment when the news arrived, I couldn’t figure out how the award came about. I suspected that the nomination would have come from someone outside my organisation, who wasn’t a pharmacist, and that made it even more special. I was truly honoured and finding out was very emotional for me."

“What a delightful honour to receive this year’s Peter Wildy Prize. Six years ago, I began circulating a little daily email to members of the Stanford lab I then worked in. So much microbiology research gets published every day that I figured I could help bring it all together for everyone. Things took off rather quickly. The Microbiome Digest Twitter account now has almost 80,000 followers, and its daily digests are put together by a team of 40 amazing volunteers. My sincere thanks to the Microbiology Society for this awesome award, recognizing the power of social media in science communication. I’m delighted to accept it on behalf of myself, our epic volunteers, and of course our loyal army of Twitter followers.”

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"I am so delighted to receive the Peter Wildy Prize. It is a wonderful recognition of innovations in science education. Early-career undergraduates not only can but should engage in authentic research, advancing a key research area, enhancing student persistence in science, and promoting an inclusive scientific community. Much thanks to all of my colleagues who have successfully advanced these efforts."

“When you are a scientist and you receive an award like this it is important to recognize that it is not just you that has managed to get you to where you are, it’s other people.”

"I'm absolutely delighted and I feel very honoured that my work has been recognized and awarded in this way, especially considering that I have had so much fun doing it over the years."

"I’m completely flattered; there are lots of people who do wonderful science communication. I’m lucky enough to have been picked, but there are so many others so I’m delighted."

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“As a scientist dabbling in art, I’ve always felt slightly uncomfortable, as I’m bridging two disciplines. The award recognises that what I’m doing is making a difference and for that I am delighted.”

“I see it as a duty for scientifically literate citizens. As a publicly funded researcher, it’s important to show what we do with the money and give a good account of ourselves. I think it also opens science up to question from a different audience – the public is a lot more literate than many researchers would assume and a lot more interested too. For instance, I remember being very struck when I was doing the I’m a Scientist, Get Me Out of Here! competition by the interest of the students and their enormous optimism for what science can do for the world.”

"Thank you for this wonderful honour and opportunity to talk about the outreach programme that I have developed in Glasgow over the last decade."

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