Courtney Kousser wins Sir Howard Dalton Young Microbiologist of the Year 2018

07 September 2018

The Microbiology Society is delighted to announce that Courtney Kousser is the winner of this year’s Sir Howard Dalton Young Microbiologist of the Year competition.

The Society’s judging panel awarded the prize to Courtney, a third year PhD student at the University of Birmingham, for her talk ‘Pseudomonas aeruginosa inhibits Rhizopus microsporus germination via the sequestration of iron’.

Courtney said of her award: “I would just like to say thank you to the Microbiology Society for selecting me as Young Microbiologist of the Year. All of the finalists are such amazing scientists and I am honoured to be considered among them. I am so grateful for this opportunity and excited to see where it takes me.

"It’s really nice to be recognised for something that I really enjoy doing. I enjoy communicating science and talking about science with people. So it’s a big honour to be recognised for that.'”

This year’s second prize was awarded to Rute Maria Pinto from The Roslin Institute, University of Edinburgh, for her talk ‘Identification of novel polypeptides expressed from segment 2 of influenza A viruses that modulate the type I interferon response’.

Third prize was awarded to Stephen Dolan from the University of Cambridge for his talk ‘Knowing the Enemy: How does Pseudomonas aeruginosa regulate carbon flux through its glyoxylate shunt?’.

The Society would like to congratulate everyone who made it to the final and presented their research at the AGM.

The award is named after past president Sir Howard Dalton who is recognised for his service to science. The Young Microbiologist of the Year prize is awarded to a post-graduate student or postdoctoral researcher demonstrating excellence in science communication.

Full detail of the prize can be found here.