Allan Ure Memorial Bursary

Closing date for nominations 30 April 2012.  Please see the flyer at the bottom of the page for further information regarding the award and the application process.

The Allan Ure Bursary is awarded on an annual basis, alternately by the Atomic Spectroscopy Group of the Analytical Division of the Royal Society of Chemistry (ASG, AD, RSC) and the Atomic Spectrometry Updates (ASU) Editorial Board. 

The award is presented to a scientist, at the start of their career, who the adjudicators believe has made a significant contribution to knowledge in the area of the application of atomic spectrometry to environmental science. 

The successful applicant will receive £500 to help with any expenses that may be of benefit to their career. For example, this could be to travel to or attend a conference, so that they may present their work. 

Background

This award is in memory of Dr Allan Ure, a distinguished analytical chemist who spent many years working with both ASU and ASG. Allan championed the fields of environmental analytical chemistry, atomic spectrometry and speciation and was a pioneer in the development of sequential extraction methods for soils and sediments. 

His encouragement and support of young scientists be they undergraduates, postgraduates or post-doctoral fellows and lecturers, was well known. It is therefore fitting that to honour Allan's achievements and the contribution he has made to our science, this bursary be given to help start a scientist's career.

Previous winners

The 2009 Allan Ure Bursary has been awarded to Azlan Kamari, a PhD student at the Environmental, Agricultural and Analytical Chemistry Department, University of Glasgow. Azlan is studying the remediation of water and soil contaminated by heavy metals and evaluating the potential of chitosan and its derivatives to remove heavy metals. The award will allow him to attend the 15th International Conference on Heavy Metals in the Environment (ICHMET), held at the Gdansk University of Technology, Poland in September 2010.

The 2008 winner was Nicholas Lloyd for his PhD research in collaboration with the British Geological Survey, Nottingham, UK, and the University of Leicester, UK, investigating the environmental fate of depleted uranium particulates in a contaminated region of the USA using ICP-MS detection. The work was presented at the Goldschmidt Conference, Vancouver, July 2008.

The 2007 winner was Dr Rebeca Santamaria-Fernandez from LGC Ltd., Teddington, UK, who has a strong background in environmental analysis, with a PhD from the University of Plymouth, UK, researching the development of new sequential extraction methodologies for trace metals in soils, sediments and biotracers and appointed a Marie Curie Post Doctoral Research Fellow position within the Food Authenticity R&D Team at Eurofins Scientific Analytics, France. She presented her recent work at LGC on the use of isotope ratios for counterfeit drug detection at the Winter Conference on Plasma Spectrochemistry in Temecula Valley, USA, January 2008.