PhD student takes out two first place prizes

A PhD student has won best poster prize twice this year at two separate conferences.

Robert Hayes, a final year PhD student studying the physical properties of ionic liquids, presented his poster at the Congress on Ionic Liquids which was held last month in Portugal.

The conference is a forum to discover and discuss the science and technology of ionic liquids. It has grown to be the most important congress on this topic and attracted 600 delegates.

Out of the 550 poster submissions, Robert Hayes was one of three winners selected for ‘Best Poster Prizes’ and received a 1000 euro prize.

Robert also presented his poster at the Australian Colloid and Interface Science Symposium at Noosa in February this year and won first prize out of approximately 200 delegates.

Robert’s supervisor, Associate Professor Rob Atkin, also attended the Congress on Ionic Liquids in Portugal and delivered a prestigious plenary lecture about the ‘Bulk and Interfacial Nanostructure in Ionic Liquids’ to the 600 conference delegates.

“Robert has a very mature attitude towards his research, is diligent in his approach and has high level scientific insight for a PhD student. He has worked hard over the course of his PhD and this hard work has paid off in a variety of ways, including these two best poster prizes,” said Associate Professor Rob Atkin.