CUHK Medical Student Wins Grand Prize in FameLab Contest Hong Kong to Compete in FameLab International in UK
The FameLab competition organized by the British Council was held for the sixth year in Hong Kong. Nancy Wing-sze Law, a Year 3 medical student at The Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK) captured the Grand Prize and was voted by all audiences as the Audience Choice Award. She will represent Hong Kong in the FameLab International competition at the Cheltenham Science Festival in the UK in June 2015. Also a winner was Final Year Physics student, Albert Yuk-ting Law who was 2nd runner-up in the competition, while CUHK took home the Best Institution Award for having the highest number of participants among all local institutions for two consecutive years. FameLab is a science communication competition with the aims of providing a platform for people to talk science, finding talented science communicators and promoting science to a wider public.
‘Our Internal Biological Clock’ by Grand Prize winner Nancy Law
Themed ‘Our Internal Biological Clock’, Nancy’s winning performance was about the relationship between the shortening of telomere and aging. As a medical student, she learnt about telomere in genetics lectures and was fascinated by this Nobel prize-winning discovery that aging can be understood on a DNA basis.
Nancy spent two further weeks doing research and watching presentations by other science communicators to strengthen her delivery skills. Having finished the script, she grasped every single chance to present to her family, relatives, classmates and professors so as to polish her performance.
‘I enjoy sharing scientific knowledge with others and entering FameLab allows me to do it with a wider audience. Getting into the international final is absolutely beyond my expectation and I am definitely excited to be given such a precious chance. I was very pleased to meet other talented science communicators in the competition who impressed me by their presentation skills and charisma,’ said Nancy.
Nancy will represent Hong Kong to compete with students from over twenty countries in the Grand Final to be held in the UK in June.
‘Visible or Invisible’ by the 2nd runner-up Albert Law
A Final Year Physics student, Albert Yuk-ting Law was 2nd runner-up at the British Council’s FameLab Hong Kong 2015. He picked the topic ‘Visible or Invisible’ that tried to tell audiences why the sun shines. He then actively prepared himself for the competition and joined the two-day master class offered by the British Council to further polish his performance.
At the Hong Kong Grand Finals, Albert wore a T-shirt printed with Einstein’s famous equation E=mc2 to impress the audiences and assist in his presentation on related physics knowledge.
Albert has planned to continue his study in Physics in order to strengthen his science knowledge and promote science to the public. He encourages all youngsters to join this exciting and meaningful event.
Videos of Famelab Hong Kong 2015:
‘Our Internal Biological Clock’ by Nancy Law: https://youtu.be/3gso6em3Bbw
‘Visible or Invisible’ by Albert Law: https://youtu.be/-dtqnDRJ4Ck
About FameLab
FameLab is a science communication competition with the aims of providing a platform for people to talk science, finding talented science communicators and promoting science to a wider public. Participants must be between 18 and 35 years of age and pursuing studies or working in a scientific field. They have 3 minutes to present a scientific topic which should be entertaining, original, and scientifically accurate but also engaging to a non-scientific audience.
CUHK professors and students at the FameLab 2015 Hong Kong Grand Finals. From left: Prof. Rossa Chiu, Assistant Dean of the Faculty of Medicine; Prof. Leung Kwok-nam, Associate Dean of the Faculty of Science; Albert Law, 2nd runner-up; Nancy Law, Grand Winner and winner of Audience Choice Award; Ooi Hon-son, finalist; Prof. Dickon Ng, Associate Dean of the Faculty of Science; and Prof. Wong Kam-fai, Associate Dean of the Faculty of Engineering, CUHK. (Photo courtesy: British Council Hong Kong)
CUHK professors and students at the FameLab 2015 Hong Kong Grand Finals. (Photo courtesy: British Council Hong Kong)
