Winner: Fiona Bennington, Product Design Engineer and Entrepreneur
The judges were impressed with Fiona’s initiative in the early stages of the pandemic to create a consortium of local companies that could adapt their production to create the Hero Shield. This enabled the distribution of PPE for frontline workers in her area. Fiona uses her engineering to help others in a variety of projects across the globe. The winner showed initiative and is an excellent STEM role model for women and girls.
Runner up: Dr. Helena Stage, Mathematical Epidemiologist, The University of Manchester
Helena Stage is a mathematical epidemiologist who has been contributing to research on SARS-CoV-2 since late 2019 while working as a post-doctoral research associate at The University of Manchester. She remains a visiting research fellow at the university. Her work, in conjunction with the University of Manchester’s COVID-19 modelling group, directly contributed to the scientific knowledge informing the UK pandemic response.
Runner up: Ms Meaghan Kall, Lead Epidemiologist in the UK Health Security Agency National COVID-19 Epidemiology Cell
Meaghan’s work as a civil servant responsible for monitoring trends in England’s Covid-19 epidemic impressed the judges. She worked swiftly to deal with vast amounts of information and her findings informed the government’s response throughout the pandemic.