Manuela Mura receives  2010 Tadion-Rideal Prize (worth up to £1000) from King’s College London for her thesis entitled: ‘Theoretical characterisation of STM images of assemblies of flat organic molecules on metal surfaces’, which was supervised by Professor Lev Kantorovich.

Manuela and Lev

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UCLan physicist wins doctorate research prize

University scientist is recognised for her research talent

A scientist from the University of Central Lancashire (UCLan) has won a second award for her research in recognition of its “originality and promise.”

Dr Manuela Mura, a computational physicist at UCLan, has been presented with the Tadion-Rideal Prize for Molecular Science for her PhD thesis.

Dr Mura joined the University in February and works in collaboration with Professor Dave Phoenix and early career scientists, Dr Sarah Dennison and Dr Tim Snape from UCLan’s School of Pharmacy as well as with scientists from Germany and Holland, on the understanding of mechanisms of a new class of antibiotics.

The scientist graduated with a PhD in Computational Physics from King’s College London earlier this year and the Tadion-Rideal Prize is awarded by the university in recognition of promising doctorate research.

Dr Mura, whose work is supported by a prestigious Volkswagen Foundation grant from Germany, said: “I didn’t expect to win this award but of course I am extremely happy.

“It is a good boost to my self-confidence, which is very important when working in such a hard area of science as physics.”

Dr Mura’s PhD supervisor, Professor Lev Kantorovich from King’s College London, said: “Manuela worked really hard and has done a remarkable job.  She has had a large number of papers published in a variety of top international journals, which highlights the quality of her work.”

Professor Andrei Zvelindovsky leads the Computational Physics Group at UCLan.

He commented: “At UCLan we are committed to providing young science stars with outstanding working conditions for their world class research that also blends with our undergraduate teaching.”

Dr Mura has also won a distinguished prize from a world renowned publisher in recognition of her PhD thesis.

She was handed the Springer Thesis Prize of 500 Euro from the world renowned publisher and her work was published in the Springer Theses series that “brings together a selection of the very best PhD theses from around the world and across the physical sciences.”