Southampton Physics student named as Europe’s best young physicist

University of Southampton physics student, Christopher Frohmaier, has been named as a Science Student of the Year at the prestigious SET Awards, Europe’s most important awards for science, engineering and technology undergraduates.

He was presented with the Best Physics Student (BG Group) Award in front of an audience of leading academics and industrialists at a ceremony at Kensington Town Hall in London. Over 40 students, with five from Southampton, were shortlisted in 14 different categories and judges paid tribute to the exceptional quality of this year’s work.

Christopher was nominated for his project ‘Blue Straggler Stars in the Globular Cluster M30’, which investigated the nature of these unique and enigmatic variety of stars that appear to defy the normal stellar ageing process. Judges were also impressed by Christopher’s outreach work to promote Physics and Astronomy to thousands of schoolchildren, including a space balloon experiment that launched a teddy bear into the stratosphere.

Christopher says: “I am very proud to have won the award and very grateful to my supervisor, Dr Andrea Dieball, for nominating me. I think its testament to the quality of the Physics department that a student proposed project was approved and supported all the way to winning a European-wide award.”

Dr Andrea Dieball, an Astronomy Lecturer at the University, says “I am extremely pleased that my first Master's student has been identified through the SET awards as the best Physics student of the year. This is a great honour and reflects the very high quality of the students we are now teaching.”

Professor Phil Charles, Head of Physics and Astronomy at the University, adds: “This is a superb demonstration of the benefits of motivating undergraduates through introducing them to front-line scientific research.”