Utrecht science students receive Young Talent Awards 2021

At the annual Young Talent Awards for the technical and scientific fields eight science students from Utrecht University were awarded. A total of 18 thesis prizes for master students and 57 encouragement prizes for first-year students were awarded. The Koninklijke Hollandsche Maatschappij der Wetenschappen (KHMW) awarded the prizes on 29 November. Click here to watch a recording of the live stream of the event.

With the Young Talent Awards, the Koninklijke Hollandsche Maatschappij der Wetenschappen aims to promote science education at the university level. The graduation prizes go to the best master's theses in the technical and scientific subjects. The incentive prize is for students with the best grades in the technical and scientific subjects in their first year of study. The prizes have sponsors from several (industrial) areas.

Graduation Award Max Stassen

The Young Talent East-West Seed Graduation Award in Plant Sciences, with a prize amount of 5,000 euros, went to Max Stassen. In his master's thesis, Stassen, for the very first time, listed what is known about the communication between soil microbes and the plant substances coumarins. This information is important for developing insights into plant functioning.

"Max's master's thesis shows a maturity and an overview of the subject matter that we only very rarely find in students at this early stage in their careers. The quality is underlined by the fact that the thesis has been accepted as a review paper in the leading journal 'Trends in Plant Science', a very exceptional achievement. The article, published earlier this year, was immediately picked up and has already been cited many times," the jury report states. 

Graduation Award Loes Verkuil

The Young Talent Enza Zaden Graduation Award in Biology, with a prize amount of 3,000 euros, went to Loes Verkuil. Verkuil has shown that coffee plants provide equal yields when grown among other vegetation and trees as when grown in an environment with only coffee plants. An important insight, because she has also shown that a diverse environment (agroforestry system) protects against soil erosion, can store more carbon and provides additional side income for the farmer from other products such as fruits, wood and nuts. Read more about Verkuil's thesis here.

The jury report on Verkuil: "The jury found Loes' project very original and topical, of high social relevance and very well designed and executed. The quality of the research, the analysis and interpretation of the data are of a high level and her work provides important new insights into the benefits of agroforestry systems that have a direct and significant impact on our world. Loes has shown that she can conduct research at the highest level and the jury believes that she has the potential to become a top scientist."

Verkuil is currently a junior researcher at the Copernicus Institute.

Encouragement prizes

Six Young Talent Encouragement Prizes, each with a prize amount of 500 euros, were awarded to Utrecht science students. Jippe Hoogeveen won the prize in the category Mathematics and Technical Mathematics. Lisa Eij received the prize in the category Physics and Technical Physics. The prize in the category Chemistry went to Maurits Mastwijk. Joost van der Laan won the prize in the category Informatics and Technical Informatics. Raghad Kasas received the prize in the category Pharmacy or (bio)pharmaceutical sciences. And the prize in the category Biology went to Luka Biemond.