The 60th anniversary of the Cambridge Society for the Application of Research (CSAR) was celebrated at Churchill College, accompanied by the presentation of its annual awards to outstanding Cambridge PhD students.
CSAR was founded in 1963 by Sir John Cockcroft, the Nobel-prize-winning physicist who is credited with first splitting the atom at the Cavendish Laboratory, working jointly with ETS Walton. Since then it has been delivering lectures and events – currently around 12-14 per year – focused on the application of research in the sciences and humanities.
The 19 June celebrations included a presentation on the early years of CSAR, a discussion from Dr Advait Sarkar of Microsoft Research (a previous CSAR student prizewinner) on how AI might best be used, and a look at advances in medical device technologies from Dr Andrew Baker-Campbell of TTP Group, who sponsored the event.
Prof Sir Colin Humphreys spoke about the importance of finding applications for research, drawing on his own experience of turning graphene from an academic topic into marketable devices, and developing methods for making LEDs using gallium nitride.
He then presented the 12 student award winners with their prizes, for research topics ranging from living with volcanic risk in Chile, to the role of immune system cells in inflammatory arthritis, to microfluidic engineering to accelerating drug development.
The winners (and their departments) are Alberto Conti (pathology), Nadia Erkamp (chemistry). Carolyn Smith (geography), Abby Berhane (engineering), Mayumi Sato (sociology), David Aaron Posner (medicine), Haichao Wang (CRUK), Abdul Malik Al Nasir (history), Kiarash Jamal (MRC-LMB), Adrian Bazaga (genetics), Joe Hutton (pathology) and Henry North (zoology).
Each is awarded £1,000 to recognise their outstanding research – with real-world application – and to assist them with their research and ongoing careers.
Previous winners have eulogised their time at Cambridge, and the support they received from CSAR.
Jenna DiRito – a 2020 winner and currently a postdoc fellow at Yale – said: “The CSAR award has enabled me to fund my application and help me continue towards my ultimate career goal of becoming an academic transplant surgeon.”
CSAR vice-president Dr John Cook said: “We’ve had a very enjoyable celebration of CSAR’s success since the Sixties, promoting the application of research and helping outstanding PhD students. Here’s to the next 60 years!”
Applications for the 2025 awards need to be submitted by January 18, 2025. Details here.
CSAR lectures are held in the Wolfson Lecture Theatre at Churchill College, with live streaming via Zoom. Attendance is free for subscribing members of CSAR (individual, family, business, concessionary) and for secondary school students and teachers; there's a small fee for others.
CSAR is based at the Institute for Manufacturing on Charles Babbage Road.
