How my thesis made me thousands
We catch up with last year's Science Graduate of the Year Prize winner
When Alex Weir entered the Royal Institution/LOréal Science Graduate ' of the Year competition in spring 2005, he hardly thought that he'd come out of it with the title - or the £6000 prize. "I certainly didn't have any inclination that I would win it at all," he says. But Alex did know that it was possible - a friend had won the competition two years before and encouraged him to apply. "If you've never heard of anyone that's won it you think, `well, there's no point applying, `cause it's not the kind of thing people like me would win'. But the fact that I knew someone who'd applied and won and very strongly encouraged me to apply made me more keen to do so."
At the time, Alex was in the final year of his PhD, studying the surprisingly agile brain of New Caledonian crows. Though chimpanzees have always had a reputation as being the most skilful toolmaking animals, a crow in Alex's study called Betty proved even handier. Given a bucket to pick up with nothing but a set of straight wires, she spontaneously fashioned them into hooks and got on with her lifting. Though his findings raised interesting questions about how intelligence evolves, Alex worried that his research would be deemed too abstract. "I thought that they might be more interested in human medicine or technological advances," he explains. But his toolmaking crows won through.
Alex's prize-winning experience wasn't over with the award ceremony, though. As part of his win, he gave a public talk on his research at the Royal Institution in Mayfair. "It was an amazing experience," he says. "I quite enjoy giving talks about my work because, working on a species that's so unusual, you get very good reactions from the audience whenever you show videos of them solving these problems." And the setting, made famous by Michael Faraday and the Christmas Lectures, added a touch of unreality: "It's a very strange feeling standing in such a famous lecture theatre giving a talk."
Since his win, Alex has expanded his work with New Caledonian crows, trying to test how deeply they understand their own toolmaking. He's continuing to tell people about his research and will be manning a booth at this year's Royal Society Summer Exhibition. He says he thinks winning the prize will have "a massive impact" on his career, and recommends that if anyone is thinking about applying, they should just do it. "Most people think `I'll never get it', so they don't apply. But if you don't apply, you'll never win."
And by the way, that cash prize - did he spend it on anything cool? A quick exhale, and a guilty laugh. "I'm afraid I was - well, I'd been working unpaid for six months, so the majority of it was making up for six months of no income . . . then the second thing was I'm getting married this summer, so I had to be prudent, unfortunately."
If you're in the final year of a PhD and want a shot at £6000, applications are currently being accepted for this year's Science Graduate of the Year award. The deadline is 17 March. For more details check on www.rigb.org.
