PhD students Angelique Ray and Alyce Hancock were presented the FEMS Microbiology Ecology Presentations Prizes at the recent 8^th International Conference on Polar and Alpine Microbiology, 4-8^th February Hamilton New Zealand, for the best ECR oral and poster presentation.

Angelique Ray, PhD student in the Ferrari Lab, University of New South Wales, was presented the best oral presentation for her captivating talk on bacterial chemoautotrophy in East Antarctic soils.  Angelique’s is working on mapping the distribution of genes association with a novel form of carbon fixation recently discovered in Antarctic microbes.

Alyce Hancock is a PhD student with Institute for Marine and Antarctic Studies, University of Tasmania.  She was presented the best poster presentation for a great summary of the effect of ocean acidification on Antarctic marine microbes using meta-analytic techniques.  Alyce’s PhD is working on the effect of ocean acidification on the diversity, abundance and interactions within a nearshore Antarctic marine microbial community.

Congratulations to Angelique and Alyce for their great presentations!  It is fantastic to see our Polar APECS Oceania ECRs recognised!