Celebrating postgraduate researcher success at scientific conferences

By: Communications

Two people smiling while standing in front of presentation boards, wearing smart shirts and trousers

L-R: Jaden Smith presenting at the Norwich Cancer Research Network Symposium (UK); Nathan O’Neill presenting at the SMASH conference (USA).

Two postgraduate research students from the School of Chemistry, Pharmacy and Pharmacology have received awards for their research excellence.

Jaden Smith and Nathan O'Neill were recognised for the outstanding quality of their research, clarity of communication, and ability to effectively showcase its significance through award-winning poster presentations at scientific conferences held in recent weeks.

Jaden Smith

An MRes student in the group of Dr Anastasia Sobolweski, Jaden Smith was awarded the Runner-up Poster Prize at the Norwich Cancer Research Network Symposium that took place in Norwich (UK) on Wednesday 9 September.

He was recognised for his work on “Mimicking the Tumour Microenvironment to study Mechanisms of Chemoresistance through Tunneling Nanotubes”.

Jaden said: "I had a fantastic conference experience at the Norwich Cancer Research Network Symposium. Alongside gaining valuable insights into recent developments across the Norwich Research Park, there were plenty of opportunities to network and speak with other cancer researchers, including with the keynote speaker of the conference.

"Being able to deliver a flash talk as well as receive a runners-up poster prize as a Master's by Research student was a great stepping stone in my early research career. This experience has solidified my desire to pursue cancer research and continue to share my work with other researchers within this field."

Nathan O'Neill

A PhD student in the groups of Prof Kate Kemsley and Dr María J. Marín, Nathan O'Neill received a Top 10 Poster Award at the Small Molecule NMR Conference (SMASH) 2026, held in Colorado USA from Wednesday 14 to Friday 16 September.

The project that he presented at SMASH investigates how reference Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) spectra for metabolites can be constructed by using tools such as Graph Convolutional Neural Networks to predict chemical shifts, and can be compared to the NMR spectra acquired during food authenticity screening to gain a better understanding of a sample’s constituents.

Research excellence in action

Presenting research at conferences is an important part of postgraduate training, providing students with valuable opportunities to share their findings, engage with researchers from around the world, and receive feedback from experts in their field.

The success of these students reflects not only the scientific excellence of their work but also their dedication, creativity, and commitment to advancing knowledge within their research areas.

The School of Chemistry, Pharmacy and Pharmacology congratulates both award recipients on this excellent accomplishment and for being outstanding ambassadors for their research community.

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