The Mary Mulvihill Memorial Award is open for entries. Image: mj007/Shutterstock
Applications are now open for the first Mary Mulvihill Memorial Award, which commemorates the work and legacy of the journalist, author and Ingenious Ireland founder.
Aimed at students all over Ireland, the Mary Mulvihill Memorial Award sees a total prize of €2,000 given to the applicant who best represents the “curiosity, creativity and storytelling imagination” that Mary Mulvihill (1959–2015) was known for.
The theme for this inaugural award is women’s contribution to science and technology – historical or contemporary.
Applicants must be students (undergraduates or postgraduates) enrolled in an Irish higher education institution at the time of submission. You can enter by sending your content to the following address: MaryMulvihillAward@gmail.com
Many forms of media can be used for entries; with an article, essay, radio programme, video, blog post or similar accepted.
There is a rough guide of 2000-3000 words for written submissions and 10-15 minutes for recorded submissions.
The work doesn’t have to be published, though if it is, it must have been so after 1 September 2016. It can also be based on a student’s coursework.
The deadline for submissions is Friday 3 March 2017, with the winner announced the following month.
Judges for the contest are Orla Hardiman, professor of neurology at Trinity College Dublin; Ann O’Dea, CEO and co-founder of Silicon Republic and founder of Inspirefest; Anne Mulvihill, sister of Mary Mulvihill; and Fiona Ross, founding director of Epic Ireland Museum.
O’Dea wrote an obituary to Mulvihill after she died in 2015, noting her impact in highlighting the role women have played in the history of Irish science.
This influence was most evident in the biographies she edited: Lab Coats and Lace and Stars, Shells and Bluebells.
As founder and the first chairperson of Women in Technology and Science, Mulvihill was a leading figure in the industry.
She wrote and broadcast for a wide variety of media, on a vast range of science-related topics. As the organisers of the award noted, “her work was marked by an insatiable curiosity about the natural world and the role of science in understanding it, and by a boundless imagination in telling stories about scientific explorations, both now and in the past”.
The Mary Mulvihill Memorial Prize Fund, which is behind this initiative, was established by the family and friends of Mary Mulvihill to honour her memory and her work in science journalism, science communication and heritage.
