08/07/2024
ESACT-UK is pleased to announce that nominations for the Chris Hewitt Rising Star Award 2025 are now open.
DEADLINE FOR SUBMISSIONS: 11th of October 2025 at 23:59
The award recipient will be a promising early career scientist or engineer whose work shows exceptional promise in the field of animal cell technologies. The award recipient will be announced at the January 2024 conference and be invited to present at our January 2025 conference. They will also receive free lifetime ESACT-UK membership.
Chris Hewitt was a leading biochemical engineer, recognised for his research using flow cytometry and cell sorting to understand the interaction of the cell with the bioreactor environment within diverse systems, including animal cell culture. The last 10 years or so of his career were focussed on growing the UKs capacity in bioprocessing of human cells for cell therapy. In recognition of his achievements, he was elected Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering in 2018 and was awarded the IChemE’s Donald Medal in the same year. Chris was an active member of ESACT-UK and a strong supporter of early career researchers, having been involved in the founding of the Centre for Doctoral Training in Regenerative Medicine and mentoring a number of post-doctoral researchers and early career lecturers over the years. He has been greatly missed in the community since he passed in July 2019 and this award has been established in his honour.
Eligibility: Any person with 10 years of relevant experience or less (total, excluding career breaks) working in the field of animal cell technologies is eligible so long as they have worked for a significant portion in the UK or with a UK organisation.
The community is invited to nominate individuals who they feel meet these criteria by completing the nominations form. You can also self-nominate.
Submission of nominations: Nomination forms should be sent to: Hirra Hussain at secretary@esactuk.org.uk with the subject line “nomination for Chris Hewitt Rising Star Award” no later than Friday 11th of October 2024.
We are looking forward to receiving your nominations!