Congratulations to recent graduate Aleksejs Sazonovs on winning the gold medal in the computer science category at the Undergraduate Awards.
The Undergraduate Awards recognise outstanding research conducted at undergraduate level worldwide. This year’s award received over 3000 submissions in 25 categories from over 200 universities, so it’s an enormous tribute to Aleks’ hard work to have been selected as overall winner in his category.
Aleks’ SH project, supervised by Simon Dobson in Computer Science and Oscar Gaggiotti in Biology, studied the effects that introducing transgenic mosquitoes might have on the propagation of malaria in West Africa. He used a complex network model based on real world geographical data extracted from Open Street Map and extended to produce a realistic (although synthetic) demography, leading to a multiplex model where the disease spreads between human and mosquito populations.
St Andrews won in four categories, with Dundee and Edinburgh winning in a further two each and Strathclyde in one more. “There’s clearly something in the air in Scotland,” commented President of Ireland Michael D. Higgins in his address to the winners after presenting their medals.
(Photos by Simon Dobson.)