MHLS nominees

Research award

Tongchuan Wang

(School of Pharmacy) - Nominated on behalf of 9 individuals

"Tongchuan Wang is an outstanding early-stage postdoc whose first-year achievements highlight his innovation, interdisciplinary drive, and translational focus. In April 2025, he published a first-author paper in a high-impact journal (IF8.7), revealing mechanisms of metabolic radiosensitisation in head-and-neck cancer. Building on this, he cultivated a new collaboration with a glycochemist at University College Dublin to explore therapeutic translation. These efforts supported submission of a £350k Prostate Cancer UK Career Acceleration Fellowship and a £36k MRC IAA ECFT grant, developed under my mentorship.

Tongchuan has actively engaged with the NI Cancer Research Consumer Forum, incorporating valuable PPI insights into his work. He also presented our findings at the Irish Radiation Research Society and Association for Radiation Research conferences.

In parallel, Tongchuan independently conceptualised and disclosed two biomedical innovations: LabVA, an AR/AI-powered interactive lab assistant, and a lab consumable product. He has assigned intellectual property for both to QUB, with a view to full commercial exploitation. Earlier this year, he completed the iCURE DISCOVERY programme, receiving highly positive feedback on LabVA’s potential. We continue to work with QUB Research & Enterprise to develop this opportunity further. In short, his productivity, work ethic and outputs are exemplary, certainly the best I have observed."

Support award

Thomas Thompson

(School of Pharmacy) - Nominated on behalf of 11 individuals

"Dr Thomas Thompson has been an exceptional force in our academic and professional development. As co-supervisor to multiple PhD, MSc and MPharm students across Pharmacy and Physics, he provides in-depth support in experimental design, data analysis, and publication.  This directly led to successful abstracts (e.g. AMI 2025), award-winning dissertations, and joint papers in preparation. He created a centralised Microsoft Teams hub with detailed SOPs, and delivers regular training on tissue culture, biofilms, and safety protocols, greatly improving confidence and reducing experimental errors.

He led a full safety overhaul of the plasma lab: writing COSHHs, troubleshooting equipment, and training staff, culminating in a zero-action QUB safety audit and a 40% cut in equipment downtime.  Beyond the bench, Thomas ran a competitive grant-writing workshop, helped secure summer studentship funding, and organises weekly lab meetings to keep the group scientifically aligned.  His research retreat fostered new cross-School collaborations, and his School Safety Committee role has strengthened policy-level input.

Dr Thompson is not just a mentor, he’s an organiser, strategist, and advocate.  He consistently anticipates gaps in knowledge or process and fills them with practical, scalable solutions that have lasting benefit across the School."

Citizenship and Outreach award

Lesley Hamill

(Centre for Public Health)

"Lesley is passionate about inspiring the next generation and proudly serves as a STEM Ambassador.  From September 2024 to June 2025, she has dedicated 96 volunteer hours (and counting) across 21 activities, reaching 2,953 participants and engaging with 44 organisations.  She strongly believes in the power of STEM Ambassadors to bridge the gap between education and real-world STEM applications.

Lesley makes her sessions engaging and relatable, encouraging curiosity, growth, and confidence.  With a particular interest in nutrition and early intervention, she is committed to delivering effective health messages to young audiences - messages she wishes she had received as a child.  Her work helps to break down barriers to nutrition education and targets poor diets in young people - a particular public health challenge.

She has designed and delivered hands-on workshops and talks, acting as a role model on behalf of QUB.  Through this, she has fostered meaningful partnerships between QUB and local schools, creating new pathways for collaboration.

Lesley enjoys supporting teachers and enriching the curriculum with real-life stories and fresh perspectives.  Her significant volunteer work this academic year reflects her dedication, enthusiasm, and positive influence on the community, reinforcing the importance of STEM outreach."

Research award

Gareth Thompson

School of Nursing and Midwifery

"Dr Gareth Thompson is a pivotal member of the cardiac research programme within the School, leading innovative projects improving outcomes for patients and carers.  Gareth played a substantial role in securing a significant grant from the British Heart Foundation to conduct UK-wide implementation testing of a novel intervention to support carers of patients with heart failure.  To ensure this work is effectively tailored to carers’ needs, Gareth independently secured funding from the QUB Agility Fund to facilitate essential stakeholder refinement of the intervention.

He is the Chair of the School’s Cardiac Research Group, leading the development of local and international collaborations (King’s College Hospital, Glasgow Royal Infirmary, and National University of Colombia).  Gareth leads the planning and hosting of an annual cardiac research conference at QUB on World Heart Day, which was attended by approximately 100 delegates (patients, carers, and professionals) and included free cardiac health checks.

Since September 2024, Gareth significantly contributed to authorship across four publications in high-quality journals, and co-authored an abstract accepted for one of the most impactful cardiac research conferences, ESC Madrid. Gareth is helping develop the next generation of cardiac researchers, leading regular support workshops for PhD students and staff, sharing methodological expertise."

Support award

Eleni Spyreli

Centre for Public Health

"I nominate Dr Eleni Spyreli in the category ‘Support’ for her leadership of the School of Medicine, Dentistry and Biomedical Sciences  ‘Postdoc-PG student Buddy Scheme’, a School-wide career mentoring scheme for PG students facilitated by postdocs.

Dr Spyreli leads and delivers this Buddy Scheme for the School as part of our Athena SWAN Gold Action Plan, thereby playing a critical role in the successful delivery of our SWAN Gold Award.

As part of Dr Spyreli’s leadership for this ECR mentoring scheme, Eleni has relaunched and innovated this scheme in 2023/2024 collaborating with P&C and colleagues across the School to deliver mentoring training for mentors and mentees, ‘Meet & Greet’ events, matched suitable mentee/mentor pairs and provided support for the pairings throughout.

Eleni’s dedication to ECR mentoring and work ethos made the scheme a huge success: Being oversubscribed in the first year due to high demand, it is now running for the second year with overwhelmingly positive feedback.

Dr Spyreli’s leadership on this scheme has a long-lasting impact on career mentoring for ECRs within the School, both for mentees and mentors, and her work has significantly contributed to the advancement of our Athena Gold action plan."

Research Award

Ashleen Crowe, School of Nursing and Midwifery (Nominated by 2 individuals)

Chris Tate, Centre for Public Health

Gareth Thompson, School of Nursing and Midwifery

Hannah Turkington, Wellcome-Wolfson Institute for Experimental Medicine

Hussein Kenaan, School of Pharmacy

Jane Burns, School of Pharmacy

Josy Augustine, Wellcome-Wolfson Institute for Experimental Medicine

Laura McClenaghan, School of Pharmacy

Meenakshi Sharma, Centre for Public Health

Qonita Kurnia Anjani, School of Pharmacy

Ross Michael Duncan, School of Pharmacy

Sarah Baxter, Centre for Public Health (Nominated by 2 individuals)

Susanta Chatterjee, Patrick G. Johnston Centre for Cancer Research

Thomas Thompson, School of Pharmacy (Nominated by 4 individuals)

Tongchuan Wang, School of Pharmacy (Nominated by 9 individuals)

Support Award

Andrew Lee, School of Biological Sciences (Nominated by 4 individuals)

Elaine Gilmore, School of Pharmacy

Eleni Spyreli, Centrre for Public Health (Nominated by 4 individuals)

Jane Burns, School of Pharmacy (Nominated by 4 individuals)

Karla O'Neill, Wellcome-Wolfson Institute for Experimental Medicine (Nominated by 3 individuals)

Niamh McKerr, Patrick G. Johnston Centre for Cancer Research

Pietro Maria Bertelli, Wellcome-Wolfson Institute for Experimental Medicine (Nominated by 8 individuals)

Robyn Irwin, School of Pharmacy

Sarah Baxter, Centre for Public Health

Thomas Thompson, School of Pharmacy (Nominated by 11 individuals)

Citizenship and Outreach Award

Lesley Hamill, Centre for Public Health

Thomas Thompson, School of Pharmacy