A University research project has won a national award for public engagement.
, led by , won the in the run by the National Co-ordinating Centre for Public Engagement ().
Celestial Sirens is an amateur female-voice choir, which recreates the musical world of sixteenth-century convents. 聽With a membership drawn from across the South 鈥� from Dorchester to Eastbourne 鈥� the choir has been active since 2002 and has participated in two award-winning recordings. The choir also participated in a tour of the UK and Ireland in a dramatisation of Sarah Dunant鈥檚 novel, Sacred Hearts, which starred Niamh Cusack and Deborah 福利着片lay.
Dr Stras says: 鈥淚 am immensely proud to be one of three fantastic finalists from the University of Southampton, and also so very proud of, and grateful to, everyone involved with Celestial Sirens, especially my co-director Deborah Roberts. The award is a wonderful recognition of the investment that the choir and our collaborator have made in my research over the years. There is still a great deal of work to do, and music to be sung, so we are all eager to get started on our new recording projects.鈥�
Two other University projects received runner-up prizes: The project, led by , which turned routine 40-minute sea crossings across the Solent into exciting engineering journeys, and , led by a team in Electronics and Computer Science including and , which was created in 2013 as part of Marwell Wildlife鈥檚聽 to highlight the conservation threat facing rhinos.
Winners were announced at the national Engage Competition Awards ceremony on Wednesday 11 June at the Natural History Museum. The competition formed part of Universities Week, a week-long celebration of public engagement with research, which is taking place across the UK from 9 to 15 June.