The YPWLC is an extension of the Young Persons' Lecture Competition (YPLC) and is organised by the IOM3 Student & Early Career Committee.
The winners of the finals, held in countries and regions where IOM3 has international branches or sister institutions, compete in the world final, which every year is held in a different location around the world. The first YPWLC was held in London in 2005, and since then has travelled to different locations in four continents.
The YPWLC finalists normally gather in the city where the final is to be held ahead of time, to have the opportunity to get to know each other and exchange experiences. They also have a programme of technical, cultural and social visits based around the competition, so that they get to know something of the country they are visiting and experience its culture and industry. For most finalists, it is the experience of a lifetime!
Submit your abstract to one of the international YPLC finals for a chance to compete in the YPWLC event in November.
YPWLC finalists 2022
Information on the 2022 YPWLC finalists will appear below.
Lauren Eggleton
Lauren Eggleton
Lauren is a second year PhD student in the Materials Science and Engineering Department at The University of Sheffield. She developed a passion for research during her Masters in Materials Science and Engineering, which specialised in biomaterials. During this time, she undertook a year in industry at Philips Research UK, working in oral healthcare on whitening and hypersensitivity. Upon returning, she channelled her love for research and nature into her master’s project on snail and slug locomotion in the Natural Materials Group, and has never looked back. Her EPSRC funded PhD focuses on understanding and bridging the gap between structure and function in snail and slug mucus.
Within the department and faculty, she is an active member of the postgraduate research community: supporting fellow students as part of the postgraduate research committee, helping teach undergraduates, and sharing research stories over arts and crafts lunches. Outside of the lab, she is a keen communicator and advocate for inclusion and diversity in STEM subjects, volunteering for outreach programmes and school events at both the local and national level. Through her work with the Bioladies Network and Natural Materials Association, she hopes to inspire people across all ages and backgrounds to discover the scientific wonders found in nature.
In her free time, Lauren enjoys exploring the Peak District, medieval re-enactment and has recently taken up ice skating. Though she can often be found at home curled up with a good book and her two cats.
A sticky situation: The contradictory material properties of snail mucus
Nature has evolved a vast range of 'smart' materials and is currently an untapped resource for novel biomedical and engineering applications. A surprising example is snail mucus. Embodying two contradictory properties, adhesion and lubrication, this material can switch seamlessly between them whenever the functional need arises. But how does it do this and can we replicate it?
In the search to understand these unusual flow properties, our creation of a snail locomotion translation device demonstrates how a more holistic approach to analysing natural materials can reveal more about their true nature. Discovering that like many industrial materials, snail mucus crystallises, but controlling this is via an elegant means of changing its salt concentration. Showing that we can find inspiration for tomorrow's advanced materials everywhere, even at the bottom of our garden.
