NUI Galway student, Louisa Brophy Browne was presented with the George Berkeley Gold Medal by the international awarding body The Undergraduate Awards at a special ceremony in Dublin recently. A further ten NUI Galway students were highly commended.

Louisa, from Knocknacarra, Galway City, was awarded for her winning paper Discuss and Evaluate the Main Points of the Debate on the Ethics of Archaeological Work in War Zones and Occupied Territories Using Case Studies in the Classical Studies and Archaeology Category. Winners were awarded the George Berkeley Gold Medal for their leading-edge research and course work.

The world’s only pan-discipline academic awards programme, the Undergraduate Awards (UA) recognises and rewards innovative young thinkers across 25 disciplines from business and engineering to visual arts and midwifery. Each year, the top performing students – winners and highly commended entrants – are invited to the UA Global Summit. The 2014 UA Global Summit welcomed 120 future leaders from around the world to Dublin, Ireland to spark cutting-edge ideas, forge lasting collaborations, and encourage responsible leadership.

The 120 attendees are the top performing entrants out of 4,792 submissions UA received this year from 209 universities across 27 countries. As such, the attendees came from America, Austria, Australia, Bangledesh, Canada, Denmark, Finland, Germany, India, Iran, Ireland, Italy, Malaysia, Nigeria, Netherlands, Singapore, Slovenia, Sweden, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom.

Congratulating Louise and the other highly-commended NUI Galway students, NUI Galway President, Dr Jim Browne said: “Louisa's success highlights the high quality of study which our undergraduate students are engaged in. Such success in these Awards will undoubtedly add lustre to the academic development of our students as well as underscore NUI Galway’s increasing profile as a centre of world-class research and teaching.” 

The Undergraduate Awards also welcomed an inspiring array of thought leaders to speak during the UA Global Summit. This year’s speakers included Oscar-winning film producer Lord David Puttnam; Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Mairead Maguire; former Legal Counsel and Under-Secretary-General for Legal Affairs at the United Nations and Irish barrister, Patricia O’Brien; Mars One candidate Professor Joeseph Roche, and critically acclaimed choreographer and MacArthur Genius Kyle Abraham, among others.

The Undergraduate Awards Programme 2015 is now open for submissions and registrations. To find out more about The Undergraduate Awards visit http://www.undergraduateawards.com/ .

The Undergraduate Awards were founded in partnership with Google, Digicel, the Higher Education Authority and the Department for Employment and Learning.

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