News

‘Exceptional student’ Claire is top undergraduate in first year first science

(8 October 2004)

Claire Fairbairn, of St. Aidan’s College, University of Durham, has won the top prize for a first-year undergraduate in the Department of Mathematical Sciences.

Claire, who is on a four-year Master of Mathematics course, has scooped the prestigious Rochester Prize which is awarded annually to the top undergraduate in first-year science. She received the prize at a special ceremony to be held in the Ogden Centre at the Department of Physics this week (Thursday 7th October). The Rochester Prize (£80) was presented by Professor Alan Bilsborough, University Pro-Vice Chancellor, and with representatives from St. Aidan’s College, the faculties of mathematics and physics.

Professor Richard Ward. Head of the Department of Mathematical Sciences, said : “We are very proud of Claire's achievement, which is truly exceptional. By a clear margin, she is the best first-year Maths student that we have had for a long time.”

There have always been close links between the Physics and Mathematics Departments at Durham. The Rochester Prize honours Professor George Rochester (1908-2001) , a distinguished former Professor of Physics and Pro-Vice Chancellor at Durham and Fellow of the Royal Society who earned an international reputation as one of Britain’s top physicists.

Claire, from Wimbledon, London, said :”I was surprised and delighted when I learned that I had been awarded the Rochester Prize. I feel honoured to have been chosen by the faculty”. Her parents and younger brother will be present at the prize giving ceremony. Her mother is graduate of St. Mary’s College, Durham and is a French and Russian translator and teacher. Her father is a solicitor.

She is a Member of the Royal Institution and has also won the Derek Wilson Mathematics Prize, a Veronica Greene bursary from St. Aidan’s and a student in residence scholarship from the University. Her sports hobbies include skiing, tennis, badminton and she enjoys playing the flute and piano.

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Notes to editors

Professor Rochester became one of the founding figures of modern particle physics when, in the 1940s, he discovered the existence of nuclear matter heavier than the previously known particles such as protons and neutrons. His discovery earned him the FRS - Fellowship of the Royal Society, the top accolade in UK science, in 1958.

George Rochester was born on Tyneside, the son of a blacksmith, on 4 February, 1908. He attended Wallsend Grammar School and between 1926 and 1929 he was the Earl Grey Memorial Scholar at Armstrong College, Newcastle (then part of Durham University), where he gained BSc, MSc and PhD degrees. After a period as a postdoctoral researcher at the University of California, he went to Manchester University where he progressed from Assistant Lecturer to a Readership in 1953. He returned to Durham as Professor of Physics and Chair of the Department in 1955. He served as one of two Pro-Vice-Chancellors of the University from 1967 to 1970. He died in December 2001.

It was the foresight and wisdom of George Rochester that laid the foundation for Durham's Physics Department now being one of the premier research and teaching institutions in the country , recognised for the international quality of its work. As Head of Department George Rochester built up Physics not only through academic appointments, but almost literally, taking a personal hand in the detailed design and interior structure of the main departmental building. On the 50th anniversary of his great discovery, it was named the Rochester Building, by the University's last Chancellor, the late Sir Peter Ustinov.

Throughout his 28 years of retirement Professor Rochester took a keen interest in the development of the University and of Physics in particular. In addition to the Rochester Prize, the University holds an annual Rochester Lecture, in which some of the world's most distinguished scientists have presented the latest developments in Physics.

Media enquiries to : Tom Fennelly, Public Relations Office, University of Durham Tel : 0191 334 6078 or e-mail : t.p.fennelly@durham.ac.uk.