KAUST post-doctoral fellow wins science photography competition

-By Caitlin Clark, KAUST News

A photograph of KAUST post-doctoral fellow Dr. Shilpa Sivashankar's research work has won the "Under the Looking Glass: Art from the World of Small Science" photography competition at the 18th International Conference on Miniaturized Systems for Chemistry and Life Sciences (MicroTAS 2014). The conference was held in San Antonio, Texas, the U.S.A. from October 26-30.

Dr. Sivashankar works on biosensor research in the Computer, Electrical, and Mathematical Sciences & Engineering (CEMSE) Division, and is supervised by Professor Khaled Nabil Salama. Her paper, entitled "Real-time agglutination within a microdroplet in a three-phase fluidic well for detection of biomarkers," was accepted to MicroTAS 2014, and included the winning photo.

Fellow CEMSE researchers and Ph.D. students David Castro and David Conchouso took the photograph of Dr. Sivashankar's work. Castro, KAUST Research Scientist Dr. Ulrich Buttner and Professor Ian Foulds were co-authors of the paper.

This year's conference was an exciting venue for the latest findings in microfluidic nano, bio and medical research. Over 850 papers were accepted to the 2014 conference, and over 1,100 scientists attended the event.

Dr. Sivashankar's photo will be featured on the cover of the prestigious journal Lab on a Chip. The photo was selected on the basis of aesthetic eye appeal, artistic allure, and scientific merit.

"I was astonished our photograph won the award," said Dr. Sivashankar. "Winning is not everything, but making an effort to win is - and we have been rewarded for the effort we made."