Celebrating public engagement success

Congratulations to the four winners of the inaugural School of Physics and Astronomy Public Engagement Awards.

The School of Physics and Astronomy is proud to announce the winners of its inaugural Public Engagement Awards, recognising outstanding efforts to benefit the School or the communities we serve.

The awards celebrate staff and students who have demonstrated creativity and commitment in sharing physics - whether through digital media, festivals or community partnerships.

Award winners

The Public Engagement Award Winners 2026 are:

• Mia Belle Parkinson - PhD student 
• Ellie Bishop – PhD student
• Dr Miquel Nebot-Guinot – PDRA
• Dr Cheryl Patrick – STFC Ernest Rutherford Fellow

The winners were announced at a School Forum, and certificates were presented by the Head of School, Professor Philip Best.

In addition to the four winners, the panel also recognised outstanding public engagement activity from the Euclid Space Telescope team, the Higgs Centre for Theoretical Physics, and the National Biofilms Innovation Centre.

Professor Philip Best said:

These awards recognise colleagues who dedicate their time and creativity to making physics accessible, relevant and inspiring to external audiences. Their work is immensely valuable to ensuring our research has impact beyond academia, and their efforts strengthen our relationship with the wider community and inspire future generations.

Public engagement contributions and activities 

Mia Belle Parkinson 

Mia’s has shared her passion for science on BBC’s The Sky at Night and in the Daily Mail. She has worked as scriptwriter and narrator for SpaceTV—a role that earned her a 2024 VOX Award nomination for ‘Best Human Performance in E-Learning/Medical Narration’.

She fosters scientific dialogue as the host of The Tartan Tardigrade podcast, interviewing global experts in the field, as the Editor-in-Chief of the Astrosociological Insights Forum, and as the published author of Our AstroLegacy, an insightful read on discovering our place in the universe. She also creates educational space science content on social media.

Ellie Bishop 

Ellie’s outreach involvement includes work with Remote3 (building and programming LEGO mars rovers which are sent to complete challenges at the Boulby Underground Laboratory) where she has acted as mentor and leads programming workshops at events around Scotland.

She was elected LUX-ZEPLIN (LZ) UK Outreach Coordinator in 2024, a role which included organising the Underground Dark Matter Searches UK exhibition stand at New Scientist Live - featuring a walk-in dark matter detector.

Dr Miquel Nebot-Guinot 

Miquel led the Edinburgh contribution to the commissioning of an experimental neutrino physics display (DUNE- UK) at the Royal Society Summer Exhibition 2024. With the help of neutrino-group colleagues, he brought this exhibit to the Edinburgh Science Festival 2025 and to the CERN’s 70^th anniversary UK celebration in Edinburgh. More than 1,000 people visited to find out about the work. The exhibition is now being used for other outreach activities and at science festivals across the UK.

Dr Cheryl Patrick

Cheryl’s main public engagement project has been through the creation of physics board games to teach and inspire school children about particle physics. The games have been taken to CERN’s 70^th anniversary event, outreach events, and local schools.

Cheryl has been working on developing the game Quark Quest, which is designed to cover the Scottish Highers Standard Model curriculum into a product that can be provided to schools. Her goal is to make this accessible to all students and teachers across Scotland.

Looking ahead

The School continues to encourage and support colleagues to embed public engagement within their research and teaching, and recognises the efforts of many other students and staff in public engagement endeavours.

Congratulations to all of this year’s winners and nominees for their dedication to sharing physics.