The Adam Neville Prize 2020 awarded for best PhD in field of cement and concrete
The University of Leeds and The Concrete Society have awarded The Adam Neville Prize for the best national PhD in the field of cement and concrete.
For the third year running, The Neville Centre of Excellence in Cement and Concrete Engineering at the University of Leeds, in conjunction with The Concrete Society. have announced the winner of the Adam Neville Prize.
Led by the University of Leeds and awarded annually since 2018, the PhD award, a £1,500 cash prize, has been donated by the Neville family, to honour the late Professor Adam Neville, former President of The Concrete Society (1974-1975) and the University of Leeds’ Head of the Department of Civil Engineering (1968 – 1978).
Four shortlisted PhD candidates from universities across the UK were invited to present their work. Candidates were judged on:
(i) Originality of the work,
(ii) Scientific and technical rigour, and
(iii) Practical applications in cement and concrete industries.
Antonia Yorkshire, a PhD student from the University of Sheffield, was awarded this year’s prize, for her talk entitled “Uranium, plutonium and technetium interaction with cement materials for radioactive waste management”. The prize announcement was made by Professor Adam Neville’s daughter, Dame Elizabeth Neville. We were also joined at the symposium by Dr Mary Neville, wife of the late Professor Neville.
As in previous years, the competition presentations were delivered in parallel with the annual Neville Centre of Excellence in Cement and Concrete Engineering Symposium. This year, the theme for the Symposium was Sustainability and Digitalisation. The three invited speakers from around the UK were;
- Professor John Provis, University of Sheffield: Sustainability in cements and concretes - from production to use
- Professor Julia Stegemann, University College London: A Circular Economy for Cement & Concrete
- Professor Richard Buswell, University of Loughborough: State of the art for 3D concrete printing and future challenges
Around 90 people from Malaysia, India, Europe, South Africa, Canada, Ireland, USA, and the UK took part in a packed on-line programme of seminars and online discussion. The dual event further successfully reinforced the aim of the Neville Centre, led by Professor John Forth, which is to become the first point of contact for both industry and academia to drive innovation and research-led education in cement and concrete.
We would like to extend our gratitude to the Neville family for their continuing support for the Adam Neville PhD Prize, which we know has had a hugely positive impact for the first two recipients.
Further information
Neville Centre of Excellence in Cement and Concrete Engineering
