Mathematician Katie Steckles has won the 2016 Josh Award. She plans to turn the Museum of Science and Industry into a giant hand-made, crowd- sourced image during this year’s Manchester Science Festival.
Katie's winning application suggested festival visitors help colour thousands of individual ‘pixels’ that will make up a picture in one of the museum’s windows representing how digital devices such as computers, tablets, and phones display images.
The project will also look at the mathematics behind how devices store images as a series of numbers that create the different colours on screen. There’ll be a close-up look at the pixels in your own phone’s screen and a photo booth that transforms you into an Excel spreadsheet of colour values.
The Josh Award is the UK’s national award in science communication, established to recognise and support up-and-coming talent in science communication. The award provides the opportunity to become the science communicator in residence at the Manchester Science Festival 2016, in partnership with the University of Salford, Manchester developing and delivering a new project or event while showcasing best practice in the field of science communication. The winner receives support to nurture their development in the field and their involvement in the Manchester Science Festival from both the Festival team, the University of Salford’s Science Communication cluster, and the BIG STEM Communicators Network.
Katie said of winning the award, ‘I'm delighted to have received this award, and I'm very much looking forward to the project in October. I've worked on events with Manchester Science Festival many times in the past, and am extremely proud to be Science Communicator in Residence with such a great organisation.’
Antonio Benitez, Director of Manchester Science Festival, said, ’We are delighted that Katie will be the science communicator in residence at the Manchester Science Festival 2016. Katie is a very inspiring science communicator and a great ambassador for Manchester Science Festival. The Festival team is looking forward working with Katie to develop and deliver this exciting new project showcasing best practise in the field of science communication for this year’s festival’
The is the third year that BIG has been co-organising the Josh Award. We saw some very strong entries and choosing a winner was not easy. The award panel were impressed with Katie’s plan for an event at the Manchester Science festival and with her commitment to bringing mathematics to the fore in everyday life.
