University of Luxembourg
Two of winners of the competition, surrounded by representatives of the University of Luxembourg and the FNR. From left to right: Nicole Paschek (DESCOM, University of Luxembourg), Franco Catuogno (LIH), Carlos Vega (LIH), Michèle Weber (science.lu, FNR).
The Science Writing Competition 2024 was organized by the DESCOM project of the University of Luxembourg in collaboration with science.lu from the Luxembourg National Research Fund (FNR). People working in science, research and innovation in Luxembourg were asked to write an article about research in Luxembourg that is understandable to anyone. Franco Catuogno, Dr. Gabor Mihaly Toth and Dr. Carlos Vega submitted the winning articles.
“Scientists are often so immersed in their field that they start believing certain concepts are basic for everyone, when in fact, they are not”, says Franco Catuogno when asked about his motivation to participate in the competition. “Science communication is the bridge that we need to build in order to avoid disconnecting from society.” Carlos Vega also saw the competition as an opportunity to connect to new audiences.
“Moreover, I think the process of writing an article for lay audiences can help organize concepts in our mind and gain a better understanding of them”, says Carlos Vega. Franco Catuogno also sees another benefit for scientists: “Simplifying complex ideas helps us to come out of the "lab bubble" and look at our work from a broader perspective. I believe science communication can reignite our own curiosity, reminding us of the passion that originally led us to pursue this path.”
The jury of six congratulates the three winners for their outstanding submissions:
The first place
Franco Catuogno won the first prize with his article about pesticides called ‘Pesticides: Designed to fight pests, they became one’. He is working as a doctoral candidate in the field of human biomonitoring at the Luxembourg Institute of Health (LIH). “The article deals with an issue that directly affects the general public. It is perfectly structured and the examples cited are very well-chosen to give a national overview”, says one of the jurors.
The second place
Dr. Gabor Mihaly Toth is working as Postdoctoral Researcher in the field of digital and computational history at the Luxembourg Center for Contemporary and Digital History of the University of Luxembourg. His article ‘History, Loss, and Your GPS: Reconstructing the Past’ won the second place. The text is linked to scientific activity at the recently established Doctoral Training Unit in Deep Data Science of Digital History, an interdisciplinary approach to making sense of data from the past.
The third place
Carlos Vega has a PhD in Computer Science Engineering. He is working as Research Engineer in Digital Health at the LIH. His submission ‘The weakness of AI and science – explained with an omelet’ received the third place. Most of the content from this article stems from his research conducted at the Luxembourg Centre for Systems Biomedicine (LCSB) during the last years, where he evaluated the methodologies of trending AI solutions aimed at diagnosing important new diseases such as COVID-19 or the recent Monkeypox outbreaks. The text explains the weaknesses and power of artificial intelligence and machine learning by drawing examples from the course on “Applied Philosophy of Science and Data Ethics” that he is teaching at the Faculty of Science, Technology and Medicine (FSTM). The course illustrates the concepts with real scenarios from healthcare and data science.
The Science Writing Competition 2024 comes with up to 200€ in prize money as well as a publication of the article on science.lu. You can also read the winning articles from the first edition of the Science Writing Competition in 2021 there.
Author: University of Luxembourg
Editor: Michèle Weber (FNR)
