On the basis of the excellent feedback I received from the members of the adjudication committee, it's now been possible to make a final decision as to who should receive the Rayner Memorial Award for best student presentation at ECEM 2015. To remind you all of the process, a (long) shortlist was formed on the basis of the concise 100 word abstracts that were submitted, and then members of the adjudication team attended those presentations and provided feedback as to their quality.
It was very difficult to select one person as a winner. The standard of talks and posters was very high (all of the judges said that they found it a tough process). Reassuringly, though, the same names kept cropping up in the evaluations. Here are the names of the runners up that received strongest support (in alphabetical order) - all of these people gave excellent presentations:
Ramina Adam
Gareth Carrol
Dejan Draschkow
Pip Howard
Lewis Jayes
Sarah Schuster
Luke Tudge
I wish it were possible to give all the runners up a prize, but unfortunately, there has to be a single winner.
Based on the judges' feedback, the individual who received the strongest overall support was Alexandra Turcan (positive comments included: “three experiments on comprehension of sarcasm, which were nicely designed on the basis of existing theories”, “a fantastic talk” and “The presenter hit it out of the park in my opinion. If this speaker were a graduate student presenting research from my laboratory, I would be very proud!”).
Alexandra is therefore the ECEM 2015 Rayner Memorial Prize winner – many
congratulations Alexandra.
Simon P. Liversedge
(on behalf of the adjudication committee)
It is a pleasure to announce the Keith Rayner Memorial Award, a prize that will be awarded in memory of Keith Rayner and his contribution to the
field of eye movements and cognitive psychology. The prize will be affiliated with the ECEM conference and will be awarded to the best
student (poster or spoken) presentation at the conference as decided by the adjudication committee.
Keith was a very important figure in the field of eye movements and cognitive psychology. He made a substantial and significant scientific
contribution, and he viewed ECEM as a very important conference. Keith was also an amazing mentor to so many young investigators. This award is about honouring both the contribution that Keith has made, as well as Keith as a person, and it is hoped that in a small way this award can help continue his legacy. It is also hoped that the award will encourage participation by graduate students in future ECEM conferences.
I have been asked to oversee the adjudication of the award, and for this reason, I have requested that Ulrich Ansorge, the conference organizer, distribute this message to all the people registered for the conference. As the information above indicates, the prize is to be awarded in honour of Keith Rayner to the best student presentation (poster or talk) at ECEM. If you are a student and you are presenting a poster or a paper at ECEM 2015 (i.e., you are the primary author on the presentation and you will deliver the presentation), then you are eligible for consideration for the award.
The adjudication process for the award will be as follows. Any person wishing to be considered for the award will be required to send a concise abstract (100 words or less excluding the title), and a statement declaring that the presenter will be a student at the time of the presentation, to the following email address: Rayneraward@soton.ac.uk.
The word limit for the concise abstracts will be strictly observed and any abstract longer than 100 words will not be considered. All abstracts must be submitted to this email address one week before the conference. Any abstracts submitted after this point will not be considered.
All the eligible abstracts will be evaluated by the adjudication committee comprised of well-respected colleagues who will attend the conference. On the basis of the abstracts, members of the adjudication committee will attend a number of talks that are likely candidates for the award, and after the conference a committee decision will be formulated and a winner announced via an email circulated to all the conference delegates. Thus, decisions will be made according to a two-stage process (shortlist on the basis of concise abstracts, followed by a final decision on the basis of the quality of the shortlisted presentations). The award will take the form of a monetary prize.
If you are eligible for the Keith Rayner Award, and you would like to be considered, I strongly encourage you to submit an abstract. If you have any questions regarding the award, or the decision process, please do not hesitate to contact me by email.
With best wishes
Simon P. Liversedge
s.p.liversedge@soton.ac.uk
