30th Hans Vontobel Award for Agricultural Sciences goes to Timothy Sykes
This year the Hans Vontobel Prize has been awarded to Timothy Sykes for his doctoral thesis in molecular plant breeding. The prize has been awarded annually to young agricultural scientists for the past 30 years.
Timothy Sykes completed his dissertation "Investigation into the cause of fertility restoration in cytoplasmic male sterile perennial ryegrass (Lolium perenne L.)" in the Molecular Plant Breeding group under the supervision of Bruno Studer. The jury selected his thesis because "the author not only characterised an important genetic mechanism and made it available for plant breeding, but also contributed to the understanding of fundamental principles of biology".
The prize was presented by Maja Baumann, granddaughter of the founder Hans Vontobel, at the Master's degree graduation ceremony held at ETH Zurich by the Department of Agricultural Sciences on 15 March 2019.
30 years of the Hans Vontobel Award
The Hans Vontobel Award for Agricultural Sciences was established by the banker Hans Vontobel in 1989. Even then, he recognised the importance of agronomy for the preservation of nature and the well-being of humans, animals and nature, which were always a concern to him. Hans Vontobel died in 2016. To date, the prize has been awarded to 34 scientists. The 30th anniversary of the Hans Vontobel Prize was celebrated on 28 March 2019, with a personal opening message delivered by ETH Rector Sarah Springman and a speech by Nina Buchmann, Head of the Department of Environmental Systems Sciences (D-USYS).
- external page30 years of the Hans Vontobel Award for Agricultural Sciences: The world needs bright minds: news of Vontobel of 1 April 2019.
- Personal profile of Timothy Sykes