Claire Jones Prize

Claire Jones was a PhD student at the University of Edinburgh from 1985-89, where after she went on to work as a Research Fellow in the University's Department of Computer Science.

In honour of Claire Jones, a previous member of the Adelard team and a pioneer in the industrial application of formal methods, we actively promote the advancement of great female minds in the area of Computer Science.

Adelard sponsors the prize for the Best Performing Female MSc Student at the University of Edinburgh. This prize recognises the talent, knowledge and tremendous efforts of those who will no doubt go onto make significant contributions to the world after the completion of their degree.

 

Claire Jones prize 2021 winner

 

On the 30th November 2021, Christina Ovezik was awarded the Claire Jones prize as the Best Performing Female MSc Student at The University of Edinburgh's School of Informatics.

Christina completed an MSc in Advanced Technology for Financial Computing. In her thesis "Convergence and Equilibria of Pooling Games in Proof-of-Stake Blockchains", she applied principles from Game Theory and Behavioural Economics to the field of Blockchains and explored through simulations how the choice of an incentive mechanism in a peer-to-peer network can influence the way network members choose to engage with it, and how these individual decisions can affect the system as a whole.  Which are the necessary conditions for such a system to stabilise? What degree of decentralisation is achieved? Are the interests of the participants aligned with the interests of the system, or is it deemed more profitable to employ selfish strategies that may hurt the system in the long run? These are some of the questions Christina addressed in her work, providing insights into the dynamics of a class of systems that are rapidly making their way into more and more people's lives.
 
You can access Christina's work via the list of outstanding projects: https://project-archive.inf.ed.ac.uk/msc/2021-outstanding.html

 

Claire Jones prize 2020 winner

 

On the 30th November 2020, Pia Siegele was awarded the Claire Jones prize as the Best Performing Female MSc Student at The University of Edinburgh's School of Informatics.

Pia completed an MSc in Cognitive Science. In her thesis “The Influence of Synaptic Remodelling on Neuronal Network Activity and Function” Pia used computational modelling techniques to investigate the dynamics of neuronal networks in the brain. More specifically, she was interested in understanding how neuronal networks maintain stable activity and function, despite the fact their components (the neurons and synapses) constantly change. Computational studies such as these provide insights into the principles of brain function in health and disease, and are of interest for the development of biologically inspired artificial neural networks.

You can access Pia’s work via the list of outstanding projects: https://project-archive.inf.ed.ac.uk/msc/2020-outstanding.html

 

Claire Jones prize 2019 winner

 

On the 23rd November 2019, Dimitra Giantsidi was awarded the Claire Jones prize as the Best Performing Female MSc Student at The University of Edinburgh's School of Informatics. 

Dimitra Giantsidi was studying MSc in Computer Science. Follow the link to read Dimitra's thesis 'Serializable and Rollback-Resilient Transaction Protocols using Trusted Counters' and other outstanding projects:  https://project-archive.inf.ed.ac.uk/msc/2019-outstanding.html.

 

Claire Jones prize 2018 winner

Carolin Scholl

 

On 29th November 2018, Carolin Scholl was awarded the Claire Jones prize by University of Edinbugh’s Head of School at the Informatics Forum.

Carolin Scholl was studying toward an Artificial Intelligence MSc degree and recently completed her thesis, “Pruning over-representations in stochastic latent encoder models”. Her thesis can be found via the list of outstanding projects https://project-archive.inf.ed.ac.uk/msc/2018-outstanding.html

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