Congratulations to Emmanuel Ho, Jenine McCutcheon, and Will Percival on being named the 2025 Excellence in Science Research Awards winners!
Inaugurated in 2021, the Excellence in Science Research Awards recognize outstanding research accomplishments by Science faculty members. Each year, three researchers from across the Faculty of Science are chosen to be celebrated. One tenure-track faculty, one mid-career tenured faculty (up to 10 years post-tenure), and one senior-career tenured faculty (more than 10 years post-tenure).
These awards draw attention to the research area of each recipient, recognize excellence at the University, and strengthen subsequent nominations for external research awards.
Jenine McCutcheon is an Assistant Professor, Geomicrobiology in the Faculty of Science. Her research is focused on mineral-microbe-fluid interactions in natural and engineered environments. She seeks to understand how the reaction pathways of small-scale biogeochemical processes could lead to solving important environmental challenges such as mine waste remediation and carbon sequestration in mineral products.
Dr. McCutcheon’s approach involves field work followed up with a multi-analytical approach, using high-resolution scanning and transmission electron microscopy in conjunction with various spectroscopic techniques, X-ray and electron diffraction methods, and a variety of aqueous geochemical analyses.
It is an honour to be recognized with the Excellence in Science Research Award. This award is a testament to the fantastic students in my group, whose curiosity and creativity continue to drive our research on the impacts of microbe-mineral interactions on environmental systems in new and exciting directions.
Emmanuel Ho is a Professor in the School of Pharmacy at the Faculty of Science. His research focuses on creating new ways to prevent sexually transmitted infections (STIs). His work in developing technologies for the prevention of STIs include using vaginal rings to deliver medications that protect against HIV before exposure (known as pre-exposure prophylaxis) and developing nanoparticle systems that can deliver drugs directly to immune and epithelial cells to help prevent both HIV and chlamydia.
Dr. Ho is also a Principal Investigator with the Centre for Eye and Vision Research (CEVR), a collaboration between The Hong Kong Polytechnic University and the University of ݮƵ. Recently, Dr. Ho’s innovative platform “Biomimetic Nanoplatform for the Treatment of Retinal Diseases” was awarded a Silver Medal at the 50th International Exhibition of Inventions in Geneva, Switzerland. This exhibition in April 2025 showcased 1,043 inventions from 42 countries and regions.
It is truly an honour to be this year’s recipient of the Excellence in Science Research Award. I want to take this opportunity to thank all my team members, collaborators, and mentors that have continuously supported me throughout my scientific career.
Will Percival holds the Mike and Ophelia Lazaridis Distinguished Chair in Astrophysics within the Department of Physics and Astronomy in the Faculty of Science. He is an observational cosmologist specializing in understanding the universe using surveys of the positions of galaxies. He has developed and applied innovative techniques that now form a cornerstone of our understanding of the universe on the largest scales.
Percival currently helps to manage two large international collaborations. He is a spokesperson for the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI), coordinating the science that comes from this project. DESI is an international undertaking comprised of hundreds of scientists around the globe, with project management located at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in the US. He is also one of four core-science coordinators for the Euclid satellite mission. Euclid is a billion-dollar mission led by the European Space Agency and launched in 2023 to understand Dark Energy.
It is an honour for the research we do to be recognized in this way. The amazing results that we have obtained over the last few years are thanks to the talented team including undergraduate project students, graduate students and postdocs here in ݮƵ, as well as the international collaborations of which we are members.