On 4 November 2016 during a ceremony at the Zodiac building of the Wageningen university the Tjeerd de Jong award 2016 was presented to Joëlle Janssen. Fellow contestants that day were Fernando Bueno Guterriez from Spain and Young Lim Lee from South Korea. A mix of nationalities that in the six years the Tjeerd de Jongprijs has been presented had rarely been seen. All the contestants had participated in the course Research Master Cluster and were selected to compete for the Tjeerd de Jong award 2016 with their research project.
Joëlle janssen presented her research project in which she wants to study how dietary amino acids can affect intestinal innate immune cell functioning via alterations in their energy metabolism.
Fernando Bueno Guterriez presented his research proposal in which he wants to study whether accounting for the degree of constraint of DNA elements contributes to a better estimation of genetic value of pigs. Young Lee Lim explained about her research proposal in which she wants to study how exposure to heat stress induces epigenetic mechanisms that alter development in pigs and leads to variaty in reproduction performance.
Despite the complexity of the research projects the board members of the foundation, knowingly or not, did manage to ask some meaningful questions to the candidates. Wether the answers to the questions led to clarification will probably never become clear. At least however it was clear that the level of research proposals and pitches was so high that it took the jury quite a long time to come to a decision.
Member of the jury Herre Kingma kept the audience in supsense for a log time about the outcome of the jury’s deliberation. Eventually the award was presented to Joëlle Janssen. She took home the first price: a sum of 2,000 euro to be spent within the scope of her study. Fernando Bueno Guterriez and Young Lim Lee received a sum of 1,000 euro each. Furthermore the contestants received the foundation’s famous ‘cow’ cup and a bouquet of flowers. The board of the foundation congratualates all three wholeheartedly with their price and whishes them success in their academic career.
After the ceremony there was opportunity for everyone to meet in the hall of the Zodiac building while enjoying a drink and a snack. The sixt edition of the Tjeerd de Jong award was a very succesful event. The board of the foundation would like to thank teachers and staff of the Animal Science Group for organizing the ceremony.
Update
The foundation received a report from the winner, Joëlle Janssen, on her six month practical period with the Cambridge University in the UK.
