March 16, 2021

Victory for UKAEA Graduate Katie Taylor in Regional FameLab Science Communication Competition

STEP Graduate Development Engineer Katie, was awarded 1st place for her engaging baking-themed take on describing fusion energy, in this year’s regional FameLab Competition, hosted by Oxford’s History of Science Museum.

Read on

Katie, who joined UKAEA on the graduate programme 18 months ago, competed against ten other scientists and engineers from across Oxfordshire and went on to win the regional final, held virtually on Friday 12th March 2021.


FameLab is an international science communication competition owned by Cheltenham Science Festival and delivered globally in partnership with the British Council since 2007. With over 20 countries taking part, it gives scientists and engineers from around the world a platform to engage and entertain audiences in just three minutes armed with only their wits and props.

Speaking about how she got involved, Katie said: “I enjoy outreach as it’s an opportunity to get excited by science and think it’s incredibly important to get more people engaged in science, especially fusion – so I signed up. At the heats I talked about the need for fusion energy, what it is, what it isn’t, and how STEP will deliver this. For the regional final, I had to adapt this and so talked about the principles of fusion, how it works and how we’re going to do it here on earth – I used a cooking analogy which clearly went down well!”

Katie Taylor, STEP Graduate Development Engineer

Katie will now go on to compete against winners from seven other regions in the UK Final, which will be held at this year’s Cheltenham Science Festival in June.


From all of us across UKAEA, congratulations Katie and good luck for the UK Final!


To watch Katie’s winning talk, visit the Oxford History of Science Museum’s YouTube channel.