Engineer, chemist and biologist win L'Oréal-UNESCO scholarships

The trio were presented with the EUR 5,000 scholarships on Tuesday to join the 43 promising young women researchers who have won the awards in Slovenia in the 15 years since the start of the programme.

Katja Klinar collaborates with the Laboratory for Refrigeration and District Energy, at the Ljubljana Faculty of Mechanical Engineering. As part of her PhD study is currently researching the use of thermal switches and thermal diodes in temperature-cycling systems.

Tina Kegl is employed as an early stage researcher at the Laboratory for Process Systems Engineering and Sustainable Development, at the Maribor Faculty of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering. She works in the field of anaerobic digestion-based energy and useful products recovery from organic waste.

Eva Turk completed her MSc in primate evolution at University College London before recently earning her PhD from the Faculty of Biotechnology, the University of Ljubljana, with a thesis on biogeography, macroevolutionary patterns and population genetics in golden orb-weaver spiders (Nephilidae).

A press release from L'Oreal Adria and the Slovenian National Commission for UNESCO, which presented the awards, cites UNESCO Institute for Statistics figures showing that women still represent only a third of scientists globally and have won less than 4% of the Nobel Prizes in science. Women hold only 11% of senior research roles in Europe.