Former Forth Valley College student Dr Kirsty Robb, has landed herself on a Top 10 People of 2019 list alongside climate change activist Greta Thunberg!
Kirsty (37) from Stirling, who became the first inductee of the College Development Network (CDN) College Hall of Fame in June 2019, has made it onto the TES Scotland People of the Year list for this year alongside some truly inspirational and worthy peers.
Kirsty, said: “This is a great honour. 2019 has been a big year for me… travelling to Antarctica on the Homeward Bound expedition, being the first former student inducted into the CDN Hall of Fame and now to be recognised in the Top 10 People of the Year list for such a respected magazine such as TES, is just the icing on the cake. And to find out about it on my birthday on Friday 20 December is a pretty good present.
“I am just overwhelmed to be mentioned in the same list which has some big names there… none more so than Greta Thunberg!”
TES Scotland's people of the year 2019
“Debbie”: a single mum struggling to make ends meet, provided a coruscating reminder that success in education is about so much more than great classroom teaching.
Harriet Sweatman: The pupil whose essay about the curriculum’s “chokehold” on children went viral.
Furball: One of the army of teddy bears deployed at three West Lothian schools, whose presence symbolised changing attitudes to issues such as “adverse childhood experiences” in Scotland
Jim Scott: The researcher and former secondary head whose analysis of attainment data led to furious debate about the state of Scottish education.
Chris Smith: The inspiring maths teacher whose passion for his subject reaches right around the world.
Robert Acker Holt: A Jewish refugee who fled the Nazis and died in 2018, he has now – in Glasgow schools – inspired the first initiative of the Kindness Movement, a timely attempt to counteract more negative impulses rife in the world in 2019.
Greta Thunberg: The Swedish schoolgirl who is transforming the way people think about climate change.
Kirsty Robb: The scientist who is fighting against superbugs after having taken the all-too-often overlooked articulation route from college to university, and has become the first inductee into the College Hall of Fame.
Beth Morrison: The campaigner against the use of restraint on children in schools, whose efforts over many years paid off this week.
Calendar boys: The brave Dumfries and Galloway staff whose naked forms adorned college walls and raised money for a cancer charity.
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Kirsty who graduated from FVC with a HND Applied Biological Sciences was presented with her CDN inductee award by Richard Lochhead MSP, Minister of Further Education, Higher Education and Science at College Expo19 at Perth College UHI on Wednesday 12 June. She was one of only three Scottish women on a ship which set sail in January 2019 for Antarctica as part of Homeward Bound, a leadership and science initiative for women. The initiative aimed to heighten the influence and impact of women with a science background in order to influence policy and decision making.
Originally from Girvan in Ayrshire, Kirsty, also won the Best Student award in the Department of Applied Science when she graduated in 2009. She then enrolled at Strathclyde University on the third year of a BSc Hons degree in Biochemistry and Immunology, graduating in 2011 and beginning her PhD in Structural Dynamics of Bacterial GntR Proteins.
Until recently she held a Post-Doctoral researcher at the Strathclyde Institute of Pharmacy and Biomedical Science (SIPBS) in Glasgow, Kirsty is working in collaboration with GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) in the fight against superbugs – where she became known as the ‘Protein Queen’. She is now a senior scientist with IBioIC.
Her science based expertise has been enhanced by her adventurous nature – Kirsty is also an experienced mountaineer and Mountain Leader, qualified to guide people in the highland mountains of Scotland. Her next adventure is to the North Pole (Arctic) in March 2020.
For more information about Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths (STEM) courses at Forth Valley College, please call 01324 403000 or visit www.forthvalley.ac.uk