A physics PhD student from the University of Bath has jointly won a prestigious astronomy competition that drew 272 entrants from 47 countries.

Nuria Jordana, whose research is focused on gamma-ray busts (GRBs), is one of five winners of the Royal Astronomical Society (RAS) 2020 poster competition. The competition invited students, post-docs, graduates and young professionals to submit digital posters describing their research.

“I really enjoyed the process of crafting the poster and I feel highly honoured to represent the University of Bath in an international competition of this kind,” said Ms Jordana, whose poster investigated the complex role of magnetic fields in GRBs.

“Sometimes it can be hard to find the right words to describe the work I do to people who are not involved with my topic of research, but images and graphics can tell the story in a way that people can quickly understand. I passionately believe science and design can combine well to make science more engaging and relatable to a wider audience.”

She added: "I would like to thank Mrs Hiroko and Mr Jim Sherwin for the scholarship that allowed me to pursue this research."

Professor Carole Mundell, head of Astrophysics, said: “I’m immensely proud of Nuria – what a wonderful achievement in such a wide-reaching, international competition, and with such a high calibre of entrants.

“This award is a fantastic recognition of the importance of Nuria’s research on the nature of cosmic magnetic fields in the most powerful and extreme explosive systems in the Universe, coupled with her talent for communicating complicated physics in a highly accessible way to non-experts, with stunning visuals.”

Aine O’Brien, chair of the RAS Early Careers Network, which ran the competition, added: "The standard of posters was exceptionally high and we were amazed by the vast number of topics covered, from cubesats to education and outreach, from black holes to seismology of the Earth."