‘ju:femaiz

This morning as I lay half awake in bed listening to the 630am news on TripleJ I was vaguely aware of a Nicole Someoneorother winning a couple of Eureka Prizes last night. It was when they told listeners the area in which she specialised that I jumped out of bed and looked up on the internet to find that it was indeed none other than Nicole Kuepper, whom I’ve known since she started her Bachelors in Engineering at the University of New South Wales in Photovoltaics and Solar Energy Engineering (my undergrad degree), and even crashed at her place when she was in Freiburg, Germany on exchange at the Fraunhofer Institute when I was traveling through Europe a couple of years back.

Nicole is most certainly a rising star, and an absolute champion to boot. I’ve only ever known her as a girl with a fantastic amount of energy - always pushing herself for more and more challenges. Many of the most intelligent people are reclusive in their lifestyles but Nicole is always out and challenging the world - changing it to the way she wants it to be.

Her award is for a patent for, and pushing for the application of, low cost photovoltaic production techniques. The methodology utilises existing the technology of inkjet printing, pizza ovens and an active ingredient in nail polish acetone to create the photovoltaic solar cells (for further information the patent overview makes for some good, if mildly geeky, reading). While production in the developing world may not yield record breaking cell efficiency, the opportunity to significantly lower the cost to get high volumes of solar generation into regions lacking basic electricity infrastructure is one that cannot be ignored. Further,

Not only did she pick up the award for Young Leaders in Environmental Issues and Climate Change, no small feat in itself, but she also picked up the 2008 Australian Museum Eureka Prize People’s Choice Award.

I just hope she didn’t mind a 640am wake up message of congratulations.