The UA Awards

Limavady student Kyra Reynolds, who graduated in July with a first class honours degree in geography, emerged as the overall winner of the Agricultural and Environmental Sciences category.

The UA is a prestigious international academic awards programme, which aims to celebrate and support the world’s brightest and most innovative undergraduate students by recognising their best coursework and projects.

Kyra’s paper questioned findings from the 1970s which suggested that all ice had disappeared by 13,000 years ago but more recent evidence suggests that ice may have remained throughout a brief warm episode. Kyra concluded that delving further into the mystery might give important clues into the nature and rate of climate change as well as the relationships between earth systems such as the atmosphere and the oceans.

Making it a double triumph for the Reynolds family and for the University, Kyra’s identical twin sister Kendra, who also graduated from Ulster with a first class honours degree in English, was one of four Ulster students selected as highly commended entrants.

This recognises them as within the top 10 per cent of their fields, in competition with students from universities across the globe including centers of excellence like Harvard, Princeton, Oxford, Caltech, St Andrews, and Trinity College Dublin.

Professor Adrian Moore, Head of School of Environmental Sciences, said: “Kyra’s achievement at these awards and indeed the accomplishments of all the Ulster winners, proves that they are among the brightest and most innovative students in the world.”

Winners of The Undergraduate Awards will attend the UA 2013 Global Summit in Dublin in November.