Kirsty Brown Memorial Fund
The Kirsty Brown Memorial Fund was set up in memory of Kirsty Brown who died in Antartica in July 2003.
Kirsty graduated from the Department at Royal Holloway in 1995 with an upper second class BSc degree in Geology. She was not only a keen and hardworking student but was also an enthusiastic diver and photographer. After graduation she joined two diving expeditions to Greenland. During 1996-1997 Kirsty studied for an MSc in Oceanography at Southampton University and from there she proceeded to a PhD programme with Dr Y Bone at the University of Adelaide, South Australia. The opportunity of a job with the British Antarctic Survey meant she left Australia for the UK and for fieldwork in Antarctica on the role of iceberg scouring on marine seafloor communities. In July 2003 Kirsty was snorkelling with her dive buddy and photographing the sea bed when she was attacked by a leopard seal.
In 2004 an island in Antartica was named after her (“Kirsty Island”) by the British Antarctic Survey and her PhD was awarded posthumously in 2005.
The Kirsty Brown Memorial Fund (KBMF) was established in 2004 through the generosity of family and friends and provides a grant of £1,000 to any MSc, PhD, or 3rd year MSci student. In discussion with the trustees of the fund, it was agreed that the grant should be used to finance "a suitable project, travel or research in geology".
RECIPIENTS OF THE KIRSTY BROWN MEMORIAL FUND
2016 Kyriaki Drymoni - Understanding magma movement in the Aegean’s caldera volcanoes
2015 (joint) Alex Clarke - Pseudotachylites within high-pressure blocks in the Franciscan Mélange
Maxim Lamare - Characterization of the bi-directional reflectance of bare sea icesurfaces for the inter-calibration and validation of satellite remote sensing products
2014 Viola Warter - A new interpretative framework for daily cycles resolved in Miocene giantclams (Tridacna) from culturing experiments
2013 John Browning - The Canary Islands’ collapsing volcanoes
2012 Stephanie Walker - Geochronology of the Moine Supergroup in Shetland
2011 Gerd Winterleitner - Characterisation of a Neoproterozoic Reservoir Analogue using LiDAR and GIS mapping of recent Reefs (Fieldwork in Indonesia)
2010 Joanna Cross - Melt inclusions in volcanic rocks from Colli Albani Italy (Research laboratory visit to Mexico)
2009 Jonathan Dredge - Capture and recording of climate by tropical speleothem from the South Pacific (Fieldwork in Fiji)
2008 Anna Bird - Age resolution of polymetamorphic events in the Scottish Northern Highlands using Lu-Hf methods (Fieldwork in Scandinavia)
2007 Pete Rowley - Pyroclastic density current depoosits, Ngauruhoe, New Zealand (Fieldwork in New Zealand)
2006 Ria Mitchell - Atmospheric and Biospheric Reconstruction from 1.1Ga Palaeosols, Lake Superior USA/Canada (Fieldwork in the USA/Canada)
2005 James France - Chemical oxidation in snowpacks Antarctica (Fieldwork in Antarctica)
2004 John Fisher - Characterisation of ephemeral, lacustrine, delta mouth bar deposits, Lake Eyre, Channel Country, Australia (Fieldwork in Australia)
