Ciara Judge is an Irish scientist from

Kinsale Kinsale ( ; ) is a historic port and fishing town in County Cork, Ireland. Located approximately south of Cork City on the southeast coast near the Old Head of Kinsale, it sits at the mouth of the River Bandon, and has a population of 5,281 (a ...

County Cork County Cork ( ga, Contae Chorcaí) is the largest and the southernmost county of Ireland, named after the city of Cork, the state's second-largest city. It is in the province of Munster and the Southern Region. Its largest market towns are ...

and a public speaker. She was a finalist of the 42nd BT Young Scientist and Technology Exhibition in 2013 at the age of fifteen with two others: Emer Hickey, Sophie Healy-Thow. She also won a First place Award in the

European Union Contest for Young Scientists The European Union (EU) Contest for Young Scientists is a science fair, initiated by the European Commission. It is a part of the European Union Framework Programmes for Research and Technological Development, and is managed by the Directorate Gen ...

2013. In 2014, she jointly with her 2 friends won the grand prize in

Google Science Fair The Google Science Fair was a worldwide (excluding Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Sudan, Myanmar/Burma, Syria, Zimbabwe and any other U.S. sanctioned country) online science competition sponsored by Google, Lego, Virgin Galactic, National Geographic ...

Ciara was also listed as one of the 25 most influential teens in ''

Time Time is the continued sequence of existence and events that occurs in an apparently irreversible succession from the past, through the present, into the future. It is a component quantity of various measurements used to sequence events, to ...

'' for the year 2014 as a result of her innovation.

The innovation

At the time of her win, Judge was a second-year student at Kinsale Community School in Kinsale. Their project involved a statistical investigation of the effects of

Diazotroph Diazotrophs are bacteria and archaea that fix gaseous nitrogen in the atmosphere into a more usable form such as ammonia. A diazotroph is a microorganism that is able to grow without external sources of fixed nitrogen. Examples of organisms that d ...

bacteria on plant germination. They investigated how the bacteria could be used to fight world hunger. Their project aims to provide a solution to low crop yields by pairing a

nitrogen-fixing Nitrogen fixation is a chemical process by which molecular nitrogen (), with a strong triple covalent bond, in the air is converted into ammonia () or related nitrogenous compounds, typically in soil or aquatic systems but also in industry. Atmos ...

bacteria in the soil with cereal crops. They found their test crops germinated in half the time and had a drymass yield up to 7 percent greater than usual.

Activities

Ciara is a former member of the Irish Digital Youth Council. She sometimes writes as a guest columnist in Ireland's technology website (siliconrepublic.com). She was honoured for her interest in STEM (Science Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) and awarded as top role model. She was the speaker in Excited Digital Learning Conference at

Dublin Castle Dublin Castle ( ga, Caisleán Bhaile Átha Cliath) is a former Motte-and-bailey castle and current Irish government complex and conference centre. It was chosen for its position at the highest point of central Dublin. Until 1922 it was the se ...

, Ireland (June 2014). In September 2014 Ciara was also a keynote speaker at the Irish Digital Forum in Dublin

References

External links

*
Combating the global food crisis: Diazotroph Bacteria as a Cereal Crop Growth Promoter at YouTube
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Judge, Ciara Irish women scientists People from Kinsale Food scientists Young Scientist and Technology Exhibition Living people 1997 births Irish scientists