Kildare med student wins international award
Aibhe Kelly of the Royal College of Surgeons Ireland (RCSI) from Timolin who won an prestigious graduate award for her work on sepsis.
A STUDENT from Timolin has been named a Regional Winner at the 2026 Global Undergraduate Awards (GUA), the world's leading academic awards programme for undergraduate coursework.
Aibhe Kelly, a student at the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland (RCSI), is recognised as producing among the strongest undergraduate work in her part of the world, selected from entries assessed by an international panel of academics and judged purely on the merit of the work.
Aibhe is a regional winner in Medical Sciences for her research into the role of platelets in sepsis, a life-threatening response to infection that remains a major challenge in medicine.
Her work contributes to a growing understanding of how the body's own clotting cells shape the course of the condition.
The Global Undergraduate Awards identify and celebrate the world's top undergraduate work across a broad range of disciplines, from literature and philosophy to engineering, law, medicine and the visual arts.
Now in its programme for 2026, the Awards received submissions from students at leading universities and colleges around the world.
Jim Barry, Chairman of the Global Undergraduate Awards, said: “These students are among the brightest undergraduates globally with the potential to have a significant impact on some of the world’s greatest challenges”.
“The purpose of the Global Undergraduate Awards is to recognise that potential early; to identify exceptional talent at the start of a career, recognise that talent and give it a global platform, long before the wider world takes notice.
“This year’s Kildare and other winners are tackling the questions that will define the decades ahead. We are proud to celebrate them, and to bring them together in Dublin this November.”
Winners will be celebrated at the GUA Summit and the Thomas Clarkson Gold Medal presentation, taking place in Dublin on 10 November, bringing together the programme's global winners alongside academics, judges and supporters.
A Global Winner is the programme’s highest honour, awarded to the single best undergraduate submission in each category worldwide.
