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When Alison Edwards graduates from the University of Dundee on Thursday (8th) with first class honours in chemistry and the accolade of best female student in the subject, her success will call up the shade of one of the University's earliest brilliant young women to graduate in science. For Alison is the first recipient of the Dr Evelyn Gow Scholarship bequested to the University on Dr Gow's death earlier this year, along with a caseful of academic medals.Said Alison: "I'm delighted to receive this scholarship which will be a great help over the next few years, and though I feel a little uncomfortable at the idea of it being made for the best woman student rather than just the best student - it is what Evelyn Gow wanted."
Alison, whose family live at Newmahar, Aberdeen, has also been awarded the Patrick Ritchie Prize for presentation of her honours project on sugar amino acids. Alison will now go on to Oxford University to pursue PhD research in this area which could have implications for the design of new drugs.
Perhaps it should be no surprise that Alison's identical twin sister Joan also graduated this month from the University of Aberdeen where she achieved an honours degree in biochemistry with immunology. Joan too is going on to pursue a PhD, at the Rowat Institute.
Dr Evelyn Gow cut a colourful figure in the Dundee area where, after a distinguished early career in research which took her to Cambridge she turned down a prestigious Carnegie Scholarship at Munich University to help her ailing family and their Dundee gunmaker shop, John R Gow & Sons. She soon turned her scientific background to a business career and became a ballistics expert, able to advise the police and others on cartridge velocities. Dr Gow's abilities extended also into the art world where she made a reputation as a photographer and artist. One of her earliest works hung in the Royal Institute of Oil Painters. /ends
