Award for the best student oral presentation

Written by Natasa Skrbic

With an oral presentation, I participated at the 11th IWA International conference on Micropollutants and Ecohazards, which took place in Seoul, South Korea, from October 20 to24. This conference aimed at providing rich and thought-provoking scientific program to share and discuss the latest scientific developments and technical solutions in monitoring & analyses, fate & transport, ecotoxicity & risk assessment, control & treatment,
and prioritization & regulation of emerging micro pollutants in water.

My PhD project is focusing on monitoring and removal of natural toxins from the drinking water, hence I found this conference a perfect place to present my work and get inspired for the future tasks.

The title of my presentation was Monitoring of the natural toxin ptaquiloside in the drinking water – a novel sample preparation method. Occurrence of the plant toxins in the water was a new topic to the audience, thus raising many interesting questions and inspiring discussions. Additionally, many talks on other subjects such as removal of emerging contaminates from drinking water brought many fresh ideas for upcoming experiments.

Finally, it was my great pleasure that I was awarded the best student oral presentation award at the conference. I shared the award with other two PhD students from Eawag (Switzerland) and University of California – Berkley and we happily celebrated this occasion during the conference closing ceremony.

Beside the science, spending a week in the capital of South Korea, in one of the largest metropolis in the World, was a terrific experience. Seoul is the city with a fascinating blend of ancient and modern architecture, having the UNESCO World Heritage Sites in its neighborhoods as well as multiple award-winning modern landmarks.