The Wyndham sessions
The Wyndham Prize Competition was instituted by the Society in 1985, and first awarded in 1986. It is named in honour of the late Professor Cyril Wyndham, internationally renowned South African exercise and heat stress physiologist. The award is made for the best oral presentation by a young researcher in the physiological sciences at the Annual PSSA Meeting.
The competition constitutes one of the highlights of the PSSA congresses. It offers Physiology Departments in Southern Africa an opportunity to put the success of their post-graduate programmes on display, while also giving young researchers their first experience of presenting and defending their work in front of a supportive, but competitive, international audience. Furthermore, it affords young researchers an all important first opportunity to compare, and discuss, their work with those of their peers at other universities.
The Wyndham competition is important not only because of the prestige involved, but the winner also becomes eligible for a sponsored trip to the next IUPS meeting.
Rules of the Wyndham Competition
- The competition is open to young investigators in the physiological sciences who are registered as STUDENTS at any tertiary institution in Southern Africa.
- Entrants for the Competition may not be older than 30 years of age at the time of the Competition, nor may they already be in possession of a PhD (or equivalent) degree.
- Tenured or full-time 'Lecturers' or 'Researchers' at a tertiary education institution are excluded from the Competition. Bursary holders and students in temporary research assistant posts are, however, not excluded.
- The entrant must be the principal investigator of the project to be presented at the Competition. This must be confirmed in writing by the Head of the Department which is sponsoring the student's participation in the Wyndham Competition.
- Entrants need not be members of the PSSA. Entrants must, however, be bona fide students at a tertiary institution in Southern Africa. This must also be confirmed in writing by the Head of the Department which is sponsoring the student's participation in the Wyndham Competition.
- Only one presentation per entrant per PSSA Meeting is permitted for Competition purposes.
- A given person may enter for the Wyndham Competition at more than one Meeting of the PSSA (i.e.. participation in the Competition is not limited to one year per lifetime), BUT previous winners of the Wyndham competition are not allowed to participate in the competition for a second time.
- Each entrant presents a 10 minute oral presentation, with 5 minutes of question time.
- The presentations are judged by a panel of no fewer than 6 judges, who are members of the PSSA (but may include prominent scientists who have been invited to the PSSA Meeting as guest speakers). The judges are appointed by the Council of the PSSA. They are chosen for their current active involvement in research and the supervision of post-graduate students.
- Presentations are judged according to the following criteria:
Construction of the presentation: how well is the story told? 1 Judge Background insight and motivation for the study. 1 Judge Methods (originality/appropriateness and correctness). 1 Judge Approriateness and clarity of analysis and display of results. 1 Judge Discussion and response to questions. 2 Judges
- Each judge evaluates the same aspect (and only that one aspect) of each of the presentations. The overall impression of a presentation is therefore generated by the results of all the judges' evaluations: each judge listing his/her top 5 candidates in order of merit, the top candidate receiving a score of 1, the next a score of 2, and so on. Anyone not placed is given a score of 6. A candidate's score is the sum of the scores awarded to that candidate by the six judges. The winner is the candidate with the lowest score.
In this manner each judge's opinion carries a weight equal to that of each of the others, and no single judge can hijack the awarding system. - The quality or contents of the abstract, which describes the candidate's work, shall NOT be taken into account when selecting the winner of the Wyndham Competition. The reason being that many of the candidates are Honours students who only start their projects in March, and have to submit their abstracts for the conference before the results of their experiments become available.
- In general only one winner is selected from the list of entrants. Only the winner's name is made public.
- The prize consists of a certificate, a cash prize, and the possibility of being sponsored (by the PSSA) to attend the next IUPS meeting.
- The selection of the Wyndham Prize Winner who will attend the next IUPS Meeting will be coordinated by the Council of the PSSA. Preference will be given to the candidate who has made, or is taking definite steps towards making a career in Physiology.
Wyndham Competition Winners
| 1985 | Mark Bryer | Physiology, University of the Witwatersrand |
| 1986 | Henry Markram | Physiology, University of Cape Town |
| 1987 | No meeting | |
| 1988 | Patti Francis | Physiology, University of Cape Town |
| 1989 | Angela Woodiwiss | Physiology, University of the Witwatersrand |
| 1990 | Tammy Pitcher | Physiology, University of the Witwatersrand |
| 1991 | No meeting | |
| 1992 | Barbara Huisamen | Medical Physiology, University of Stellenbosch |
| 1993 | Jeremy Joubert | Anatomy and Cellular Biology, University of Cape Town |
| 1994 | David Speechly | Physiology, University of the Witwatersrand |
| 1995 | Kieron Baldwin | Anatomy and Cellular Biology, University of Cape Town |
| 1996 | Mike Butterworth | Anatomy and Cellular Biology, University of Cape Town |
| 1997 | Shane Norris | Physiology, University of the Witwatersrand |
| 1998 | Lisa Meyr | Medical Physiology, University of Stellenbosch |
| 1999 | Andrew Liebenberg | Medical Physiology, University of Stellenbosch |
| 2000 | Gavin Classens | Medical Physiology, University of Stellenbosch |
| 2001 | Paul de Jongh | Medical Physiology, University of Stellenbosch |
| 2002 | Carmen Langeveldt | Endocrinology Unit, University of Stellenbosch |
| 2003 | Joanne McVeigh | School of Physiology, University of the Witwatersrand |
| Christopher Anamourlis | School of Physiology, University of the Witwatersrand | |
| 2004 | Andreas Themistocleous | School of Physiology, University of the Witwatersrand |
| 2005 | Demetri Veliotes | School of Physiology, University of the Witwatersrand |
| 2006 | Sarin Somers | Hatter Institute, University of Cape Town |
| 2007 | James Smith | Dept of Human Biology, Division of Exercise Science and Sport Medicine, University of Cape Town |
| 2008 | Benjamin Loos | Department of Physiological Sciences, Stellenbosch University |
| 2009 | Uthra Rajamani | Department of Physiological Sciences, Stellenbosch University |
| 2010 | Llewelyn Rapuling | Medical Physiology, Stellenbosch University |
| 2011 | Margot Flint | Medical Physiology, Stellenbosch University |