Barry O’Donovan Ranked Top Three Nationally in Earnshaw Award and Publishes First Paper

6 Jan 2026

We are delighted to share news of an outstanding achievement by Barry O’Donovan, a member of last year’s graduating Physics class at UCC.

Barry was nominated as UCC Physics’ entry for the Institute of Physics (IoP) Earnshaw Award, which recognises the top-ranked undergraduate final-year projects in Ireland. His project was selected as the strongest in our 4th Year cohort and went on to be ranked in the top three nationally by an external assessor.
More information on the award is available here:
https://www.iop.org/about/awards/iop-ireland-awards/earnshaw-award

Commenting on the shortlisted projects, the external assessor noted:

“It was a pleasure to read the three reports. I felt the enthusiasm of each author towards their respective topic of study. The standard was very high, with each report showing that the author had gained excellent understanding of their field in the limited timescale of an undergraduate project. I congratulate all.”

To mark this achievement locally, Barry was recently presented with a UCC Cup, which he will bring with him to Dublin, where he is now pursuing a PhD.

Adding to this success, Barry has already turned his undergraduate project into a research paper, which was accepted this week in the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics**. The preprint is available on arXiv:
https://arxiv.org/abs/2512.07944

This remarkable progress so early in his research career is a testament to Barry’s ability and dedication. We congratulate him warmly and wish him every success as he continues his doctoral studies.