Saheefa Ishaq

Student of 13 wins national award for food hygiene project

15 November 2013

A Leicester teenager has won a national award designed to encourage more young women to enter the Science and Engineering world.

Saheefa Ishaq, 13, is a pupil at the Redmoor Academy, Leicester. At a glittering award ceremony at the Science Museum, London last night (Nov 14) she was presented with the Women in Science and Engineering (WISE) Girl award by HRH The Princess Royal.

Saheefa won the award, sponsored by Intel, for showing outstanding potential in science at an early age. She has already achieved international recognition for her project designed to find the most effective method of cleaning kitchens and food preparation areas and set up a website to share her findings.

Saheefa, who was nominated by Redmoor’s Head of Science, Jo Cox, travelled to Arizona to represent the UK at an International Science and Engineering Fair.

A keen member of the Redmoor Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths club (STEM) she said that she had been inspired to research kitchen and food preparation hygiene to prevent disease.

“Exploring the prevention, symptoms, transmission and treatment of six main diseases, meant that I had a good understanding of the consequences of a lack of hygiene in the kitchen,” Saheefa explained.

“As it’s a growing problem, I am currently looking into ways to really spread this message and look more into the science involving these types of pathogens. I feel that my experiences have made my interests stronger and I definitely feel that this is the beginning my journey towards a career in STEM.”

After receiving her award from HRH The Princess Royal she said; “This is such a fantastic award to receive. I want to develop my interest in working on the links between poor food hygiene and disease so that I can help people in a real and practical way.”