A Trinity College Dublin medical student has won the annual Mary Mulvihill Award for science media. Cian Morgan, from Dublin, will receive the €2,000 top prize for his essay on the theme of time – the subject of this year’s competition. Morgan, who is in the fourth year of his studies, explored time in his great-great grandfather’s day – from official efforts to formally set and regulate it in Dublin, to the way it was observed in rural Co Carlow, where his ancestor lived. Other highly commended entries, which won prizes of €500 each, included those of Aoibheann Kearins, a recent Trinity physics graduate from Co Sligo, and Dubliner Ciaran Lynch, a second-year music and film student at University College Dublin (UCD). Students from nine third-level institutions entered the competition, held in honour of the scientist and author Mary Mulvihill, who died in 2015. During a varied career in which she contributed to The Irish Times, Mulvihill worked to communicate science to the widest possible audience, and trained others in the skills of sharing their knowledge in accessible ways. The competition invites entries in any media, but Lynch’s was the first original musical composition to be submitted.Kearins’s entry was a personal reflection on time in her own life, interspersed with explorations of scientific works on the subject. Judges this year were Margaret Kelleher, professor and chair of Anglo-Irish Literature and Drama at UCD; Karlin Lillington, writer and retired Irish Times technology columnist, and Anne Mulvihill, sister of Mary Mulvihill. The winners were presented with their awards at a ceremony in the Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies. “Cian’s entry has many of the fine qualities of Mary’s work: it conveys substantial information in a way that is very accessible and engaging, and is very well researched,” Kelleher said of Morgan’s winning entry.