Leo Cup Winner 2021

On November 6th, 2021, the School of Oceanography celebrated the unveiling of the inaugural Leo Cup, which honored our first Leo Cup recipient, Georges Kanaan, a graduate student in biological oceanography.  Georges, along with his mentors, Dr. Jody Deming and Dr. Jodi Young, will be studying high latitude pollution.  The goal of this study is to identify oil-dispersing biosurfactants, produced by microorganisms native to the Arctic with characteristics that would merit industrial scale production and thus add novel natural products to the remedication toolkit for oil spills and microplastics in cold settings.

Attendees of the event included the Leo Maddox Foundation’s leadership, friends and family of Leo, and the artist, Sabah Al-Dhaher, who created the beautiful sculpture which is now in the first-floor lobby of the Ocean Sciences Building. The celebration also included remarks from Sylvia Bolton, founder of the Leo Maddox Foundation, Vivian Ho, Executive Director of the Leo Maddox Foundation, and Dr. Rick Keil, Dr. Jody Deming, Dr. Jodi Young, and Georges Kanaan. 

We invite you to click here to learn more about the vision and inspiration behind the Leo Cup and how it provides opportunities for young scientists to pursue innovative solutions that address the impacts of ocean pollution and plastics. We also welcome you to visit the Leo Cup display in the Ocean Sciences Building to learn more about Leo’s legacy and passion for protecting the ocean. 

The School of Oceanography expresses its appreciation to the Leo Maddox Family and Vivian Ho for their generosity and vision in establishing the Leo Cup as the School’s premier research award, along with their other impactful student and faculty support programs within our community. 

Photo credits: Hans Jamet, of the Leo Maddox Foundation