WRITING the life story of a tropical fish through its own eyes has won York student Stephen Smith a top award.

Stephen, 26, a PhD student at the University of York, won first prize in the 20-to-28 years category of The Daily Telegraph BASF Young Science Writer Awards.

He wrote a piece called Solo's Odyssey about the life and evolution of a damselfish and its struggle for survival. Stephen, of Upper Newborough Street, spends half the year in Australia on his studies as the fish lives in tropical waters and around coral reefs.

His story is printed in the Daily Telegraph today and he has won an all-expenses paid week-long trip to Boston in the USA, to attend the 2002 meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. He also wins £500 and an invitation to the British Association's Festival of Science at the University of Glasgow in September. He said: "The first part of my PhD involved a lot of background reading and I like trying to anthropomorphise science and tried to put myself inside the head of a fish. This was a way of putting that across and clarifying my own thoughts."

Stephen, who is originally from London, studied Marine Biology at Liverpool University before doing a Masters degree at York.

Updated: 11:24 Wednesday, August 22, 2001