Selecting winners in almost every category of the GE awards was tough, but one of the most challenging categories for the judging panel is the Young Geotechnical Engineer of the Year. The talent and enthusiasm of this year's under 30s who made the shortlist made the deliberations and decisions as hard as ever. Each of the seven candidates have their individual merits and wherever they end up, each is clearly a future leader and the judges congratulate them all on getting this far and having achieved so much already. One of this candidates is David Coyne. The renewable energy sector is providing David Coyne with the opportunity to apply knowledge he has built up via his civil's degree from University College Dublin and an MSc in soil mechanics at Imperial College London. With Atkins since October 2011, Coyne has been helping clients in this market increase their understanding of forces and load characteristics beneath onshore and offshore wind turbines. Full report by Jon Masters can be found here.