ABOUT 200 pupils from schools in Stockton will attend a science lecture on Friday in memory of a local woman.

Representatives from the University of Teesside will present the Madeline Mary Walker lecture on medical imaging at Stockton Riverside College.

It will explore the scientific and technological breakthroughs in the past 20 years that have allowed people to take pictures inside the body using sound, magnetism, light, radio waves and radiation.

The lecture is aimed at gifted pupils in years ten and 11 with a passion for science.

There will be two prizes of £500 each, donated by the Madeline Mary Walker Foundation, which will be presented on Friday to the students who it is considered have shown the greatest improvement over the year, and ten highly commended prizes of £50 vouchers for Waterstones bookshops.

The annual lecture was established in Ms Walker's name in recognition of her outstanding achievements in science, engineering and computing.

In 1985 she was elected a member of the British Computer Society. She was also a chartered engineer and the managing director of her own engineering company.

She died of cancer in February 1996, aged 56.