Royal Society announces new round of Wolfson Research Merit Awards

The Royal Society, the UK’s national academy of science, has announced the appointment of 27 new Royal Society Wolfson Research Merit Award holders.

Jointly funded by the Wolfson Foundation and the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS), the scheme aims to provide universities with additional support to enable them to attract science talent from overseas and retain respected UK scientists of outstanding achievement and potential.

The newly appointed award holders are working on a wide range of project topics including the use of personalised genome data for cancer treatment, climate tipping points, and the exploration of Mars.

The full list of appointments is as follows:

Professor Gert Aarts – Swansea University

An exploration of the strong interaction under extreme conditions

Dr Marin Alexe – University of Warwick

Nanoscale multiferroic materials and heterostructures for oxide electronics

Professor Nicholas Anderson – Loughborough University

Remote lakes as sensors and recorders of disturbed global biogeochemical cycles

Professor Angus Buckling – University of Exeter

Real-time feedback between microevolution and soil microbial community structure

Professor Derk-Jan Dijk – University of Surrey

Individual differences in sleep-wake regulation: a multidisciplinary approach

Professor Alicia J El Haj – Keele University

Engineering cells and tissues for regenerative medicine and stem cell therapies

Professor Adrian Goldman – University of Leeds

Structure and function of Proton and Sodium Membrane Integral Pumps

Professor Veronique Gouverneur – University of Oxford

The Importance of the Fluorine Source for Late Stage Fluorination

Professor Sean Grimmond – University of Glasgow

Translation of personalised genome data for targeted cancer treatment

Professor Saiful Islam – University of Bath

New Materials for Clean Energy Applications

Professor Daniel Kroening – University of Oxford

Program Analysis with Abstract Satisfaction

Professor Joy Lawn – London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine

Improving data and estimates on stillbirths and newborns for national and global tracking

Professor Tim Lenton – University of Exeter

Early warning of climate tipping points

Professor Stephan Lewandowsky – University of Bristol

The (mis)information revolution: Information seeking and knowledge transmission

Professor Frederick Manby – University of Bristol

Novel electronic structure theories for molecules and solids

Professor Anne Neville – University of Leeds

Understanding surfaces at the centre of engineering system performance

Professor David O'Hagan – University of St Andrews

Translating discoveries in organofluorine chemistry into practical applications

Professor Jonathan Oppenheim – University College London

Quantum information science: Tools and applications for fundamental physics

Professor Oliver Phillips – University of Leeds

Tropical Forests in the Changing Earth System

Professor Hilary Ranson – Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine

Ensuring the sustainability of malaria vector control

Professor David Richardson – University of Southampton

Realising Petabit/s communications using multiple spatial modes in optical fibre

Professor Ian Smail – Durham University

The physics of the formation of massive galaxies

Professor Andrew Steele – University College London

A Search for the origin of life on earth through the exploration of Mars

Professor Christopher Thompson – University of Manchester

Using Dictyostelium to understand cell signaling during growth and development

Professor Geoff Thornton – University College London

Energy Functional Metal Oxide Surfaces

Professor Kostas Tokatlidis – University of Glasgow

Oxidative folding and redox signalling in the mitochondria intermembrane space

Dr Bert van den Berg – Newcastle University

Understanding antibiotic uptake by studying bacterial outer membrane transport

The Wolfson Foundation is a grant-making charity established in 1955. Funding is given to support excellence. More information is available from www.wolfson.org.uk