Royal Society announces prestigious University Research Fellowships for 2015
04 September 2015The Royal Society has announced the appointment of 38 new University Research Fellows (URFs) for 2015. The scientists will take up their new posts at institutions across the UK and the Republic of Ireland at the start of October.
The University Research Fellowship scheme aims to provide outstanding scientists, who have the potential to become leaders in their chosen fields, with the opportunity to build an independent research career. The scheme is extremely competitive and URFs are expected to be strong candidates for permanent posts in universities at the end of their fellowships.
This year the announcement includes the appointment of three Royal Society-Science Foundation Ireland University Research Fellows. The fellowships are funded by Science Foundation Ireland and available for outstanding researchers in the Republic of Ireland.
Eight out of the 38 new appointments (21%) were made to female researchers.
The newly appointed research fellows are working on a wide variety of projects including studying the atmospheres of alien worlds, understanding polarized light as an alternative to colour in animal vision and developing enhanced surgical vision for robot-assisted operations.
The full list of appointments is as follows:
Royal Society University Research Fellowships:
Dr Christos Anastopoulos
Understanding the nature of Electroweak Symmetry Breaking
University of Sheffield
Dr Matthew Buican
New Constraints and Phenomena in Quantum Field Theory
Queen Mary, University of London
Dr James Bull
Single-operation C-H functionalisation: Next generation directing group strategy
Imperial College London
Dr Jorge Casalderrey Solana
Holography, Jets and Heavy Ion Collisions at the LHC
University of Oxford
Dr Evgeny Chekhovich
Electrically controlled qubits in self-assembled semiconductor quantum dots
University of Sheffield
Dr Alis Deason
Rethinking Galactic Architecture: Clues from Satellites and Destroyed Dwarfs
University of Durham
Dr Timothy Easun
Photogating Nanofluidics: Ultrafine Spatially-Controlled Diffusion & Reactivity
Cardiff University
Dr Oliver Fenwick
Organic thermoelectrics in multiple structural and transport regimes
University College London
Dr Pau Figueras
New frontiers in numerical general relativity
Queen Mary, University of London
Dr Stamatia Giannarou
NEURO: Navigation with Enhanced Surgical vision for Robot-assisted Operation
Imperial College London
Dr Neale Gibson
Atmospheres of alien worlds: spectroscopy of transiting exoplanets
Queen's University of Belfast
Dr Nicholas Graham
The changing ecology and functioning of coral reefs
University of Lancaster
Dr Ceri Hammond
Advances in zeolite science for emerging challenges in catalysis and beyond
Cardiff University
Dr Tom Hasell
Functional porous materials from inorganic waste
University of Liverpool
Dr Martin How
Polarized light as an alternative to colour in animal vision
University of Bristol
Dr Roger Johnson
Domain Switching in Multifunctional Materials: Towards a Multiferroic Memory
University of Oxford
Dr Katherine Joy
The Moon’s archive of Solar System bombardment
University of Manchester
Dr Steven Kelly
Characterising the Gene Regulatory Networks Governing Photosynthesis
University of Oxford
Dr Grant Kennedy
Emergence and evolution of planetary systems
University of Cambridge
Dr Jason King
Defining molecular mechanisms of macropinosome processing and remodelling
University of Sheffield
Dr Tung Le
Epigenetic regulation of antibiotic production in Streptomyces
John Innes Centre
Dr Arthur Lipstein
Amplitudes, Strings, and Branes
University of Durham
Dr Lai Bun Lok
Advanced instrumentation radars for geophysics and environmental sciences
University College London
Dr Carlos Mafra
Superstring scattering amplitudes with the pure spinor formalism
University of Southampton
Dr Sarah Malik
Where Particle Physics meets Cosmology: Searching for Dark Matter at the LHC
Imperial College London
Dr Naomi Nakayama
Self-calibration of structural engineering in plant shoots
University of Edinburgh
Dr Thomas Oliver
Dazzled by the Sun: Photoprotection and Artificial Light Harvesting
University of Bristol
Dr Kasper Rasmussen
Adversarial Electromagnetic Interference
University of Oxford
Dr John Russo
The microscopic pathway of heterogeneous ice nucleation
University of Bristol
Dr Alexander Stewart
The population genetics of social dilemmas
University College London
Dr Andrzej Szelc
Searching for Sterile Neutrinos with Liquid Argon
University of Manchester
Dr Peter Pal Varju
Random walks on groups
University of Cambridge
Dr Hendrik Weber
Properties of renormalised stochastic PDEs
University of Warwick
Dr Natalie Wheeler
Low Loss Hollow Core-Photonic Crystal Fibres for Mid-IR (2.5-12 µm) Applications
University of Southampton
Dr Tom Williams
The prokaryotic prehistory of the eukaryotic cell
University of Bristol
Royal Society-Science Foundation Ireland University Research Fellows:
Dr Lynette Keeney
Memories are made of this: Multiferroics Research for Future Generation Memories
Tyndall National Institute
Dr Jonathan Mackey
Massive Stars in the Interstellar Medium
Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies
Dr Pauline Scanlan
Bacteria-bacteriophage antagonistic coevolution in the gut
National University of Ireland, Cork