Royal Society announces University Research Fellowships for 2022

The Royal Society has announced 50 successful University Research Fellowship (URF) candidates for 2022. The researchers started their new posts at institutions across the UK and Ireland from October.

Research fellows will be working on research projects spanning the physical, mathematical, chemical and biological sciences.

The complete list of 2022 appointments is as follows:

Ross Anderson
Preserving the rise of complex life
University of Oxford

Ysobel Baker
Novel chemical modifications for nucleic acid therapeutics
University of Southampton

Abhirup Banerjee
Multimodal reconstruction of digital heart for cardiac interventions in real-time
University of Oxford

George Boxer
Higher coherent cohomology of Shimura varieties and Galois representations
Imperial College London

Patrycja Brook
High precision molecular oxygen sensors for exploring the subcellular environment
Durham University

Nick Bultinck
Strongly interacting electrons in synthetic superlattices
University of Oxford

Shai Chester
Bootstrapping quantum gravity
Imperial College London

Adam Clancy
Understanding charged interfaces at the nanoscale with designer nanomaterials
University College London (UCL)

Laura Clark
Seeing through the noise – enabling low-dose, high-resolution imaging in the scanning transmission electron microscope
University of York

George Cooper
Crystal-scale isotope constraints on crustal melt evolution at subduction zones (CSI: Subduction)
Cardiff University

Sean Eberhard
Noncommutative combinatorics
Queen's University Belfast

David Evans
Accurate reconstruction of past global temperatures and carbon cycle dynamics via a novel mechanistic proxy framework
University of Southampton

Jim Fouracre
The regulation of developmental timing in plants
University of Bristol

Andres García Domínguez
Tunability for diversity
University of Edinburgh

Jemma Gibbard
Sources of non-thermal chemistry: novel translational spectroscopy of complex ions
Durham University

Alex Hall
Testing fundamental physics with galaxy shape statistics
University of Edinburgh

Rebecca Henry 
Preclinical investigation of immunometabolic mechanisms in a model of traumatic brain injury with pre-existing obesity
National University of Ireland, Cork (UCC)

Jonathan Henshaw
Panta Rhei: Interstellar gas flows and their influence on star formation in galaxies
Liverpool John Moores University

Kaibo Hu
Finite elements for geometry
University of Oxford

Christopher Laumer
Surveying meiofaunal ecosystems at scale with community transcriptomics
The Natural History Museum

James Lewis
Tailorable porous hydrogels
University of Birmingham

Ian Lidbury 
Towards engineering the plant microbiome: A molecular approach to deciphering cryptic plant-microbe interactions
University of Sheffield

Thomas Macdonald
Harnessing nanotechnology for self-powered wireless electronics
Queen Mary University of London

Cheuk Yu Mak 
Floer theory of symmetric products, Hilbert schemes and applications 
University of Southampton

James Manton 
Shining light on life: visualising the molecular interactome in living systems
MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology

Sebastian Marino Estay
Studying planetary systems from an exocometary perspective
University of Exeter

Maria Marti Solano
Cracking the receptor signalling code: an integrative view of pathway diversity from the cell to the organism level
University of Cambridge

James Matthews 
Extreme cosmic accelerators: High-energy particles and feedback from black hole jets and winds
University of Oxford

Lara McManus
Cortical and spinal connectivity of motor units as a novel biomarker for amyotrophic lateral sclerosis
Trinity College Dublin

Andrew McLeod
Harnessing the structure of scattering amplitudes
University of Edinburgh

Joana Meier 
Factors promoting rapid species diversification
Wellcome Sanger Institute  

Ioanna Mela 
DNA nanostructures for targeted antimicrobial delivery
University of Cambridge

Mark Mitchison
Thermodynamics of precision in quantum measurement and control
Trinity College Dublin

Didier Ndeh
Understanding the biosynthesis and function of rhamnogalacturonan-II in plants
University of Dundee

Anuradha Pallipurath Radhakrishnan 
Metastable therapeutics by design
University of Leeds

Damian Perez Mazliah
Protective and pathogenic mechanisms of B cell immunity in Chagas disease
University of York

Ben Pilgrim
Multi-catalytic nanoboxes
University of Nottingham

Geraint Pratten
Probing the nonlinear dynamics of compact binaries with gravitational waves
University of Birmingham

Michael Price
The physics of next generation molecular materials for solar panels and light emitters
University of Bristol

Mohand Saed
New generation of liquid crystal vitrimers for autonomous robotic manufacturing and applications
University of Cambridge

Alma Siggins 
Adsorption based biotechnology to integrate methane emission mitigation and valorisation
National University of Ireland, Galway (NUIG)

Matthew Silk 
Does host social and population biology drive the maintenance of disease?
University of Edinburgh

Mattia Sormani 
Structure and dynamics of the Milky Way’s nucleus
University of Oxford

Hannah Stern
New materials for a quantum age: towards a two-dimensional spin-photon interface
University of Cambridge

Matthew Streeter
AIPA: Artificially intelligent plasma accelerators
Queen's University Belfast

Marina Uzelac
Mn(II): A Janus face for catalysis
University of Bath

Johanna Vos
Exometeorology: Weather on worlds beyond our own
Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies

Ivan Vulić
Inclusive and sustainable language technology for a truly multilingual world
University of Cambridge

Matthew Walters
A conformal framework for strongly-interacting systems
Trinity College Dublin

Qian Yang 
Smart sieve enabled by van der Waals assembly
University of Manchester

The URF scheme has been updated, applicants can now submit a research proposal and costs for an eight-year fellowship, with up to £90,000 research expenses per annum. 

Applications for the 2023 University Research Fellowships have closed. 

The University Research Fellowship scheme was established to identify outstanding early career scientists who have the potential to become leaders in their fields and provide them with the opportunity to build an independent research career. After completion, many alumni secure tenured positions, and receive national or international recognition for their work.

Statistics about the 2022 URF intake:

• 28 universities across the UK and Ireland will host the University Research Fellows
• Six are being supported as a Royal Society Science Foundation Ireland University Research Fellow
• 30% of the appointments were made to women
• 18% of the appointments were made to scientists from minority ethnic groups