Royal Society announces research leaders awarded Royal Society Wolfson Fellowships and Royal Society Wolfson Visiting Fellowships 2023

The Royal Society and the Wolfson Foundation have announced the second round of outstanding scientists receiving Royal Society Wolfson Fellowships and Royal Society Wolfson Visiting Fellowships in 2023. 

The fellowships provide funding to enable UK universities and research institutions to attract and retain outstanding overseas senior research scientists. 

Dr Julie Maxton, Executive Director of the Royal Society, said: “I am delighted to announce the recipients of Royal Society Wolfson Fellowships and Royal Society Wolfson Visiting Fellowships for this year. Science is a truly global endeavour, and these grants offer awardees an opportunity to bring their talents to the UK to enrich UK science for the benefit of humanity.”

Paul Ramsbottom, Chief Executive of the Wolfson Foundation, said: “The Wolfson Fellowship scheme is designed to help talented overseas scientists come to the UK to push the boundaries of their research and forge productive new partnerships with UK academic colleagues. We are delighted to join the Royal Society in welcoming this latest cohort of Fellows.”

The seven first round awardees took up their posts from April 2023, and their expertise ranges from investigating the sense of smell in humans, understanding the mechanisms behind plant root movement and developing new tests for ovarian cancer.

In the second round, the seven awardees will take up their posts from October 2023, to investigate dark matter in the faintest galaxies, understand NETosis and investigate banded iron formations as proxies for the co-evolution of Precambrian life.

They have been drawn from countries including The Netherlands, India, Greece, Canada, and Israel and will take up their posts in universities including the University of Salford, Cardiff University and the University of Liverpool.

The full list of awardees are:

Round Two

Royal Society Wolfson Fellowships

Professor Richard Scheltema
Understanding NETosis – from triggers of chronic inflammation to new therapeutics
University of Liverpool

Royal Society Wolfson Visiting Fellowships

Professor Anjan Barman
Emergent Spin Wave Properties in Three-Dimensional Curved Nanostructures
Cardiff University

Dr Chrysoula Gubili
Batoidea evolution through time and reproduction
University of Salford

Professor Kurt Konhauser
Using banded iron formations as proxies for the co-evolution of Precambrian life and the environment
University of Manchester

Professor Nir Gov
Combining experiments and theory to study cellular shapes and migration patterns during development and immune responses
University of Cambridge

Professor Erin Johnson
Development of improved computational methods for intermolecular interactions and crystal structure prediction
University of Cambridge

Professor Julio Navarro
Dark matter clues from the faintest galaxies
Durham University

Round One

Royal Society Wolfson Fellowships

Professor Lorenzo Pareschi 
Uncertainty quantification, data-driven simulations and learning of multiscale complex systems governed by PDEs 
Herriot-Watt University 

Dr Varsha Singh
Mechanistic bases for gain of olfaction capacity in Caenorhabditis elegans 
University of Dundee

Royal Society Wolfson Visiting Fellowships

Professor Tobias Baskin 
Biomechanical analysis of plant growth: the case of the twisted root  
University of Birmingham

Professor Niko Beerenwinkel 
Single-cell copy number signatures as cancer biomarkers
University of Cambridge

Professor Naveen Garg  
No LP inside: designing fast combinatorial approximation algorithms  
University of Warwick 

Professor Oleg Melnik 
Numerical models of wellbore scaling: from understanding to prevention  
University of Oxford

Professor Peter Skands  
Piercing the precision barrier in high-energy particle physics 
University of Oxford 

There are three rounds per year for applications for the Fellowships.

The schemes are currently open to applications under the 2024 Round 1, which closes on 8 November 2023. Scientists in all areas of the life and physical sciences, including engineering, are urged to apply. 

The Royal Society Wolfson Visiting Fellowships offer £125,000 to enable international researchers a flexible sabbatical period at a UK university or research institution to build and develop international collaborations and networks. 

The Royal Society Wolfson Fellowships offer £300,000 of funds to support the awardees UK research programme and team. Both Fellowships are generously supported by the Wolfson Foundation.