Royal Society announces Royal Society Wolfson Fellowships and Wolfson Visiting Fellowships 2024 awardees

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 2024. 

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

Dame Julie Maxton, Executive Director of the Royal Society, said: “We are delighted to announce the recipients of the Royal Society Wolfson Fellowships and Royal Society Wolfson Visiting Fellowships for this year in partnership with the Wolfson Foundation.

"Fostering international collaboration in science has never been more important. By supporting the careers of outstanding research leaders in the UK, we can strengthen and build a critical mass of excellence, maximising innovation and creativity in science for the benefit of humanity.”

Paul Ramsbottom, Chief Executive of the Wolfson Foundation, said: “The Royal Society Wolfson Fellowship scheme could not be more important or timely in its support of talented researchers coming to the UK. Attracting international talent and fostering global collaboration is crucial for a vibrant research environment. We are delighted to join the Royal Society in welcoming this latest cohort of Fellows and are excited to see how their research continues to develop.”

The seven third-round awardees take up their posts from January 2025, and their expertise ranges investigating the molecular mechanisms underlying hepatocarcinogenesis to testing the formation of modern atolls in the Maldives. 

They have been drawn from countries including Singapore and Poland and will take up their posts in universities including Queen Mary University of London, Durham University and the University of Glasgow.

The full list of awardees:

Round Three 

Royal Society Wolfson Fellowships 

Dr Ramanuj DasGupta  
Investigate the molecular mechanisms underlying hepatocarcinogenesis in metabolic dysfunction-associated steatotic liver disease (MASLD) 
University of Glasgow 

Professor Alfonso Hing Wan Ngan 
Soft micro-robotics powered by stimuli-responsive actuating materials  
University of Birmingham  

Royal Society Wolfson Visiting Fellowships 

Professor Anju Bhasin  
Measurement of Short Distance Phenomena in QGP  
University of Liverpool  

Professor Przemyslaw Data  
Sustainable Electronics: Electrochemically Synthesized Semiconductors through Green Chemistry  
Durham University  

Professor André Willy Droxler  
Testing the Formation of Modern Atolls with a Unique Carbonate Core Record of the North Malé Atoll Margin (Maldives) 
Queen Mary University of London  

Professor Emilia Fornal  
Exploring the interface between lipid metabolism and protein long chain S-acylation  
Imperial College London  

Professor Sepideh Razavi  
Wetting, Spreading, and Evaporation Dynamics of Nano- and Bio-fluids 
University of Cambridge 

Round Two

Royal Society Wolfson Fellowships

Professor Ayelet Landau
Attentional Sampling: from sensory processes to motor exploration
University College London

Dr Martin Helmer
Stratified Methods in Effective Real Algebraic Geometry and Applications
Swansea University

Royal Society Wolfson Visiting Fellowships

Professor Marco Bertola
Orthogonality, Riemann surfaces and asymptotics 
University of Bristol

Professor Joanna Dunkley
Cosmology from new images of the early universe
University of Cambridge

Professor Daniel Frisbie
Ion-Charge Carrier Interactions and the Metal-Insulator Transition in Polymer Semiconductors
University of Cambridge

Professor Srikanth Sastry
Understanding amorphous materials through the lens of topology
University of Birmingham

Professor Ashutosh Trivedi 
Correct-by-Construction Reinforcement Learning for Implantable Medical Devices 
University of Liverpool

Round One

Royal Society Wolfson Fellowships

Professor Yimon Aye
INVENT: Innovating a new class of small-molecule-assisted biotechnology for massively-augmented functional target-ID & pathway discovery in living systems.
University of Oxford

Dr Hajk-Georg Drost
Harnessing protein search at tree-of-life scale to explore the molecular principles of heterochrony.
University of Dundee  

Royal Society Wolfson Visiting Fellowships

Professor Paul Dastoor
Neutral Atom Microscopy at the Frontiers: New Applications and Science.  
University of Cambridge

Dr Charlie Demené
fUS-DOT: first-of-its-kind functional connectivity neuroimager for early diagnosis of neonatal abnormal cerebral development.
University of Cambridge

Professor Justin Hsu
From discrete to continuous-time verification for probabilistic hybrid systems.
Imperial College London

Dr Sumesh P Thampi 
Continuum modelling of cellular layers and tissues.  
University of Oxford

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

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.