Promising, early career researchers awarded fellowships
23 Apr 2020 03:22 PM
Ten talented researchers, who are in the early stages of their career and have clear leadership potential, have been awarded five-year fellowships to help them realise their research ambitions.
This year’s round of the Science and Technology Facilities Council’s (STFCs) Ernest Rutherford Fellowships, will enable early career researchers, who do not hold an academic position, to establish a strong, independent research programme.
Fellows will conduct research in a number of areas of science including Astrophysics, Nuclear Physics, Theoretical Particle Physics and Cosmology. For example, one of the projects in Experimental High- Energy Physics will push the boundaries of existing research on earth, using the Large Hadron Collider at CERN. Another project in Planetary Astrophysics will use information gathered from space to examine exoplanets.
The scheme provides funding for research programmes and encourages talented researchers, in UK universities, to remain in the country and at the same time attracts outstanding overseas researchers to the UK.
Professor Mark Thomson, Particle physicist and Executive Chair of STFC, yesterday said:
“Through these prestigious fellowships, STFC supports the very best researchers at a relatively early stage in their careers, enabling them build on their already excellent research.
The aim is to attract the most talented and innovative scientists from the UK and abroad. These awards also enable the fellows to advance their careers by further developing their independence and leadership. The Ernest Rutherford Fellows play an important role in advancing the STFC science programme at the highest levels.”
All fellows who have completed their fellowship since 2009 are employed and more than 90% hold permanent jobs immediately following the completion of their fellowship. STFC awards the fellowships once a year, find out more here.
Also announced were UKRI’s Future Leaders Fellows. The fellowships aim to support the creation of a new generation of research leaders who will have links across different sectors and disciplines.
Further information
Ernest Rutherford Fellows 2020
Experimental Particle Physicist – Dr Matteo Agostini – University College London: Uncovering the Origin of Neutrino Masses through Direct Searches and Global Fits.
Astrophysicist and Cosmologist – Dr Thomas Collett – University of Portsmouth: The statistical era of strong gravitational lensing.
Planetary Astrophysicist – Dr Joanna Eberhardt – Imperial College London: Exoplanets in 3D: Interpreting 3D planets using 1D spectra.
Experimental Particle Physicist – Dr Lucia Grillo – University of Manchester: Finding true LUV.
Theoretical Particle Physicist – Dr Saso Grozdanov – Queen Mary University London: From quantum chaos to collective transport in plasmas.
Astrophysicist – Dr David Marsh – King’s College London: Searching for Axion Dark Matter from Cosmology to Condensed Matter.
Experimental High-Energy Physicist – Dr Karolos Potamianos – University of Oxford: Probing for New Physics at the LHC: Unravelling the Higgs Mechanism through Polarisation and Hadronic Decays.
Theoretical Astrophysicist – Dr Giovanni Rosotti – University of Leicester: Connecting theories and observations of planet formation.
Nuclear Physicist- Dr David Sharp – University of Manchester: Exotic nuclear systems probed with transfer reactions using solenoid spectrometers.
Theoretical particle physicist – Dr Eleni Vryonidou – University of Glasgow: Probing New Physics at the Large Hadron Collider: The Effective Field Theory approach.