Warwick awarded Royal Society fellowships

Warwick is set to benefit from the appointment of four scientists from the prestigious Royal Society,
a fellowship of many of the world’s most distinguished scientists drawn from all areas of science,
engineering, and medicine.

The University Research Fellowship scheme is for ‘outstanding scientists in the UK who are in the early stages of their research career and have the potential to become leaders in their field.’

Candidates are chosen based upon their ‘scientific merit’, which includes past achievements, research
career to date, publication record, likely contribution to their research field and future potential.

The Royal Society funds 80 percent of the salary of these University Research Fellows (URFs) and those appointed are expected to be strong candidates for permanent posts in universities at the end of their fellowships.

In total, 36 URFs were announced by the Royal Society, four of whom will come to Warwick. These are Dr David Loeffler (Mathematics Institute), Dr Gavin Morley (Department of Physics), Dr Rebecca Notman
(Department of Chemistry) and Dr Vardis Ntoukakis (School of Life Sciences).

The new URFs told the _Boar_ that the facilities at Warwick would greatly aid them in their research.

Dr Loeffler hopes to use his time at Warwick to make progress on the Birch and Swinnerton-Dyer conjecture, which has become recognised as one of the most challenging mathematical questions.

He said that while the key tools of a mathematician are simply “a pad of paper and a wastepaper basket”, it is the “concentration of expertise” in Warwick’s Mathematics department that is particularly attractive to him.

“[It] is a really superb place to be in terms of exchanging ideas with other mathematicians,” he said. “I often find that when I’m stuck on a problem one of my colleagues will have something helpful to suggest.”

Dr Morley said he came to Warwick “because of the wonderful equipment” available for his experiments.
He will be working on the development of a quantum computer – the field which recently won the 2012 Nobel Prize in Physics.

Dr Ntoukakis said that the new phytobiology unit, the microscopy suite and the mass spectrometry
unit would be critical to the success of his research into plant microbe interactions.

“I hope to grow my research group to be able to support students and researchers, and to produce
high quality science,” he said.

Dr Notman has already spent five years doing research at Warwick. Now, with Royal Society funding,
she will be able to pursue her research on the stratum corneum – the uppermost layer of skin.

“The problem is that our understanding of the skin is actually very limited,” she said. “My research
will use molecular simulations to ‘zoom-in’ to the molecular-level to understand how the molecules in
the skin (mainly lipids) form the skin barrier.”

She hopes to be able to solve current challenges in skin research, which will have “a real impact” on
society.

A spokesman for the University said that it was “stunning” to be able to get more than 10 percent (or
4 out of 36) of the URFs to come to Warwick.

He added that although these professors will primarily be engaged in research: “Warwick has always said that great researchers make great teachers as they are excited about their subject and are in
a position to communicate the very latest advances in their fields to their students.”

The URFs will receive Royal Society funding for the first five years of their research, with the opportunity to apply for an extension of three additional years.