Inspirational Innovators

Dr Glaire Anderson is Senior Lecturer in Islamic Art in the School of History of Art at the Edinburgh College of Art, and Programme Director of the MSc in History of Art, Theory and Display.

Neil Carragher is Professor of Drug Discovery and Director of Translation at the Cancer Research UK Edinburgh Centre, MRC Institute of Genetics and Cancer.

Professor Jonathan Fallowfield is Chair of Translational Liver Research at the University of Edinburgh’s Centre for Inflammation Research, and Honorary Consultant Hepatologist at the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh.

Dr Sofia Ferreira Gonzalez is an independent researcher at the Institute for Regeneration and Repair and co-founder of the interdisciplinary SensiBile research project, which is developing a revolutionary biomedical device for non-invasive liver transplant viability testing. Sofia is both a Chancellors Fellow and a UKRI-Future Leaders Fellow.

Dr Gregor Gorjanc leads of the HighlanderLab at The Roslin Institute. This extraordinary person is developing genetic solutions to help tackle global environmental and food supply challenges.

Gbenga Ibikunle is Professor and Chair of Finance at the University of Edinburgh Business School and Director for Industry, Economy and Society at the Edinburgh Futures Institute.

Dr Tilo Kunath, a Group Leader, Reader in Regenerative Neurobiology in the School of Biological Sciences. This extraordinary person is making crucial advancements in the fight against Parkinson’s disease.  

Dr Tsz-Yan Milly Lo is a Consultant Paediatric Intensivist at the Royal Hospital for Children and Young People, Research Lead for Paediatric Critical Care Medicine, NRS Career Research Clinician, and an Honorary Reader at the University of Edinburgh’s Usher Institute, and Child Life and Health.

Dr Mike McGrew is Chair of Avian Biotechnologies at the Roslin Institute. This extraordinary person is making crucial advancements to identify the genes that are important for healthy birds and to protect and conserve bird species.

Dr Konrad Rawlik is a Research Fellow and Data Curation Project Analyst at The University of Edinburgh’s Roslin Institute and one of the key people behind Omecu, a disruptive commercial platform which will change how genomic, and other medical data is accessed.

Dr Tanja Romankiewicz is Chancellor’s Fellow in Archaeology, Research Affiliate at the Edinburgh Futures Institute, Co-Lead on the Cultural Heritage research theme in the College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences (CAHSS), and Archaeology’s Director of Research.

Susan Rosser is Professor of Synthetic Biology, a joint appointment between the School of Biological Sciences and School of Engineering.

Dr Dipa Roy is Reader in Composite Materials and Processing in the School of Engineering, and a Fellow of the Institute of Materials, Minerals and Mining.

Innovative and determined from a young age, it is no surprise that Sean has become Professor of Future Construction at the School of Engineering and Director of the Centre for Future Infrastructure at the Edinburgh Futures Institute.

Unconventional, disruptive and interdisciplinary, Joyce is Co-Director of the Innogen Institute, which she co-created in 2002 to implement a user-focused approach to innovation regulation, risk governance and stakeholder engagement.

Dr Christine Tait-Burkard is a group leader at The Roslin Institute and an expert on coronaviruses and arteriviruses. Her research group is using genome editing to produce pigs resistant to the PRRS virus, the world’s most costly infectious disease affecting the species.

A leading international figure in the field of Digital Humanities, Melissa Terras is Professor of Digital Cultural Heritage, Founding Director of the Edinburgh Centre for Data, Culture and Society, Director of Research at the Edinburgh Futures Institute, and Co-Director of Creative Informatics.

Professor Sotirios Tsaftaris, is Chair in Machine Learning and Computer Vision. He also holds the Canon Medical/Royal Academy of Engineering Research Chair in Healthcare AI and an ELLIS Fellow of the European Lab for Learning and Intelligent Systems (ELLIS).

Shannon Vallor holds the Baillie Gifford Chair in the Ethics of Data and Artificial Intelligence in the School of Philosophy, Psychology and Language Sciences, and is Director of the Centre for Technomoral Futures at the Edinburgh Futures Institute.

Stephen Wallace is Professor of Chemical Biotechnology in the School of Biological Sciences and group leader of the Wallace Lab at the Centre for Engineering Biology.

Dr Tom Wishart is Professor of Molecular Anatomy at The Roslin Institute. This inspirational innovator is making crucial advancements in the fight against neurodegenerative diseases.