Celebrating the election of our staff to learned societies
In 2022 several of our academic colleagues were honoured with fellowships from the most prestigious learned societies. We asked some of them to tell us how they felt about their election to these prestigious groups.
Learned Societies
A learned society is an organisation that exists to promote an academic discipline, profession or group of related disciplines.
In the UK there are many learned societies, the Royal Society (the oldest in the world) and the Royal Society of Edinburgh are the national academies of science for the UK and Scotland respectively.
Being elected to a learned society as a fellow is one of the highest honours a scientist can achieve. It recognises excellence in their work and raises their status in the scientific community, opening doors to influencing government policy and making connections with other important and influential scientists.
Professor Jane Hillston
Fellow of the Royal Society
Professor Jane Hillston is computer scientist who combines formal languages and mathematical models to study the behaviour of dynamic systems. Her original work focused on performance analysis of computer and communication systems, seeking to predict their use of resources and responsiveness to users. Her PhD dissertation on this topic was awarded the BCS/CPHC Distinguished Dissertation Award in 1995. A key focus of her work is support for probabilistic and quantitative verification techniques, and her work on efficient analysis techniques led to her receiving the Needham Award in 2005. Professor Hillston has recently been appointed as the first Editor in Chief of 'Proceedings A' the Royal Society's research journal, she is also the current Head of the School of Informatics.
I was very surprised but absolutely delighted to be elected to fellowship of the Royal Society in May 2022. After four years as Head of School of Informatics, I had begun to forget that I was an internationally leading researcher, especially during the pandemic! Being elected was a great reminder and a huge boost to my confidence. The induction ceremony in July was both inspiring and humbling. It was an honour to sign the same enrolment book as Isaac Newton, Charles Darwin and James Clerk Maxwell. But equally inspiring were the other new fellows who were elected this year. It was wonderful to spend time with them and hear about their achievements, as well as their ongoing ambitions. This had a very positive effect on my inner researcher! This academic year I have been much more involved in research again, learning new things and starting new collaborations. I am now very much looking forward to completing my term as Head of School in summer 2023 and starting a sabbatical, focussing only on research for at least a year.
Professor Marialuisa Aliotta
Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh
Marialuisa Aliotta is Professor of Experimental Nuclear Astrophysics and Head of the Nuclear Physics group at the School of Physics and Astronomy. Her research interests focus on the experimental study of nuclear reactions that take place in stars and contribute to the creation of the chemical elements in the Universe. For her work at the underground LUNA laboratory in Italy, Marialuisa was awarded the 2021 Occhialini Medal and Prize, conferred jointly by the IoP and the Società Italiana di Fisica. Professor Aliotta also coaches and consults on various aspects of academic life, including on public speaking, writing, and publishing, through mentoring programs, workshops and online courses at academiclife.coachesconsole.com.
I have always known that becoming a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, Scotland’s National Academy, is widely regarded as a major accomplishment, one that requires not just excellence in research but also a broader service and impact to the wider academic and societal community. I also knew from anecdotal experience that it was not an easy feat, so when I was elected a Fellow in March 2022, I could barely believe it! Of course, I knew I had been put forward, but that my nomination was coming from someone outside of my own university made it feel even more special, if possible. Having been a Fellow for just a few months means that I haven’t yet had many opportunities to engage with the work of the Society, but I very much look forward to seeing how this prestigious accolade is going to impact my work and life. For now, I am certainly proud to be able to add a much coveted “FRSE” title at the end of my signature!
Professor Jamie Pearce
Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh
Jamie Pearce is Professor of Health Geography at the School of GeoSciences, where he is co-Director of the Centre for Research on Environment Society and Health (CRESH), and Director of the ESRC Scottish Graduate School for Social Science. Professor Pearce’s research seeks to understand various social, political and environmental mechanisms operating at a range of geographical scales that establish and perpetuate spatial inequalities in health over a lifecourse. He is Editor-in-Chief of the international journal Health and Place, and is founding co- Editor-in-Chief of the recently established journal Wellbeing, Space & Society.
Receiving a Fellowship from the Royal Society of Edinburgh has been an enormous privilege and I am grateful for this recognition of the collaborative research undertaken over the past few years with fantastic colleagues at Edinburgh, across Scotland, and internationally. The research of our team at the Centre for Research on Environment, Society & Health has always looked to collaborate with disciplines across the health and social sciences, and partners in the policy and advocacy sectors, to better understand how the places we live, work and play influence our health and wellbeing, and affect health inequalities. For example, we have recently been looking at how places from childhood and throughout life impact our health in older age, including cognitive ageing, frailty progression and brain health. We are also interested in the critical role of the commercial sector – particularly the tobacco and alcohol industries – in understanding the rapid global rise in prevalence and inequalities in non-communicable disease (see SPECTRUM consortium). The RSE Fellowship is already providing new collaborative research and impact openings as well as opportunities to contribute to key policy debates in Scotland, particular as we look for ways to recover from Covid and address the Cost of Living crises. It has been particularly rewarding to be able to join forces with some of Scotland’s leading health researchers on various RSE working groups. So far we have put our minds to issues such as how we address the enormous challenge of improving Scotland’s mental health and wellbeing, and responding to a consultation on the Scottish Government’s Inquiry into Health Inequalities. Getting involved in this work has helped me better understand the policymaking process and make some new connections with senior academics in related fields. It is also enabling me to better target the findings of my research to contribute to the enormous public health challenges we face here in Scotland over the coming years.
Related links
Journal article - Life-course exposure to air pollution and biological ageing in the Lothian Birth Cohort 1936
Journal article - Association of Life-Course Neighborhood Deprivation With Frailty and Frailty Progression From Ages 70 to 82 Years in the Lothian Birth Cohort 1936
Professor Adele Marston
Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh
Professor Adele Marston is a cell biologist at the School of Biological Sciences investigating how the genome is inherited during reproduction. Her research group use model organisms to identify genes, proteins and fundamental pathways that organise and sort chromosomes into new cells as they divide. Using patient-donated human eggs and informed by their studies in model organisms, the group investigate potential causes of female infertility and the effects of maternal age. Professor Marston is Director of the Wellcome Centre for Cell Biology and co-Director of an interdisciplinary PhD programme.
I was delighted to be elected to the Fellowship of the Royal Society of Edinburgh in 2022. I am a cell biologist in the Wellcome Centre for Cell Biology in the School of Biological Sciences who investigates how the genome is inherited during reproduction. My group employ model organisms to identify genes, proteins and fundamental pathways that organise and sort chromosomes into new cells as they divide. Using patient-donated human eggs and informed by studies in model organisms, we aim to uncover potential causes of female infertility and the effects of maternal age. Science is a team effort and I am immensely grateful to the outstanding team of postdocs and students who I have worked with since establishing my group at the University in 2005. One of the most satisfying aspects of my election is the recognition of the work done by this incredible team. I am also grateful for my nominators for the fellowship and for my colleagues in the School of Biological Sciences who have supported my career. I am looking forward to working with the Royal Society of Edinburgh to promote diversity, mentorship and inter-disciplinary science.
Professor Conchúr Ó Brádaigh
Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering
Professor Conchúr O'Bradaigh's research interests focus on lightweight fibre-reinforced polymer composites, used in transport, energy generation and infrastructure, with particular research interests in the development of novel manufacturing processes for economic production of composite structures, based on both thermoset and thermoplastic polymers, and the mechanical properties of these novel materials. Specific research topics that he is currently involved in, include: development of novel, powder-epoxy based composites for renewable energy applications; design and characterisation of novel composites for wind and tidal energy applications; heat transfer and consolidation flows in thick-section epoxy laminates; effect of seawater ingress on the fatigue properties of fibre reinforced composites; design and development of cost-effective composite tidal turbine blades; efficient fatigue testing of large composite structures; novel out-of-autoclave manufacturing techniques for aerospace composites; liquid moulding of automotive thermoplastic composites using in-situ polymerised materials; cryogenic performance and permeability of advanced thermoplastic composites; design of space cryogenic fuel tanks from thermoplastic composites; rotational moulding of polymer liners for cost-effective space fuel tanks; automated tape-placement of advanced thermoplastic composites; lightweight materials for wave energy convertor. He is the current Head of the School of Engineering.
I was elected to the Royal Academy of Engineering in September of last year, so it is a bit early to talk about the impact of this on my career as an academic. Many colleagues at Edinburgh and around the UK and in Ireland have been in contact to congratulate me, which was very satisfying. I think there has also been a sense of pride from colleagues in the School of Engineering that I was elected as a Fellow while Head of School, which feels like an honour for the whole School. Of the 1600-odd Fellows of the Royal Academy of Engineering, I can only identify around a half-dozen that work in composite materials, some in industry and some in academia, so it is a great honour to join such a select group of people, most of whom I know personally. The honour is also well recognised outside the UK and colleagues in the US who have heard about it were also in touch, some of them are members of the National Academy of Engineering there, which has a formal relationship with the Royal Academy. We had a very informative New Fellows Induction Day at the Royal Academy in London in early November and a very glitzy New Fellows Dinner at Drapers Hall afterwards, which my wife was able to come to. The Chancellor of our own University, The Princess Royal, presented us with our scrolls. There were around 70 New Fellows being inducted that day, none of whom I knew in advance, so it was good to get to know some of them. I hope to be active in the Academy in various ways (entrepreneurship mentoring and international relations) and to be able to help more of my colleagues to become Fellows also. I hope that the Fellowship will open new doors for our research group, both nationally and internationally.
Professor Sinead Farrington
Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh
Professor Sinead Farrington is an experimental particle physicist at the School of Physics and Astronomy with interests across collider physics as a means of understanding the most fundamental particles and their interactions. Professor Farrington currently leads the UK effort in the ATLAS collaboration at the LHC at CERN and led ATLAS searches for the Higgs boson decaying to tau leptons and now searches for exotic particles. She also collaborated in discoveries in the CDF collaboration at Fermilab in the USA and serves on STFC’s Project Peer Review Panel and the European Committee on Future Accelerators. Professor Farrington was awarded the 2021 Physical Sciences Laureateship, Blavatnik UK New York Academy of Sciences prize.
Besides it being a great honour, what’s really special to me about being elected to the fellowship of the RSE is the way it links work over the centuries. In my research area that means linking the same quest to understand the most fundamental processes in nature - back to James Clerk Maxwell and the nature of light, up to the present day and the quest to understand the nature of how particles acquire mass which we tackle at the LHC. The people change, the experimental methods change, but the fundamental quest for knowledge and understanding are the same. That’s at the same time grounding and inspiring. It links us to the past and to the future. I’m looking forward to working with RSE colleagues across a huge range of expertise.
Professor Andrew Rambaut
Fellow of the Royal Society
Professor Andrew Rambaut from the School of Biological Sciences works in ground-breaking research which tracks, understands and responds to viral epidemics and pandemics. He has led the use of real-time genomic sequencing to track viruses and inform epidemiological responses as an outbreak unfolds. This has proven transformative during the Covid-19 pandemic.
Professor Susan Rosser
Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh
Susan Rosser is Professor of Synthetic Biology at the School of Biological Sciences. She is the director of the UK Centre for Mammalian Synthetic Biology and co-director of the Edinburgh Genome Foundry, a fully automated DNA assembly platform offering end-to-end design, construction and validation of genetic constructs. Her research focuses on developing genetic tools for engineering cells to produce biologic drugs and molecules of industrial interest. She is deputy chair of the BBSRC Committee D and a member of the EPSRC Science and Engineering Technology Board. She also holds a Royal Academy of Engineering Chair in Emerging Technologies focused on Engineering Biology.
Professor Bryne Ngwenya
Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh
Professor of Microbial Geochemistry and Head of the School of GeoSciences, Professor Bryne Ngwenya conducts fundamental research in understanding relationships between bacteria and their environment as a basis for predicting human-environment interactions. His work has revealed the strategies by which bacteria detoxify environmental pollutants, including pioneering a new model of how bacteria confer plant resistance to metal toxicity. This model underpins new methods for using plants to extract toxic metals from contaminated environments, which is a major strategic issue for industrialised countries. He is passionately committed to public service; having served as a Trustee of the Geological Society,and is a founding member of the EDI Committee of the European Association of Geochemistry.
Professor Barbara Webb
Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh
Barbara Webb is Professor of Biorobotics at the School of Informatics. She investigates how insects perform flexible and robust behaviours, and implements the hypothesised mechanisms as robot controllers. This novel methodology has led to breakthroughs in understanding the brain circuits underlying insect navigation. She has used public interest in this work to promote science communication. At the School of Informatics she has made important contributions as Director of the Graduate School and Director of the Institute for Perception, Action and Behaviour (IPAB). Outside her scientific career she is active in music, performing with the medieval music ensemble Gaita, and in the visual arts.
Informatics news item on Professor Webb's fellowship award.
Professor Arend Bayer
Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh
Professor Arend Bayer from the School of Mathematics works in algebraic geometry, the area of mathematics studying shapes and configurations arising from polynomial equations. In his work, he established new algebraic concepts inspired by string theory in particle physics as standard tools to study and answer fundamental geometric questions. Since moving to the University in Edinburgh in 2012, he has mentored almost 20 graduate students and post-docs.