Research

Royal Astronomical Society honours leading astronomers

The Royal Astronomical Society has recently announced the recipients of its annual prizes and medals. While the quality of the Institute’s research leads to numerous prizes and awards, the RAS announcement is notable for the inclusion of three Institute members as well as a project with substantial Institute participation.

Andy Fabian was awarded the Society’s highest honour, the Gold Medal, in recognition of a lifetime’s achievement in astrophysics. Mike Irwin received the premier award for a researcher in observational astrophysics, the Herschel Medal. Paul Murdin’s many contributions to astronomy in the United Kingdom and Europe were recognised through the award of the RAS Service Award. The UKIRT Infrared Deep Sky Survey (UKIDSS) received the RAS Project Award.  CASU is responsible for the processing of all UKIDSS data, numerous members of the Institute are members of the Consortium and a senior member of the Institute is a member of the UKIDSS Council.

The full RAS press release is at: http://www.ras.org.uk/news-and-press/219-news-2012/2058-ras-honours-leading-astronomers-and-geophysicists

 

Royal Society announces prestigious University Research Fellowships for 2011 

Seven Cambridge scientists have been appointed University Research Fellows (URFs) for 2011 by The Royal Society, the UK’s national academy of science.

The University Research Fellowship scheme aims to provide outstanding scientists, who have the potential to become leaders in their chosen fields, with the opportunity to build an independent research career.

The list of appointments is as follows:

Dr Edward Brambley – Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics. Acoustics and stability within fluid flow, particular applied to aeroacoustics 

Dr Kevin Chalut – Department of Physics.

Developing photonics tools for understanding the physical world of stem cells

Dr Janet Deane – Cambridge Institute for Medical Research.

Molecular Understanding of the Multifunctional Shigella Virulence Factor IcsA

Dr Andras Juhasz – Department of Pure Mathematics and Mathematical Statistics.

Sutured Floer homology and smooth 4-manifolds

Dr Stephen Morris – Centre for Advanced Photonics and Electronics, Department of Engineering.

Reconfigurable quasi-random laser sources

Dr Jerome Neufeld – Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics.

Fluid dynamics of multiphase geophysical systems

Dr Jason Robinson – Department of Materials Science.

Superconducting Spintronics

 

Dr Sohini Kar-Narayan awarded Dorothy Hodgkin Fellowship by the Royal Society

The Dorothy Hodgkin Fellowship scheme supports excellent scientists and engineers at an early stage of their career. It is designed to help successful candidates progress to permanent academic positions across the UK. It is aimed specifically at researchers who require a flexible working pattern and is particularly popular with female scientists.

 

Professor David Spiegelhalter awarded Established Researcher Award by the Society of Biology

The awards recognise the outstanding contributions that bioscience researchers make to communicating science to the public.

Dr Mark Downs FSB, CEO of the Society of Biology said:

“Communication of science remains a top priority. We must all ensure we engage with the public to demonstrate the social and economic value of science. Biology is set to provide solutions for many of the global challenges we face from climate change to the aging population. Our winners are excellent role models from whom, I am sure, we can all learn a great deal”.

David Spiegelhalter, said: “It’s a great honour to get this award.  I am very grateful to the Society of Biology, and I would also like to thank the Science Media Centre for proposing me – they do a wonderful job and certainly liven up my day when I get asked for rapid comments on breaking stories.”

 

Three from Cambridge elected as Fellows of The Royal Academy of Engineering

Fifty new Fellows have been elected members of The Royal Academy of Engineering at its Annual General Meeting on 11 July, a list that includes three distinguished engineers from Cambridge University.

The Royal Academy of Engineering promotes the engineering and technological welfare of the country. It is a counterpart to the Royal Society, which exists to serve the natural sciences. The Fellowship – comprising the UK’s most eminent engineers – provides the leadership and expertise for activities which focus on the relationships between engineering, technology, and the quality of life. The Royal Academy of Engineering provides independent and impartial advice to Government; works to secure the next generation of engineers; and provides a voice for Britain’s engineering community. Established by Royal Charter in 1976, it is an independent, self-governing body of some 1500 Fellows.

The newly elected Fellows of The Royal Academy of Engineering are as follows:

Sir Michael Gregory is a Fellow of Churchill College and the founder and now head of Cambridge University’s internationally respected Institute for Manufacturing. He has had a distinguished career teaching and researching at the forefront of engineering. His work has made a significant contribution to the UK industrial policy and the performance of both large and small companies.

Dr Andy Harter is a Fellow of St Edmund’s College and a Visiting Fellow of the Computer Laboratory and founder and CEO of RealVNC. He has made outstanding contributions to software engineering and commercialisation. Amongst his achievements is VNC, a ubiquitous remote access technology deployed on hundreds of millions of computers worldwide. VNC is embedded in Intel chips, Apple computers, Linux distributions and Google software, and its enduring utility is distinguished by profoundly simple and versatile engineering. RealVNC has received two Queen’s Awards in 2011.

Dr John Taylor is an Honorary Fellow of Corpus Christi College. He is the ultimate example of an entrepreneurial engineering inventor whose drive and success has benefited not only those engineers that work for him, but also the economy of the UK. He has made outstanding lifelong contributions to engineering by inventing thermal controls which exploit the properties of materials and are manufactured by innovative methods for products ranging from kettles to small motors. His company has sold one billion controls for the ubiquitous cordless kettle and received four Queen’s Awards.

Professor Lawrence Sherman awarded Benjamin Franklin Medal.

The Royal Society for the Encouragement of the Arts, Manufactures and Commerce (RSA) in London will award the 2011 Benjamin Franklin Medal to the Wolfson Professor of Criminology at Cambridge University, Lawrence W. Sherman. Sherman is also a Fellow of Darwin College.

The RSA established the Medal in 1956 to commemorate the 250th anniversary of the birth of Benjamin Franklin, who joined the Society when he lived in London. It is awarded each year to a “global ‘big thinker,’ someone who has shifted public debate in an innovative way and has contributed to furthering public discourse about human progress.” Previous winners include Senator William Fulbright, General Colin Powell and Yale President Kingman Brewster.

Matthew Taylor, Chief Executive of the RSA, said that Professor Sherman was selected for the Franklin Medal in recognition of his “pioneering scholarship in evidence-based policy, crime prevention and restorative justice.” Sherman’s proposals for what he called “evidence-based policing,” first presented in a Police Foundation Lecture in 1998, have since become part of police reform discussions from India to Australia, and form the core of the global Police Executive Program Sherman directs at Cambridge. Last year, over 50 police leaders who had studied at Cambridge established the Society of Evidence-Based Policing, electing Sherman as an Honorary President of the Society.

Sherman will be awarded the Medal at the RSA in London on November 1, when he will deliver a public lecture entitled “Professional Policing and Liberal Democracy.” The event will be chaired by Sir Denis O’Connor CBE QPM, HM Chief Inspector of Constabulary.

Sherman came to Cambridge in 2007 from the University of Pennsylvania, where he was the Greenfield Professor of Human Relations. He has also served as President of the American and International Societies of Criminology, as well as President of the American Academy of Political and Social Science. He is currently Director of the Jerry Lee Centre for Experimental Criminology at Cambridge, Co-Director of the Indian National Police Academy’s Mid-Career Training Program, and Permanent Advisor on Citizen Security to the Inter-American Bank for Development in Latin America. The Jury Co-Chair for the Stockholm Prize in Criminology since 2006, he has designed and directed over 30 controlled field experiments in police and criminal justice practices.

For information on attending the 2011 Franklin Lecture contact lectures@rsa.org.

 

Cambridge Graduate gets MacArthur Foundation Fellowship

Cambridge graduate Jacob Soll is among this year’s recipients of a Fellowship from the MacArthur Foundation in the US. Further details can be found at: http://www.macfound.org/site/c.lkLXJ8MQKrH/b.7731011/k.1A2A/Jacob_Soll.htm

 

Professor Loraine Gelsthorpe elected as President of the British Society of Criminology

Loraine Gelsthorpe FRSA, Fellow of Pembroke College and Professor of Criminology and Criminal Justice at the Institute of Criminology (Faculty of Law) within the University of Cambridge, was elected as President of the British Society of Criminology at the BSC’s annual conference in July.  She has stated:

“I feel honoured to be elected as President of the British Society of Criminology (with a membership approaching a thousand)…though I am all too aware of the challenges that this leadership role brings in terms of trying to ensure that criminologists have voice and visibility. But the Society also needs vision. In particular, I want to continue the work of the Society in trying to improve the interface between academic criminology and criminal justice policy. Policy work that ignores theory is doomed, but equally, a criminology that fails to see the scope and need for ethical policy work is extremely limited.”

Professor Gelsthorpe’s current research interests revolve around notions of criminal and social justice in sentencing, youth justice issues, women and criminal justice, the development of criminological and social theories in their social and political context since 1945, community penalties, and social exclusion, crime and justice.

 

Dr Patricia Fara awarded the BSHS Dingle Prize

Dr Patricia Fara, Senior Tutor and Fellow of Clare College, has been awarded the prestigious 2011 British Society for the History of Science (BSHS) Dingle Prize for her book, Science: A Four Thousand Year History.

Dr Fara’s book aims to dispel the myth of a Scientific Revolution spearheaded by great geniuses such as Isaac Newton, Nicolaus Copernicus and Galileo Galilei. In contrast, Fara traces the history of science all the way back to the second millennium BC, to the Babylonian civilization, the origin of our 60-minute hour and 360-degree circle. Arguing that science has always been driven by the practical demands of war, politics and commerce, she highlights the rich and fascinating tales behind the abstract theory and esoteric experiments. Instead of glorifying idealized heroes, she tells true stories about real people – the men (and sometimes women) who needed to earn their living, who made mistakes, and who sometimes quashed their rivals in their quest for success.

The BSHS Dingle Prize was created in 1997 to celebrate the Society’s 50^th anniversary. It goes to the author whose book best represents “history of science, technology, and medicine” and is “accessible to a wide audience of non-specialists”. The specifications state that the winning book should present its content “in an engaging and comprehensible manner and show also proper regard for historical methods and the results of historical research”.

Dr Fara’s book was chosen from a list of 40 nominated books. The long-list, comprising 16 books, included biographies of people and objects, local history and introductory surveys. It covered a wide range of disciplines, written by scientists, journalists and historians of science.

The judges chose Science: A Four Thousand Year History from a short-list of four books, for its “admirably broad scope, its historical and historiographical depth and its engaging re-presentation of the best of recent scholarship”.

 

Professor Sir Mark Welland receives two distinguished awards by US government

Professor Sir Mark Welland, head of The Nanoscience Centre at Cambridge University and Chief Scientific Adviser to the Ministry of Defence, has been awarded two prestigious honours by the US Department of Defense and the US Department of Energy.

The first award, the ‘Office of the Secretary of Defense Medal for Exceptional Public Service’, is the highest level non-career award given by the Secretary of Defense.  It was awarded to Professor Welland for his ‘exceptional public service’ and highlights his many contributions to anti-proliferation.

The citation commends Professor Welland, stating: Professor Welland’s numerous accomplishments had a significant impact on the United States’ and the United Kingdom’s national security.  He provided the vision necessary to align the program of atomic weapons cooperation between our two countries.  He greatly expanded mutual participation of scientists and engineers in directed stockpile work; fostered bilateral cooperation in nuclear, chemical, and biological threat reduction; led new efforts in the area of treaty monitoring and verification; and advocated for the expanded trilateral threat reduction cooperation with France.  His vision, leadership, foresight, and direction had far reaching and positive impacts in several areas:  The United States and the United Kingdom atomic weapons cooperation; several international engagement programs such as the Global Initiative to Combat Nuclear Terrorism and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization-Russia Council; the entire field of bilateral work to counter weapons of mass destruction; and the United States and the United Kingdom relations writ large.  The distinguished achievements of Professor Sir Mark Welland reflect great credit upon himself and the Department of Defense.

Professor Welland was also presented an award by the US National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), part of the US Department of Energy and is rarely (if ever) bestowed upon non-US citizens.  He was given the ‘The NNSA Gold Medal’ for his ‘outstanding leadership and wise counsel as Chief Scientific Advisor to the United Kingdom’.  The citation highlights his contributions to national security, stating ‘Our countries are stronger and safer for your service.’

 

Merck-Serono Prize for Science and Literature and the Christopher Zeeman Medal  

John D, Barrow, Professor of Mathematical Sciences, DAMTP, and Director of the Millennium Mathematics Project, has been awarded the 2011 Merck-Serono Prize for Science and Literature and the 2011 Christopher Zeeman Medal by the London Mathematical Society (LMS) and the Institute for Mathematics and Its Applications (IMA).

The Christopher Zeeman Medal is a triennial award of the IMA and LMS to recognise and reward the contributions of mathematicians involved in promoting mathematics to the public.

The Merck-Serono Prize is an Italian book prize for non-fiction and is for the Italian edition of his cosmic imagery book (‘Le Immagini della Scienza’).

 

Cavendish Emeritus Professor wins Gjønnes Medal

The 2011 Gjønnes Medal in Electron Crystallography will be awarded to Archie Howie (Emeritus Professor, Cavendish Laboratory, University of Cambridge) and Michael Whelan (Emeritus Professor, Department of Materials, University of Oxford) for the development of the dynamical theory of diffraction contrast of electron microscope images of defects in crystals, and other major pioneering contributions to the development and application of electron microscopy, diffraction and spectroscopy of materials.

The Gjønnes Medal in Electron Crystallography recognizes an outstanding contribution to the field of electron crystallography. The award is accompanied by a certificate and funding to present an invited Keynote Lecture at the triennial International Congress of Crystallography. The award is named in honour of its first recipient, Professor Jon Gjønnes of the University of Oslo, who received the award at the XXI IUCr Congress in Osaka, in August 2008.

Archibald “Archie” Howie FRS (born 1934) is a British physicist, known for his pioneering work on the interpretation of transmission electron microscope images of crystals. Born in 1934, he attended Kirkcaldy High School and the University of Edinburgh. He received his PhD from the University of Cambridge, where he subsequently took up a permanent post. He is a fellow of Churchill College and currently President of its Senior Common Room (SCR). In 1965, with Hirsch, Whelan, Pashley and Nicholson, he published the seminal text Electron Microscopy of Thin Crystals. He was elected to the Royal Society in 1978 and awarded their Royal Medal in 1999. In 1992 he was awarded the Guthrie Medal and Prize. He was head of the Cavendish Laboratory from 1989-1997.

 

Cambridge academics to receive prestigious psychology award

Two Cambridge academics have been selected as the joint recipients of one of the most prestigious honors for scientific achievement in the field of psychology.

Professors Barry Everitt and Trevor Robbins are to be awarded the 2011 American Psychological Association (APA) Distinguished Scientific Contribution Award.

The award recognizes distinguished theoretical or empirical contributions to basic research in psychology and is being presented to Professor Everitt and Professor Robbins for their research in behavioural and cognitive neuroscience – marking a collaboration that began in 1980 when Professor Robbins was a lecturer in the Department of Experimental Psychology and Professor Everitt was a lecturer in the Department of Anatomy (moving to Experimental Psychology in 1994).

They will be collecting their award this August in Washington, DC during the annual APA Meeting where they have both been invited to give plenary lectures.

Professors Everitt and Robbins issued the following joint statement regarding this news:

“We are both delighted to have received this prestigious international award, especially as relatively few psychologists from the U.K. have been previous recipients. It perhaps acknowledges some of the strengths of British Psychology, particularly in the domains of behavioural and cognitive neuroscience, which we are proud to represent. We are grateful for the generous research funding from the Medical Research Council and the Wellcome Trust that has supported this work over the last 30 years, as well as from the University of Cambridge, where this work has been conducted.

“We were originally based in two different University Departments, but a University initiative and developments such as the Behavioural and Clinical Neuroscience Institute as well as more recently, Cambridge Neuroscience, have undoubtedly facilitated this research collaboration. We have also been fortunate to have had working with us outstanding graduate students and postdoctoral researchers, as well as many exceptional colleagues and collaborators, and we readily acknowledge their generous contributions to the research for which our laboratory is known”.

 

Paterson Medal and Prize

Dr Jochen Guck from the University’s Department of Physics has been awarded the Paterson Medal and Prize for distinguished early career research in applied physics by the Institute of Physics.  He has received the award for his invention of the optical stretcher, together with other novel physical probes to elucidate the cellular, mechanical and optical properties, their role in biological function and their potential in medical diagnostics.

 

Documentary featuring Cambridge academic wins BAFTA

A documentary which features Professor David Menon, Head of the Department of Anaesthesia at the School of Clinical Medicine, has won a BAFTA award. The film, entitled ‘Between Life and Death’, was voted as the best ‘single documentary’.

The programme is about critical illness, death, and dying and follows three patients at Addenbrooke’s Hospital, where Professor Menon, a world-leading expert in the treatment of brain injuries, is a consultant at the Neuro Critical Care Unit (NCCU).

Discussing what he hopes the documentary accomplishes, Professor Menon said:  “I hope that viewers will take away a sense of the uncertainties that medical teams sometimes face, and why good clinical care remains just as important in these difficult settings.

“I also hope that the programme shows why medicine remains as much an art as a science, why good clinical care requires wisdom as well as knowledge, and that common humanity does not need to be a casualty of ‘high tech’ intensive care.”

The documentary has also won a BAFTA in Wales for the same category as well as the Royal TV Society best single documentary and the Celtic Media Jury prize.

 

Professor Nicholas Thomas wins the Wolfson History Prize for ‘Islanders’

Nicholas Thomas, Director of the Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, and professor of historical anthropology, has been awarded the prestigious Wolfson History Prize for his book Islanders: The Pacific in the Age of Empire. The Wolfson History Prizes, which were established in 1972, are awarded annually for two or three exceptional works of history writing published during the year.

Medal for groundbreaking architectural design

The Mapungubwe Interpretation Centre, Mapungubwe, South Africa  has won the Silver Medal in the International Prize for Sustainable Architecture. The Centre was co-designed by Michael Ramage (Department of Architecture) using a 600 years old construction system to achieve a low economical and environmental impact. The traditional timbrel vaulting, using locally made pressed soil cement tiles, allows the design to be materialized with minimal formwork and no steel reinforcement. In addition, the ambition was to also integrate local unskilled labor into a poverty relief program by training them to produce the over 200,000 tiles necessary in the construction of the domes.

The judges commented: “The project is well integrated with the local context, successfully dialoguing with the various environmental, cultural and social implications involved in construction of a building, generating the image of architecture authentically rooted in the place.”

Professor Steve O’Rahilly elected as Foreign Associate of the National Academy of Sciences (USA)

Stephen O’Rahilly MD, FRS,  FMedSci, Professor of Clinical Biochemistry and Medicine, University of Cambridge; Co-Director of the Institute of Metabolic Science and Honorary Consultant Physician at Addenbrooke’s Hospital Cambridge, has been elected as a Foreign Associate of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America.

The National Academy is the USA’s premier scientific academy. Each year it elects 72 new members and 18 Foreign Associates from all scientific disciplines. Professor O’Rahilly is distinguished for his research in metabolic and endocrine disease and for his leadership in clinical science.

Dr Darin Weinberg wins Pollner Prize

Dr Darin Weinberg’s book ‘Of Others Inside: Insanity, Addiction and Belonging in America’, published by Temple University Press, has won the American Sociological Association Pollner Prize.

The Melvin Pollner Prize in Ethnomethodology is conferred by the American Sociological Association’s Section on Ethnomethodology and Conversation Analysis. The award honours the intellectual spirit and memory of Melvin Pollner and is given to an outstanding book, article, or chapter that addresses issues relating to ethnomethodology in the inclusive sense reflected in Pollner’s intellectual and research concerns. The prize includes an award of $1000.

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• Appointments, awards & prizes 2010
• Nobel Prize Winners
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