Royal Society

The researchers are recognised for 'the excellence of their work and the profound implications their findings have had for others'.

The scientists receive the awards in recognition of their achievements in a wide variety of fields of research.

The Royal Society, the UK’s independent academy for science, has announced the recipients of its  2012 Awards, Medals and Prize Lectures today , 10 July 2012. The scientists receive the awards in recognition of their achievements in a wide variety of fields of research - the uniting factor is the excellence of their work and the profound implications their findings have had for others working in their relevant fields and wider society.

Copley Medal

Professor Sir John Walker FRS, a Fellow of Sidney Sussex, has been awarded the Copley Medal, which is believed to be the world’s oldest scientific prize.  Sir John receives the medal for his ground-breaking work in understanding what powers living cells.

In 1997, Sir John shared the Nobel Prize for Chemistry with the American biochemist Paul D. Boyer for their work in understanding the mechanism underlying the synthesis of ATP in the mitochondrion.   He is currently Director of the Medical Research Council's Mitochondrial Research Unit in Cambridge.

Kavli Medal and Lecture

Professor Neil Greenham of the Department of Physics has been awarded the Royal Society’s Kavli Medal and Lecture in recognition of his exceptional work on hybrid materials combining polymer semiconductors with inorganic nanoparticles, and their use in printable solar cells.

The Kavli Medal and Lecture is awarded biennially (in even years) for excellence in all fields of science and engineering relevant to the environment or energy.

Prof. Greenham said ‘I’m honoured to receive this award, and to have the chance to give the Kavli lecture at the Royal Society in April 2013.’

Greenham added, ‘In the lecture, I will be able to show some really exciting recent results where we combine organic and inorganic semiconductors to demonstrate a new route that might let us beat the efficiency limits that currently apply to conventional solar cells.’

Royal Medals

Professor Andrew Holmes FRS of the Department of Chemistry for his outstanding contributions to chemical synthesis at the interface between materials and biology and pioneering the field of organic electronic materials.

Darwin Medal

Professor Timothy Clutton-Brock FRS of the Department of Zoology for his outstanding work on the diversity of animal societies and demonstration of their effects on the evolution of reproductive strategies, the operation of selection and the dynamics of populations.


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