Two ‘Women in Science’ awards go to Oxford
07 Jul 09
Oxford University scientists have won two out of the four L’Oréal-UNESCO For Women In Science Fellowships for 2009. The fellowships celebrate the achievement of exceptional female scientists in the UK and Ireland.
Dr Nathalie Seddon and Dr Jennifer Bizley received their awards at a ceremony held at the Royal Institution.
The L’Oréal-UNESCO UK and Ireland Fellowships For Women In Science aim to promote the importance of ensuring greater participation of women in science. The £15,000 awards are given to promising female scientists to help them further their research in their chosen fields.
Dr Jennifer Bizley is a Junior Research Fellow in the Department of Physiology, Anatomy and Genetics, where she researches the human perception of pitch, timbre and spatial location of a sound source. Understanding how the brain follows speech irrespective of the accent of the speaker, pitch of their voice, or cacophony of other background sounds is crucial for the improved design of hearing aids and cochlear implants. The fellowship will allow her to travel to work with research groups at the Hearing Research Centre at Boston University, USA.
Dr Nathalie Seddon is a Royal Society University Research Fellow at the Edward Grey Institute in the Department of Zoology studying signal evolution and speciation in tropical birds. Focusing on South American birds, her research explores the role of ecology, geography and sexual selection in shaping the evolution of birdsongs, driving the formation of new species and allowing closely related species to live along side each other. To date, Dr Seddon’s research has mainly involved studies of wild antbird populations in the Peruvian Amazon. However, this Fellowship will allow her to develop a complementary experimental programme on captive antbirds at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in Panama.
Researchers at the Department of Zoology have now won fellowships in each of the three years that the programme has run. Dr Theresa Burt de Perera won a fellowship in 2007 and Dr Ashleigh Griffin received the award in 2008.
Women are at the forefront of advances in many scientific disciplines, particularly in health and life sciences,’ said Grita Loebsack, Country Manager of L’Oréal UK and Ireland. ‘It is through programmes such as For Women In Science that we hope to draw more attention to the pioneering scientific research undertaken by women around the world and provide more visible role models for the female scientists of the future.’
The other 2009 winners are Dr Elizabeth Murchison of the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute and Dr Patricia Alireza of University College London.