FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
FRIDAY 1 MAY 2015
Royal Society elects new Fellows
Outstanding scientists, including pioneers in climate modelling, the treatment of infectious diseases
and plant genetics, make up the 47 new Fellows and 10 new Foreign Members announced by the
Royal Society today.
Professor Dame Julia Slingo, Chief Scientist at the Met Office, has been made a Fellow for her worldleading research in the area of tropical climate processes and climate modelling. She has led Met
Office science and University climate modelling with great success and had major international
influence, particularly in the move to much higher resolution climate models.
Professor Jeremy Farrar, Director of The Wellcome Trust, has been given a Fellowship for his
contributions to our understanding of the epidemiology, pathogenesis and treatment of several
globally important infectious diseases, especially those affecting South East Asia, including
tuberculosis, dengue and influenza.
The newly elected Fellows include strong representation of scientists in business and industry. They
include Sir James Dyson, Chairman of Dyson Limited, and renowned inventor, entrepreneur and
philanthropist; and Sir Robin Saxby, Founder and former CEO and Chairman ARM Holdings plc.
Professor Jiayang Li, Vice Minister of Agriculture for The People's Republic of China and President of
the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, has been made a Foreign Member of the Royal
Society for his seminal contributions to establishing forward genetics approaches in rice and his
demonstration that this fundamental knowledge can contribute to the development of improved rice
varieties through marker assisted breeding.
Sir Paul Nurse, President of the Royal Society, said:
“Science and its application are at the core of so many aspects of our modern lives. From treating
infectious diseases, to building safe bridges and tunnels, searching out life on other planets and even
vacuuming our living rooms, science helps us understand ourselves better and it makes life better.
Without scientific knowledge, we might not be able to solve some of the greatest challenges of our
time: food shortages, climate change and tackling diseases. The scientists elected to the Fellowship
of the Royal Society this year are leaders in their fields and have contributed much to the scientific
endeavour. We are delighted to welcome them alongside the likes of great British scientist such as
Newton, Boyle and Darwin.”
Professor Lisa Jardine, Professor of Renaissance Studies at University College London, has been
made an Honorary Fellow. She has advised the Society on its archives, and, during a period of formal
secondment to the Society, she edited the on-line ‘Hooke Folio’, published in 2007. She is a frequent
broadcaster, noted for her ‘Points of View’ on BBC Radio 4 and most recently for her ‘Seven ages of
science’ series.
The Fellowship of the Royal Society is made up of the most eminent scientists, engineers and
technologists from or living and working in the UK and the Commonwealth. Past Fellows and Foreign
Members have included Newton, Darwin, Einstein and Hawking.
Some statistics on this year’s intake are as follows:

8 (17%) of this year’s intake of Fellows are women, plus 3 new female Foreign Members
and one female Honorary Fellow

8 of the new Fellows are from Oxford, 7 from London, 4 from Cambridge and 4 from Bristol.
New Fellows have been elected from across the UK, including Bath, Birmingham, Warwick
and Liverpool, along with those from international institutions as far afield as India, China and
Australia.
The full list of new Fellows and Foreign Members can be found is as follows:
Fellows
Professor Mark Achtman
University of Warwick
Professor Ali Alavi
University of Cambridge and Max Planck Institute for Solid
State Research
Professor Allan Balmain
University of California, San Francisco
Professor Kamal Bawa
University of Massachusetts-Boston and Ashoka Trust for
Research in Ecology and the Environment, Bangalore
Professor Stephen Brown
MRC Harwell
Professor Jane Clarke
University of Cambridge
Mr Clifford Cocks
GCHQ (rtd)
Sir Rory Collins
University of Oxford
Professor Andrew Cooper
University of Liverpool
Dr Stephen Cusack
EMBL
Professor Anne Cutler
University of Western Sydney and Max Planck Institute for
Psycholinguistics
Professor Benjamin Davis
University of Oxford
Professor Annette Dolphin
University College London
Professor Philip Donoghue
University of Bristol
Professor Daniel Drucker
University of Toronto
Sir James Dyson
Dyson Limited
Professor Anthony Edwards
University of Cambridge
Professor Yvonne Elsworth
University of Birmingham
Professor Alison M Etheridge
University of Oxford
Professor Jeremy Farrar
The Wellcome Trust
Professor Zoubin Ghahramani
University of Cambridge
Professor Michael Goddard
University of Melbourne and State Government Victoria,
Australia
Professor Michael Hausser
University College London
Professor Laurence Hurst
University of Bath
Professor Jane Alison Langdale
University of Oxford
Professor Andrew Peter
Max Planck Institute for Chemical Physics of Solids and
Mackenzie
University of St Andrews
Professor Philip Maini
University of Oxford
Jens Marklof
University of Bristol
Professor Gero Miesenböck
University of Oxford
Dr Ketan Patel
MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology,
Professor David Phillips
Imperial College London
Dr Jonathan Pila
University of Oxford
Professor Roger Powell
University of Melbourne
Professor John Rarity
University of Bristol
Professor Andrew Read
Pennsylvannia State University
Professor Alan Roberts
University of Bristol
Professor John Robertson
University of Cambridge
Professor Roger A Sheldon
Delft University of Technology
Professor Dame Julia Slingo
Met Office
Professor Scott Sloan
University of Newcastle, Australia
Professor Henry Snaith
University of Oxford
Professor Ajay Kumar Sood
Indian Institute of Science, Bengaluru
Professor Natalie Strynadka
University of British Columbia
Professor Richard Thomas
Imperial College London
Professor Bryan Turner
University of Birmingham
Dr Frank Uhlmann
The Francis Crick Institute
Professor Colin Wilson
Victoria University, New Zealand
Honorary Fellows
Professor Lisa Jardine
University College London
Sir Robin Saxby
Founder and former CEO and Chairman ARM Holdings plc
Foreign Members
Professor Alain Aspect
Institut d'Optique, Palaiseau
Professor Zdeněk P Bažant
Northwestern University
Dr Linda Buck
Howard Hughes Medical Institutue, Fred Hutchinson
Cancer Research Centre and University of Washington
Professor Andrew Knoll
Harvard University
Professor John Kuriyan
University of California, Berkeley
Professor Jiayang Li
Vice Minister of Agriculture, The People's Republic of
China
Professor Susan Lindquist
Whitehead Institute, Massachusetts Institute of
Technology Investigator and Howard Hughes Medical
Institute
Professor Gail Martin
University of California, San Francisco
Professor William H Miller
University of California, Berkeley
Professor John Spence
Arizona State University and NSF BioXFEL Science
and Technology Center
-ENDSFor further information contact:
Nicola Kane
The Royal Society
The Royal Society, London
Tel: 020 7451 2508
E-mail: nicola.kane@royalsociety.org
NOTES FOR EDITORS
1. The Royal Society is a self-governing Fellowship of many of the world’s most distinguished
scientists drawn from all areas of science, engineering, and medicine. The Society’s fundamental
purpose, reflected in its founding Charters of the 1660s, is to recognise, promote, and support
excellence in science and to encourage the development and use of science for the benefit of
humanity.
The Society’s strategic priorities are:






Promoting science and its benefits
Recognising excellence in science
Supporting outstanding science
Providing scientific advice for policy
Fostering international and global cooperation
Education and public engagement
For further information please visit http://royalsociety.org. Follow the Royal Society on Twitter at
http://twitter.com/royalsociety or on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/theroyalsociety .
Nicola Kane
Senior Press Officer
T +44 20 7451 2508
The Royal Society
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London SW1Y 5AG
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