The UK Scopus Young Researcher Award – an initiative of the US-UK Fulbright Commission and Elsevier, a provider of scientific, technical and medical information products and services – celebrates the outstanding achievements of the UK’s best early career researchers.
Awards are bestowed in six categories: Medical Sciences, Physical Sciences, Social Sciences, Environmental Sciences, Arts and Humanities, and Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology. The award nominees are all researchers who have published for the first time in 2010 or more recently and have an affiliation to an institution in the UK. Nominations were assessed by a jury consisting of former Fulbright scholars and other discipline-specific experts. Assessment was based on publication and citation data drawn from Scopus, Elsevier’s abstract and citation database.
Macdonald-Wallis’ PhD focused on maternal blood pressure changes during pregnancy and was funded by the Wellcome Trust. She is currently working on a Medical Research Council Population Health Scientist fellowship which extends this research. The research aims to help predict pre-eclampsia, preterm birth and small-for-gestational age babies; to examine how mothers’ blood pressure affects their children’s health in later life; and to identify genetic variants associated with blood pressure changes in pregnancy.
Nick Fowler, Managing Director Academic & Government Institutions, Elsevier, said: ‘UK institutions consistently produce quality young talent, helping to contribute to the excellent research performance we see across the country. Our hope is that awards like these will help to celebrate and showcase young talent in a large range of research disciplines and encourage the next generation of researchers to think big and aim high.’
‘We are pleased to join forces again with Elsevier to support researchers in furthering their careers,’ said Penny Egan, Executive Director, US-UK Fulbright Commission. ‘These awards are not just meant to acknowledge the outstanding performance of the young researchers, but should also be seen as confirmation of their ability to succeed in their chosen field and help them to feel more confident at the beginning of their careers opening up new opportunities for future work.’
Elsevier has hosted Scopus Young Researcher Awards around the world with various partner organisations since 1995, in a concerted effort to support the growth and development of research talent globally.