Senior Scientist, Rotman Research Institute of Baycrest
Fergus Craik is one of the world's most eminent cognitive psychologists. His original contributions to experimental and theoretical study of human memory are universally acknowledged. His seminal 1972 article, with Robert Lockhart, now a classic, which introduced the fundamental concept of "levels of processing", was revolutionary in its impact on how researchers think about memory processes today. His 'processing' orientation to the study of memory has been accepted not only in cognitive psychology, but also in neuropsychology and cognitive neuroscience in general. In addition, Craik is one of the world leaders in the area of adult age changes in memory functioning.
Experimental Studies of Human Memory and Ageing
Visiting Professor, Department of Atomic and Laser Physics, Centre for Quantum Computation, The Clarendon Laboratory, University of Oxford
David Deutsch laid the foundations of the quantum theory of computation, and has subsequently made or participated in many of the most important advances in the field, including the discovery of the first quantum algorithms, the theory of quantum logic gates and quantum computational networks, the first quantum error-correction scheme, and several fundamental quantum universality results. He has set the agenda for worldwide research efforts in this new, interdisciplinary field, made progress in understanding its philosophical implications (via a variant of the many-universes interpretation) and made it comprehensible to the general public, notably in his book The Fabric of Reality.
The Universality of Quantum Computation, and its Implications
Assistant Director, MRC Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit, Cambridge
John Duncan is an unquestioned world leader in study of neural mechanisms underlying higher cognitive function. Combining experiments in human behaviour, focal brain lesions, functional neuroimaging, and awake monkey physiology, his work has uncovered basic cognitive and neural mechanisms of attention, intelligence and awareness. His discoveries extend from a basis for selective attention in competitive neural functions of the visual cortex, to adaptive response properties of prefrontal neurons and their role in control of behaviour. More broadly, his ideas have been applied to fields including the basis for general intelligence, integration of cognition and emotion, and biology of psychiatric disorders.
A brain system building intelligent behaviour
Professor of Experimental Physics, Department of Physics, University of Oxford
Foster is an international leader in the development of accelerators, instrumentation and physics analysis of electron-positron and electron-proton colliders. He established his reputation in the analysis of heavy quarks and leptons on the TASSO experiment and subsequently analysed the physics of electron-proton collisions at the HERA collider. where for four years he led the ZEUS collaboration of 400 physicists. He was responsible for major innovations in the detectors capabilities, greatly expanding its physics potential. He is an international authority on the proton structure and the production of heavy quarks via the strong interaction. He is currently European Director of the global effort to design and construct the next major project in particle physics, an electron-positron collider, the ILC, which will complement and extend the physics possible at the LHC at CERN. His vision of a strong UK contribution to this effort and to accelerator science is reflected in his founding the Adams Institute for Accelerator Science in Oxford and RHUL, of which he was the first director. His leading role in both the publication of the final classic analyses of electron-proton physics at HERA and in steering the development and physics potential of the ILC will continue for many years.
Their embryon atoms
Professor of Circadian Neuroscience and Chair, Nuffield Laboratory of Ophthalmology, University of Oxford
Russell Foster has made fundamental contributions to the field of biological clocks (circadian rhythms) and the role of a novel photoreceptor in the retina - separate from the rods and cones - that is critical for the pathway whereby light signals at dawn and dusk entrain the central circadian clock. Using transgenic and retinally degenerate mice he demonstrated that animals lacking rods and cones still have their central clock entrained by light-dark cycles, and with his colleagues went on to demonstrate the localisation of these photoreceptors in the mouse as a subset of the retinal ganglion cells which are directly photosensitive. These cells project via the retino- hypothalamic tract to the suprachiasmatic nuclei in the anterior hypothalamus. He proceeded to measure the action spectrum of these ganglion cells and added further to our knowledge of the opsin-based pigment (melanopsin). Separately, he has investigated a parallel non-rod, non-cone photoreceptor system in the Teleost eye, based upon another new opsin (VA-opsin). His earlier research studied non- retinal photoreceptors in the deep brain of birds which are used to regulate seasonal reproduction.
A Third Class of Retinal Photoreceptor
Director of Research and Emeritus Professor of Materials Chemistry, Department of Materials Science and Metallurgy, University of Cambridge
Distinguished for his versatile and far-reaching work in the field of materials chemistry. His research on the chemistry of solid electrolytes has led to novel sensors for gaseous species and elements in molten metals. He has developed electrode arrangements that greatly enhance mass transfer in aqueous and molten salt electrolyte systems. A major discovery which came from an elegant study of electrode potentials has led to an original method for the reduction of metal oxides; this pioneering work has had international acclaim. It is being exploited in the extraction of titanium, the creation of novel alloys and for numerous applications including superconductors, medical implants and magnetic materials.
Electro-deoxidation - a sustainable route to metals, alloys and oxygen?
Willaman Chair in Biology, Director of Life Sciences, Pennsylvania State University
Peter Hudson is internationally distinguished for ground-breaking manipulative field experiments in parasite ecology, and for applying theory to the dynamic interaction between parasites and their wildlife hosts. His large-scale experiments revealed the parasite-induced processes that drive red grouse population cycles; this is the most successful experimental test of the theory of host-natural enemy cycles across the whole of ecology, Subsequently, he has used innovative experimentation, linked to theory, to show how parasites interact with host behaviour, physiology, climate, and community level effects to shape host population dynamics. These fundamental contributions also have important applications in population management and conservation.
Parasites and the unstable dynamics of wild host populations
Professor of Chemistry, Department of Chemistry, University of Sheffield
Chris Hunter has pioneered the physical organic chemistry of molecular recognition. He has invented simple theoretical models that explain the dominant factors governing the behaviour of apparently complex molecular systems, and then has developed innovative experimental systems for testing and quantifying those models. He has replaced confusion and controversy in the fields of aromatic-aromatic interactions, DNA conformation and self-assembly with simple working pictures that have changed the way we think. He is one of the most cited and influential young scientists working in chemistry today.
Molecular Recognition
Frederick James Quick Professor of Biology, Department of Zoology, University of Cambridge and Head of Cancer Research UK Laboratories, The Gurdon Institute of Cancer and Developmental Biology, Cambridge
Steve Jackson has contributed to several fields of research. He was instrumental in elucidating the NHEJ pathway of DNA double-strand break repair, being the first to: identify a mammalian NHEJ factor; provide insights into how NHEJ factors function; and show that in addition to repairing radiation damage these proteins function in telomere maintenance and help to generate the vertebrate immune system. In the transcription field, Professor Jackson established that many transcription factors are glycosylated, that RNA polymerase III transcription requires the TATA-box binding protein and, through his work on Archaea, he has provided fundamental insights into transcriptional control mechanisms.
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Astronomer, Institute for Astronomy, University of Hawaii
Nick Kaiser is distinguished for initiating and developing several fields of research in large scale structure and cosmology. In each, he has provided highly original theoretical insight and applied these to obtain important observational results. His interpretation of the different clustering scales observed for galaxies and clusters via density peaks in a random field led to the concept of biasing in galaxy formation which has emerged as one of the central concepts necessary for comparing simulations and observations of the galaxy distribution. Likewise, his analysis of clustering patterns in real and redshift space formed the basis of the now established method for measuring the cosmic mass density. Kaiser played a central role in turning weak gravitational lensing into a major observational industry and one of the most promising new techniques in cosmology for the next decade. He developed a powerful methodology, still used today, for converting lensing signals into maps of the dark matter distribution, and to aid its practicality, contributed greatly through the provision of image processing tools for the observational community. Kaiser now leads the development of Pan-STARRS, a multi-faceted observatory whose scientific achievements will be wide-ranging across fields as diverse as cosmology and the origin of the solar system.
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