Students and researchers from the University of Aberdeen have won prestigious Royal Society of Edinburgh scholarships and grants for their work.
Dr Frances Wilkins, visiting lecturer in Ethnomusicology and Scottish Music, has been awarded a Scottish Government Arts & Humanities grant, for her project Scots in the Sub-Arctic: Musical Fingerprints among the Cree Fiddlers of James Bay, where she looks at the musical heritage of the James Bay.
Ms Soumya Palliyil, research fellow at the School of Medical Sciences, won a Scottish Enterprise Enterprise Fellowship for her work on developing potential new drugs for treating infectious diseases.
Aberdeen researchers have also been selected for the Scottish Crucible which recognises the research leaders of the future.
Awardees are: Dr Julia Allan,Health Psychology Research Fellow; Dr Jennifer Gregory, Research Fellow at the Institute of Medical Sciences and Dr Marjon van der Pol, Reader at the Health Economics Research Unit.
Undergraduate students David Barr and James McLeman were awarded the Robert Cormack Summer Vacation Research Scholarships in astronomy.
David’s research project examines the effect a Jupiter-like planet helps to maintain balance in our solar system by its affects on asteroids.
James is investigating star formation - a prominent area of astronomy. His research addresses a mysterious process allowing cold dark clouds of intergalactic elements, to form into hot bright stars.
Dr Charles Wang, Reader Dynamics and Cruickshank lecturer in Astronomy said “As their supervisor, I am so proud of them being awarded the Cormack Scholarships.
“The highly prestigious awards not only demonstrate their exceptional quality and the significance of their project work, but also reflect recent rapid growth of teaching and research excellence in physics and astronomy at Aberdeen.”
The Research Awards reception takes place tonight (Tuesday August 23) in Edinburgh.