Imperial academics recognised in new science rankings

Eight academics from Imperial have been included in <em>The Times’ Eureka 100</em>: the science list - <em>news</em>

Monday 18 October 2010
By Simon Watts

Eight academics from Imperial College London have been included in The Times’ Eureka 100: the science list - a new guide to the 100 most important contemporary figures in British science and engineering.

Alongside the science list, Sir Keith O’Nions was ranked at number five in the top 10 “Academic Power Brokers”, while Professor Molly Stevens from the Department of Materials was named one of the top 10 scientists in Britain under the age of 40.

Eureka canvassed opinions and recommendations from the heads of top universities, research bodies, scientific societies, engineering businesses, pharmaceutical companies and government institutions. Judging panellists included journalists from The Times, and William Waldegrave, the former minister responsible for setting up the Office of Science and Technology.

Imperial academics included in the Top 100 were:

Professor Sir John Pendry, Department of Physics (48)
Professor Pendry is recognised for his ground-breaking work on the refractive index of unusual materials, and demonstrating that radiation can be deflected around an object, rendering it invisible.

Professor Jim Virdee, Department of Physics (62)
Professor Virdee is the leader of the compact Muon Solenoid Collaboration (CMS) – one of the two main experiments at CERN, worked on by more than 3,000 scientists from 38 countries. He has been involved since the start of the experiment in 1992, playing a key role in designing one of the most complex scientific instruments ever built.

Professor Sir Peter Knight, Department of Physics (67)
Professor Knight, former Deputy Rector (Research) at Imperial, is regarded as one of the world’s leading experts in quantum optics. He was recently appointed the first Principal of the Kavli Royal Society International Centre at Chicheley Hall in Buckinghamshire, which brings together international researchers to consider a wide range of topics including climate change and sustainability.

Professor Simon Donaldson, Department of Mathematics (75)
Pioneering and prize-winning, Professor Donaldson is the inaugural President of the Institute for Mathematical Science. He won the Fields Medal in 1986 for his research on the topology of smooth four-dimensional manifolds and was awarded the Royal Society’s Royal Medal in 1999.

Professor David Nutt, Department of Medicine (79)
Professor Nutt holds the Edmond J Safra chair in Neurospychopharmacology. He specialises in the research of drugs which affect the brain and conditions such as addiction, anxiety and sleep.

Professor Lord Robert Winston, Department of Humanities (81)
Professor Winston is one of the most well-known faces in the scientific world, with more than 300 scientific publications, 26 patents and 16 honorary doctorates to his name. He is Professor of Science and Society and Emeritus Professor of Fertility Studies at Imperial.

Professor Guang-Zhong Yang, Institute of Global Health Innovation (83)
Professor Guang-Zhong Yang has produced cutting edge research into medical imaging, sensor technology and robotic surgery. He has a longstanding collaboration with Professor Lord Darzi, the surgical pioneer, and is the Deputy Chairman of the Institute of Global Health Innovation (IGHI) at Imperial. One of his current projects is to develop miniature wireless sensors that can be worn on the body to monitor a patient’s health remotely.

Professor Sir Roy Anderson, School of Public Health (100)
Sir Roy’s inclusion in the list acknowledges his landmark research on infectious diseases. He has mathematically modeled the spread of diseases such as new variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease and AIDS. He is Chair of Infectious Disease Epidemiology in the School of Public Health, and chairs the science advisory board of WHO's Neglected Tropical Diseases. Sir Roy was Rector of Imperial from 2008-09.