THE BLAVATNIK AWARDS for Young Scientists
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THE BLAVATNIK AWARDS For Young Scientists N E R AT I O N O T G E F S C E X I E N N T E I F H I C T G I N I N N V O I V R A D T I O N 2020 The Blavatnik Awards for Young Scientists honor exceptional young scientists and engineers by celebrating their extraordinary achievements, recognizing outstanding promise, and accelerating innovation through unrestricted funding. Table of Contents Key Features ..............................................................................................................................................4 Our History ................................................................................................................................................6 Blavatnik Regional Awards ...................................................................................................................8 Blavatnik National Awards .................................................................................................................10 Blavatnik Awards in the United Kingdom ......................................................................................12 Blavatnik Awards in Israel................................................................................................................... 14 Blavatnik Science Scholars ................................................................................................................. 16 In the News ............................................................................................................................................. 18 “Encouraging and supporting young scientists is essential if we are to successfully address society’s challenges. By honoring these young individuals and their achievements we are helping to promote the breakthroughs in science and technology that will define how our world Established by: Administered by: Blavatnik Awards in Israel, will look over the next century.” in collaboration with: LEN BLAVATNIK FOUNDER AND CHAIRMAN BLAVATNIK 2 ACCESS INDUSTRIES AND BLAVATNIK FAMILY FOUNDATION FAMILY FOUNDATION 2 3 Key Features of The Blavatnik Awards for Young Scientists Open to researchers working in more than 36 different scientific and engineering disciplines in three categories: The Blavatnik Award for Young Scientists in Chemistry The Blavatnik Award for Young Scientists in Physical Sciences & Engineering The Blavatnik Award for Young Scientists in Life Sciences • Recognize and support outstanding young scientists and engineers early in their careers when additional funding and recognition have the greatest impact on their work. • Honorees are selected based on the quality, novelty, and impact of their research, and their potential for further significant contributions to science. • Offer the largest unrestricted prizes ever created for early-career scientists. • Connect alumni with a network of their peers throughout the world to foster collaboration. “As I get to know the scientists in the Academy’s “It has been my true honor to partner with network, I’ve discovered that past and present visionaries such as Len Blavatnik, who understand Blavatnik Scholars are some of the top young that science and technology make this world better. scientists in the world. We are proud to celebrate I know that the impact of the Blavatnik Awards will them and their achievements, and to showcase their only increase in the coming years.” work to the world.” ELLIS RUBINSTEIN NICHOLAS B. DIRKS PRESIDENT EMERITUS PRESIDENT AND CEO NEW YORK ACADEMY OF SCIENCES NEW YORK ACADEMY OF SCIENCES 4 5 A R G E N T I N A A U S T R A L I A A F Our U The Blavatnik National THE BLAVATNIK R 60% of Blavatnik Awards S A Awards are created to T N R honorees are immigrants C 2014 honor faculty scientists 2016 2018 I A AWARDS E to the country in which across the US, and the B CELEBRATE THEIR G History E they were recognized. E first Laureates in Life L R The first international A C Sciences, Physical Sciences M I R L A & Engineering, and Blavatnik Awards are U B N SCIENCE S U 10TH conferred, recognizing Y P Chemistry are announced. E B ANNIVERSARY! KNOWS NO R outstanding academic G E Each Laureate receives L R G H faculty-level scientists and E C The Blavatnik Awards are created to a $250,000 prize. IU BORDERS E E C M Z celebrate the outstanding postdoctoral engineers in the United E C L E C A A 2007 and faculty scientists in New York, The Blavatnik Regional Kingdom and in Israel. H A I R O N T A A IS New Jersey, and Connecticut. Awards continue to honor N D O IT G A CR • N A K D postdoctoral scientists in E O CH IA N O T LY N INA COLOMB LA C New York, New Jersey, H G RE C E JA H I RO R P UN AN O and Connecticut. LA A GARY IA IR M N N • IND D LE ICO D S BAN EX AN • N ON • M SIA M L EW ALAY PO Z E IA R EAL STIN K OM AND PALE VA A NIGERIA LO NI S A RE RUSS APO IA SERBIA SING EA OR SLO H K VEN OUT IA SOUT FRICA S UK S H A Y PAI RKE N S TU WITZER AIWAN LAND T AN U KIST KRA UZBE INE URUGUAY USA 2017 2018 2020 The Blavatnik Family Foundation announces Three women are named By the close of 2020, expansion of the Blavatnik Awards to the United Blavatnik Regional Award the Blavatnik Awards Kingdom and Israel. In Israel, the New York Winners, marking the first will have recognized The Blavatnik Family The Blavatnik Family Foundation Academy of Sciences collaborates with the time in Blavatnik Awards 321 young scientists Foundation announces and the New York Academy of Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities history that the top prize and engineers and 2012 doubling of the prize 2014 Sciences host the first annual in administering the awards. is concurrently awarded awarded prizes totaling money for Winners and Blavatnik Science Symposium. to female scientists in over US$10.2 million. Finalists starting in 2013. each of the three disciplinary categories. 6 7 Meet the 2019 Blavatnik Awards 2019 Blavatnik Regional Winners JUNTAO YE Regional Awards 2019 Regional Winner in Chemistry Shanghai Jiao Tong University in China (formerly at Cornell University) Juntao Ye, PhD, invented several new methods that allow for converting readily for Young Scientists available chemicals into value-added and pharmaceutically relevant products in a highly efficient and economical manner, while reducing chemical byproduct waste. These methods could improve the efficiency of synthesizing complex and bioactive Acknowledge and celebrate the excellence compounds, thereby accelerating the pace of drug discovery. of outstanding postdoctoral scientists “My research is aimed at developing efficient, selective, and economical methods for the and engineers who work in New York, synthesis of value-added and pharmaceutically relevant compounds from readily available chemicals. My research goal is to develop new synthetic methods that accelerate the pace of New Jersey, and Connecticut. drug discovery and lower the cost of pharmaceutical drugs.” Young scientists are nominated by research institutions across the New York region, and Winners and Finalists are selected by a group of senior scientists and engineers from institutions in this Tri-State Area. NETTA ENGELHARDT Winners are awarded US$30,000 each and 2019 Regional Winner in Physical Sciences & Engineering MIT (formerly at Princeton University) Finalists are awarded US$10,000 each in Netta Engelhardt, PhD, researches the interface of general relativity and quantum field unrestricted funds. theory to answer complex questions about the fundamentals of our universe, including a remarkable explanation for the origin of black hole entropy. Her work strives to understand how the fabric of the universe at large scales is encoded in quantum gravity. “It is an honor to be selected as a Blavatnik Awards honoree. I am very moved by the generosity of the Blavatnik Family Foundation in establishing these awards, and I am grateful that fundamental science conducted by early-career scientists is being recognized and acknowledged.” LAURA DUVALL 2019 Regional Winner in Life Sciences Columbia University (formerly at The Rockefeller University) Laura Duvall, PhD, discovered two key molecules in mosquitos that inhibit blood- feeding and breeding. This discovery has worldwide implications for controlling mosquito populations and the spread of diseases such as dengue and Zika. At the time of nomination, Duvall was a trainee of the 2007 Blavatnik Regional Awards Faculty Winner, Leslie Vosshall, PhD, of The Rockefeller University. “I love the creative side of science—having the freedom to follow up on an unexpected observation in the lab that leads us in a completely new direction or totally changes how we’ve been thinking about our experiments. Being wrong is often the first step to an even more exciting discovery.” 8 9 Meet the 2020 Blavatnik Awards 2020 Blavatnik National Laureates WILLIAM R. DICHTEL National Awards 2020 National Laureate in Chemistry Northwestern University William R. Dichtel, PhD, has pioneered methods to create novel, porous materials from for Young Scientists simple, carbon-based building blocks. These materials can be easily designed and tailored to address specific needs and possess extremely high surface areas because they contain tiny holes—pores that can store, detect, and separate small molecules and ions. Celebrate America’s most innovative and For example, he invented porous materials derived from corn that are now being used promising faculty-rank scientists and commercially to remove toxic substances such as industrial pollutants and pharmaceuticals from drinking water.