UC Santa Barbara researchers are working to move cold atom quantum experiments and applications from the laboratory tabletop to chip-based systems

The winners of this year’s Blavatnik Awards for Young Scientists  in the UK are:

Life Sciences Laureate: Prof. Christopher Stewart (Newcastle University): Christopher leads a laboratory where groundbreaking research on microbiome-based therapies for pre-natal infant mortality is already making a life-saving impact.

Chemical Sciences Laureate: Prof. Liam Ball (University of Nottingham): Liam has transformed green manufacturing on an industrial scale, developing safer and more efficient methods of producing pharmaceuticals and agrochemicals with minimal environmental impact.

Physical Sciences & Engineering Laureate: Prof. Benjamin Mills (University of Leeds): Benjamin is transforming our understanding of climate change on earth and in space with revolutionary methods to predict long-term climate change. His research not only uncovers Earth’s climate history over billions of years, but also how other planets might evolve to support life.

As the largest unrestricted prize for UK scientists under the age of 42, the Blavatnik Awards celebrate Britain’s greatest young minds in their fields. This year, the three Laureates—each awarded £100,000 in unrestricted funds—were chosen from a shortlist of nine finalists, representing some of the brightest young scientific minds across the UK.

Among them, the three Laureates are tackling some of the most complex and pressing issues in science and society:  infant mortality, green manufacturing and predicting long-term climate change.

Tonight’s prize-giving gala at The Orangery, Kensington Palace highlights the growing impact of regional universities across the UK driving scientific breakthroughs.

Soilless growing systems inside greenhouses, known as controlled environment agriculture, promise to advance the year-round production of high-quality specialty crops, according to an interdisciplinary research team at Penn State. But to be competitive and sustainable, this advanced farming method will require the development and implementation of precision agriculture techniques. To meet that demand, the team developed an automated crop-monitoring system capable of providing continuous and frequent data about plant growth and needs, allowing for informed crop management.

Researchers deployed a robotic feeding arm in a pair of studies outside the lab. In the first, six users with motor impairments used the robot to feed themselves a meal in a UW cafeteria, an office or a conference room. In the second study, a community researcher and co-author on the research used the system at home for five days.