Examples of Research Fellowships held at Durham

Dr Gwendolyn Leysinger Vieli, Royal Society BP Dorothy Hodgkin Fellowship

We came to Durham as a family because my husband secured a post as an academic in the Department of Geography. Both our research is in Glaciology and my goal was to find a flexible part-time position in my own field of research located near my family to allow for their changing needs. My Royal Society BP Dorothy Hodgkin Fellowship allows me to do all this, and to develop and establish my academic career. Another important reason for choosing Durham is that I am able to collaborate with a strong team of scientists here. The two research groups in Physical Geography provide me with expertise on many aspects of my research, and of course I also benefit from the expertise of scientists outside my own department. Finally, being based in Durham helps me maintain on-going collaboration with my former PIs who are based in Cambridge and Edinburgh.

Dr Ryan C. Hickox, STFC Postdoctoral Fellow

The extragalactic astronomy group at Durham is among the strongest in the world, particularly for the cosmic evolution of galaxies and black hole which is my particular area of interest.  The group has a unique combination of theoretical expertise (through the Institute for Computational Cosmology) and access to the world's top observational facilities.  Finally, the city of Durham is a remarkably beautiful setting and offers a large number of shops, restaurants, etc. right on the doorstep.

While at Durham I have become involved in a number of cutting-edge observational projects studying the growth and evolution of black holes , and have been able to begin using new data from the Herschel Space Observatory that would not have been available to me in the United States.  I also had the opportunity to lead a major international conference on the growth of black holes, which brought the top researchers in the world on this topic to Durham.