Fellowships recognise outstanding research talent

A group of outstanding early career researchers have been awarded one of the University’s most prestigious fellowships.

Some 40 outstanding early career researchers have been named as Chancellor’s Fellows from across the University’s three Colleges.

Ten of the new Fellows are based in the College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences.

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Leading research

The College cohort’s range of research includes the history of hydrocarbon use in Scotland, the influence of data-driven diversity, equality and inclusion metrics in workplaces and perinatal depression and infant outcomes.

Language use in social interaction across cultures and the lifespan, how children differ from adults in the way they learn and use language and exploring physical activity on health outcomes, are other topics to be explored by the tranche of new Chancellor’s Fellows.

Participants will be encouraged to build an excellent track record of research, innovation or impact as future leaders, and to develop new areas of focus.

Ambitious programme

Each will benefit from a tailored programme that helps them reach their research, innovation and leadership ambitions, and will be supported to transition into open-ended roles in the University.

Participants with a range of backgrounds and experience are represented in the 2024 cohort, in which half are women and one in five are from Black or minority ethnic groups. The University is committed to ensuring equality, diversity and inclusion throughout the candidate selection process.

The College welcomes the following Chancellor’s Fellows:

Dr Jonathan Gardner – School of History, Classics and Archaeology

Jonathan Gardner conducts research on hydrocarbons in Scotland to understand how the mining and use of coal, oil shale, oil and gas over the last 250 years, exploring how Scotland’s long-standing relationship to the materials is inextricable from its current landscape, built environment and socio-political situation.

Dr Kevin Guyan – University of Edinburgh Business School

Kevin Guyan investigates the design and use of data-driven diversity, equality and inclusion metrics in UK workplaces. Dr Guyan explores the theory that systems make identities, shape how we understand identity and what we collectively do based on that understanding.

Dr Andrea Kocsis – Edinburgh College of Art

Andrea Kocsis comes from an interdisciplinary and international background. In her research she combines heritage studies with data and network science. The research she is conducting as a Chancellor's Fellow focuses on investigating historical maritime trade as a complex system.

Dr Tadeg Quillien – School of Philosophy, Psychology and Language Sciences

Tadeg Quillien studies the way people think about cause-and-effect relationships. The aim of the research is to discover what are the unconscious calculations that happen in people's minds when they think about causality, using psychology experiments and developing computer models of mental processes.

Dr Nadine Seward – School of Health and Social Science

Nadine Seward will be using causal inference and causal machine learning to identify causes of perinatal depression and the pathways through which these influence symptoms of perinatal depression and newborn/infant outcomes in low and middle income countries.

Dr Amalia Skilton – School of Philosophy, Psychology and Language Sciences

Amalia Skilton studies language use in social interaction across cultures and the lifespan. Her research is based on more than two years of fieldwork in the Amazon Basin with speakers of several Indigenous languages, including Ticuna (isolate) and Maijuna (Tukanoan).

Dr Belinda Steffan – University of Edinburgh Business School

Belinda Steffan conducts interdisciplinary on how work is reciprocally influenced by the intersection of gender, age and health and well-being, using theoretical approaches of identity, feminism and psychological capital. Dr Steffan collaborates with industry partners to develop practical, meaningful workplace solutions.

Dr Tessa Strain – Moray House School of Education and Sport

Tessa Strain analyses large-scale physical activity data to understand associations with health outcomes and to identify at risk groups, which ultimately informs national and international policies. Dr Strain has an interest in understanding how technologies such as wearable trackers can be used in physical activity research.

Dr Shira Tal – School of Philosophy, Psychology and Language Sciences

Dr Shira Tal’s research asks how children differ from adults in the way they learn and use language, in what ways the linguistic input they receive is different, and how can these differences eventually influence the types of linguistic systems we see across languages.

Dr Alec Wright – Edinburgh College of Art

Alec Wright researches applications of machine learning to musical audio signal processing and synthesis. His doctoral work focussed on modelling audio effects processing using neural networks, with a special interest in creating highly realistic real-time emulations of guitar amplifiers from data.

Our latest cohort of Chancellor’s Fellows will undertake novel research across a wealth of projects, building knowledge and expertise in health and care, environmental sustainability, data, digital and AI, and beyond. We look forward to supporting them to explore and establish novel interdisciplinary areas of research.
Professor Christina Boswell
Vice-Principal Innovation and Enterprise

Chancellor’s Fellowships, which have been awarded at the University since 2014, aim to enable promising academics to progress their careers and to carry out pioneering work.

The appointments have been enabled through an increase in the University’s Scottish Funding Council, following the University’s strong REF2021 results.