Two University of York academics, Professor Ottoline Leyser and Professor John Goodby, have received national awards for their contributions to science.

Professor Ottoline Leyser of the Universitys Department of Biology has received a Rosalind Franklin Award from the Royal Society for an outstanding contribution to natural science engineering or technology.

Professor Leyser and her team are investigating the hormonal control of shoot branching in Arabidopsis, to understand better how plant hormones integrate environmental, developmental, and genetic factors to regulate development. She has been researching the plant hormone auxin for 15 years, and has been a member of the Department of Biology at York since 1994.

Part of the 30,000 award, must be spent on promoting women in science. Professor Leysers nomination stated that many women are deferred from pursing a career in science because they believe it is impossible to balance it with having children. To dispel this myth, she will assemble a collection of time lines, mapping the career paths and family lives of successful women scientists who have children, illustrating the possibility of combining career and family.

Professor Leyser said, I am very excited to have received this award. Rosalind Franklin was a pioneer for women in science, and I am deeply honoured to have won this award that carries her name. Things are so much easier now for women than during the time that she was working, there is really no reason why the proportion of women pursuing research careers in science should not be 50 per cent.

Professor John Goodby

Professor John Goodby of the Universitys Department of Chemistry has received an Interdisciplinary Science Award from the Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC) for his contribution to the understanding of the properties of liquid crystals.

Professor Goodbys award is one of only two given by the Society this year, and
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Contact: Nicola Coates
njc7@york.ac.uk
01-904-432-029
University of York
22-May-2007