Dame Louise Johnson , professor in molecular biophysics at Oxford University, has joined the Oxfordshire based synchrotron facility Diamond Light Source as life science director.
An international team led by Sir Richard Friend , professor of physics at Cambridge University, has been awarded €70,000 (£500,000) of this yearÕs European Union Descartes prize for scientific excellence (€1 million). The team is developing polymeric light-emitting diodes.
Keekok Lee , visiting chair in philosophy at Lancaster University, has been appointed a member of the Agriculture and Environment Biotechnology Commission.
Tony Culyer , professor of economics and related studies at the University of York has been awarded an honorary fellowship by the Royal College of Physicians.
Brian Foster , former professor of experimental physics at the University of Bristol and chairman of the European committee for future accelerators, has taken up the chair of experimental physics at the University of Oxford. Professor Foster is a fellow of the Institute of Physics and a member of the Royal Institution.
Wendy Hall , professor and head of the school of electronics and computer science at the University of Southampton, has been appointed president of the British Computer Society.
Ciaran Carson , poet and Forward prizewinner, has been appointed the first director of the Seamus Heaney Centre for Poetry at Queen's University Belfast.
Gillian Kynoch , Scotland's food and health coordinator in 2001, has been appointed visiting professor at the University of Abertay Dundee.