Four UCL scientists elected Fellows of the Royal Society

Four UCL scientists have been elected as Fellows of the Royal Society in recognition of their outstanding contribution to science. Professor Sarah (Sally) Price (UCL Chemistry), Professor Angus Silver (UCL Neuroscience, Physiology & Pharmacology), Professor Jennifer Thomas CBE (UCL Physics & Astronomy) and Professor Neil Burgess (UCL Institute of Neurology) are among 50 distinguished scientists elected as Fellows and 10 as new Foreign Members announced by the Royal Society. Professor Sally Price is a theoretical/computational chemist who is developing the use of quantum mechanics to quantify the forces between molecules and their application in computing the structures and properties of organic solids. Her research is of particular importance to the pharmaceutical and other organic materials industries, and her excellent leadership of the Control and Prediction of the Organic Solid State project was recognised with the 2015 Royal Society of Chemistry Interdisciplinary Prize. Professor Angus Silver is a neuroscientist whose work has contributed to our understanding of synaptic and neuronal function and to information processing in the brain. By developing and applying methods for quantifying synaptic properties, his work has shown how central synapses transmit and transform signals and can sustain high frequency signalling. He has quantified the functional properties of electrical synapses and established how neurons can perform certain arithmetic operations.