Dr Elizabeth (Liz) Dickinson was a Daphne Jackson Fellow from 2016-2018 at the University of York in the Department of Chemistry. She was co-sponsored by the Royal Society of Chemistry and the BBSRC. Liz had been out of research for 7 years to look after her children. Her Fellowship project used a model system to identify particular genes or chemicals within the pea plant metabolism that are responsible for resistance to fungal infection and drought.

Since her Fellowship Liz worked as a Post Doctoral Research Associate in the Department of Mathematics at the University of York, then became a Knowledge Transfer Partnership Associate between the University Department of Mathematics and Croda, and now holds a role as Lead Technical Data Scientist within the Process Innovation Team at Croda.

“The Fellowship has allowed me to rejoin the scientific community as a whole – not just in academia, but allowed me to progress my career by making a move into innovation within industry, still using skills (technical and professional) that I gained throughout my Fellowship. The Fellowships don’t have to lead onto an academic career; they provide countless opportunities to develop and retrain, to then carry out cutting edge research in any setting. I’ll always be grateful to the Trust for giving me the opportunity to return and retrain, it certainly changed my career and my life!”

There are currently two, two year part-time (0.5 FTE) Daphne Jackson Fellowship opportunities at the University of York (closing date for applications; Friday 28th July 2023). The Fellowships are intended for individuals returning to research across all STEM disciplines that is aligned to the University’s Research Strategy.

Do you know someone who may be interested? Please share, word of mouth works wonders for us.