Six early career researchers chosen to represent Ireland in Lindau at the Nobel Laureate Meetings

The prestigious Lindau Nobel Laureate Meetings date their origin to 1951, when two Lindau physicians Franz Karl Hein and Gustav Wilhelm Parade developed the idea which has grown to become the annual meetings known today. Two sets of meetings were planned for 2020. Due to the COVID-19 crisis, these will be held in 2021: the 70^th Lindau Nobel Laureate Meeting (Interdisciplinary), dedicated to Chemistry, Physics, and Physiology or Medicine, and the 7^th Lindau Meeting of the Laureates of the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel. Each meeting will see 600 young researchers, selected from 20,000 applicants around the world, join Nobel Laureates within their discipline for lectures, workshops and the cross-generational exchange of ideas.

Commenting on the competition results, IRC Director Peter Brown stated: “The annual Lindau Nobel Laureate Meetings provide a globally recognised forum for the transfer of knowledge and exchange of ideas between generations of outstanding scholars. We are proud to partner with the Lindau Nobel Meeting Foundation to support the participation of early career researchers from Ireland in these exchanges. We hope that participating will raise their ambitions, push their research ideas further, and contribute to their long-term success.”

Six Irish researchers have been selected in the 2020 competition to attend the postponed meetings on the island of Lindau in Lake Constance in Bavaria, Germany – three for each meeting. Attending the 70^th Lindau Nobel Laureate Meeting are:

• Dr Adele Gabba, who recently completed her PhD at the National University of Ireland, Galway. Her doctoral project on chemical tools for immunological research was supported by a Government of Ireland Postgraduate Scholarship from the Irish Research Council.
• Dr Joseph Byrne, an Honorary Research Lecturer and SFI Starting Investigator Research Grant Fellow in the School of Chemistry at NUI Galway. His doctoral research at Trinity College Dublin was funded by an EMBARK award from IRCSET. Currently Dr Byrne is working on developing carbohydrate-based sensing materials for use in 3D printed diagnostic medical devices.
• Dr Ibrahim S. Aminu, a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Fellow in the Department of Chemical Sciences and Bernal Institute, University of Limerick. Dr Aminu’s research into advanced rechargeable aluminium-ion batteries has him exploring the potential of graphite cathodes with chemically tuneable architecture.

The following researchers will attend the 7^th Lindau Meeting:

• Dr Jon Gruda, an Assistant Professor in Maynooth University’s School of Business. His research on organisational psychology uses online experiments and social media data to analyse the role of individual differences in leader-follower interactions, perception and transference.
• Dr Mrinal Chadha works as a Postdoctoral Researcher in the School of Political Science and Sociology at NUI Galway. He is funded through the ‘What Works’ programme supported by the UK Department of International Development. Currently his research focuses on development economics and quantitative methods in relation to ‘What Works to Prevent Violence: Economic and Social Costs of Violence against Women and Girls’.
• Dr Sheng Zhu is a Research Associate at the Department of Economics and Centre for Investment Research in University College Cork. His research focuses on asset pricing, asset allocation, fund performance, economic modelling and monetary policy.

Due to the travel and physical distancing restrictions resulting from the global COVID-19 pandemic, the meetings scheduled for this summer will be postponed to summer 2021. Further information on the Lindau Nobel Laureate Meetings can be found on their website.