Wallenberg Academy Fellows

Wallenberg Academy Fellows 2023

Wallenberg Academy Fellows, the career program for young researchers launched by the Knut and Alice Wallenberg Foundation in cooperation with the Swedish Royal Academies in 2012, provides long-term funding for young, promising Swedish and foreign researchers from all academic fields. This year 31 new researchers are appointed to the program.

The universities nominate researchers to the program, the academies evaluate the candidates and present the most promising researchers to the Foundation, who then make the final selection. 

Including this year’s cohort, 261 young researchers, of whom 46 per cent are women, have been appointed Wallenberg Academy Fellows.

Natural sciences

Dr Jessica Stephenson
University of Pittsburgh, USA

Nominated by Stockholm University

Research in brief: How does animals’ social behavior affect the development of epidemics? 

Dr Andrea Scotti
Institute of Physical Chemistry, RWTH, Aachen, Germany

Nominated by Lund University

Research in brief: Will investigate how synthetic blood can be produced

Dr Georgia Panopoulou
Chalmers University of Technology

 

Research in brief: Will create a three-dimensional image of the Milky Way’s magnetic field

Dr Azadeh Fattahi
Durham University, UK

Nominated by Stockholm University

Research in brief: Will simulate dwarf galaxies and the universe’s dark matter 

Dr Thomas Nordlander
Australian National University, Weston Creek, Australia

Nominated by Uppsala University

Research in brief: Spectrum from ancient stars could rewrite the history of the universe

Dr Ruth Pöttgen
Lund University 

 

Research in brief: Does dark matter consist of light particles? 

Dr Foivos Perakis
Stockholm University

 

Research in brief: How do biomolecules behave in the cell’s cramped environment? 

Dr Susanna F. de Rezende
Lund University 

 

Research in brief: Can computers solve all our problems?

Dr Birgit Wild
Stockholm University

 

Research in brief: How much methane is hidden in the Arctic’s frozen soil?

Dr Matthias Geilhufe
Chalmers University of Technology 

 

Ultrastrong magnetization paving the way for technologies of the future

Dr Ilaria Piazza
The Max Delbrück Center for Molecular Medicine in Berlin, Germany

Nominated by Stockholm University

Research in brief: Will map how single substances control cell metabolism

Dr André Mateus
Umeå University 

 

Research in brief: Will map unknown archaea in our guts

Dr Courtney Stairs
Lund University

 

Research in brief: How do microorganisms in low-oxygen environments affect the Earth’s climate? 

Medicine

Dr Hugo Zeberg
Karolinska Institutet and Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Leipzig, Germany

 

Research in brief: How does Neanderthal ancestry affect the risk of disease? 

Dr Alessandro Furlan
Karolinska Institutet

 

Research in brief: Will explore new neural pathways that may influence our weight

Dr Niklas Mejhert
Karolinska Institutet

 

Research in brief: Why does adipose tissue stop working in cases of abdominal obesity?  

Dr Stefanos Stagkourakis
California Institute of Technology, USA

Nominated by Karolinska Institutet

Research in brief: How are human instincts governed and what makes us overreact? 

Dr Elif Eroglu
Karolinska Institutet 

 

Research in brief: Will make the heart heal damaged areas after a heart attack

Dr Xingqi Chen
Uppsala University

 

Research in brief: How do metastases form? 

Technology

Dr André Teixeira
Uppsala University

 

 Research in brief: Will secure our interconnected society from cyberattacks 

Dr Mika Sipponen
Stockholm University

 

 Research in brief: Will create living materials for water purification and carbon fixation

Dr Olaf Hartig
Linköping University 

 

 Research in brief: Drawing smart conclusions from dispersed information

Dr Nicolò Maccaferri
Umeå University 

 

 Research in brief: Will develop components for computers operated by light

Dr Alexander Gillett
University of Cambridge, UK 

Nominated by Linköping University

 Research in brief: Improving the performance of environmentally friendly semiconductors

Dr Julia Wiktor
Chalmers University of Technology

 

 Research in brief: Will optimize energy-capturing materials for solar cells

Humanities

Professor Orri Stefánsson
Stockholm University and the Swedish Collegium for Advanced Study 

 

Research in brief: How should we make decisions about potential catastrophes? 

Dr Mateja Hajdinjak
Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Leipzig, Germany

Nominated by Stockholm University

Research in brief: What was the relationship between neandertals and early Homo sapiens? 

Social sciences

Dr Jacob Nyrup
University of Oslo, Norway

Nominated by University of Gothenburg

Research in brief: A systematic survey of the holders of political power

Dr Gaia Olivo
University of Gothenburg

 

The brain’s amazing ability to change

Dr Julia Zulver
National Autonomous University of Mexico and Oxford University, UK

Nominated by Swedish Defence University

 Research in brief: Will study the fight to protect women’s rights in contexts of backlash 

Dr Moa Lidén
University College London, UK

Nominated by Uppsala University

 Research in brief: A scientific approach to evidence-based criminal justice

Earlier years