NOMIS Awardees
Discovery and insight require the freedom to follow one’s curiosity into the unknown. The NOMIS Distinguished Scientist and Scholar Award honors visionary researchers whose curiosity drives them to explore beyond the boundaries of disciplines. Through their open and collaborative approaches, NOMIS Awardees build vital bridges between the sciences and humanities, leading to groundbreaking discoveries that pioneer entirely new fields of study. We support this pursuit by providing the funding and intellectual freedom necessary for them to investigate complex fundamental questions, wherever they may lead.
NOMIS Awardees
Andrew Gonzalez is a 2026 NOMIS Awardee, professor and Liber Ero Chair in Biodiversity Conservation at McGill University in Montreal, Canada, as well as a fellow of the Royal Society of Canada. He is leading the project A Mesoscale Theory of the Biosphere.
Professor and Liber Ero Chair in Biodiversity Conservation
McGill University
About Tobias Kippenberg Tobias Kippenberg is a 2026 NOMIS Awardee and a full professor of physics and electrical engineering in the Institute of Physics and Electrical Engineering at EPFL in Lausanne, Switzerland. He is leading the project The Quest for Ultralow Dissipation: From Self-Organized Light to Collective Quantum Drums. Kippenberg studied physics and electrical engineering […]
Full professor of physics and electrical engineering
EPFL (Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne)
About Ulrike Malmendier Ulrike Malmendier is the Cora Jane Flood Professor of Finance at the Haas School of Business, and a professor of economics at the University of California, Berkeley, US. She is leading the project Stress and Economics — Exploring the Alleviating Role of Predictability and Controllability. Malmendier earned an MA in economics in […]
Cora Jane Flood Professor of Finance and professor of economics
University of California, Berkeley
Wolfgang Busch is a 2025 NOMIS Awardee, Hess Chair in Plant Science, professor and director of the Plant Molecular and Cellular Biology Laboratory at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in La Jolla, US. He is leading the project Mapping the Root Perceptome: Decoding the Chemical Universe Roots Can Sense and the Mechanisms Behind It.
Hess Chair in Plant Science, professor and director
Salk Institute for Biological Studies
Markus Rex is a 2025 NOMIS Awardee, head of Atmospheric Physics at the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Center for Polar and Marine Research (AWI), and full professor at the University of Potsdam in Germany. He is leading the project Deepcloud: Tearing Down a Long-Standing Barrier in Climate Research by Pioneering a New AI-Based Model Approach.
Head of Atmospheric Physics and full professor
Alfred Wegener Institute
Sara Seager is a 2025 NOMIS Awardee, professor of physics, professor of planetary science, professor of aeronautics and astronautics, and the Class of 1941 Professor Chair at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Cambridge, US. She is leading the project From Lab to Cosmos: Rethinking Habitability and the Search for Life Beyond Earth.
Professor of physics, planetary science, and aeronautics and astronautics; Class of 1941 Professor Chair
Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)
Andrea Ablasser is a 2024 NOMIS Awardee and full professor at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne (EPFL; Switzerland). She is leading the Exploring Innate Immune (In)activities project.
Full professor
EPFL (Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne)
Elena Conti is a 2024 NOMIS Awardee and director of the Department of Structural Cell Biology at the Max Planck Institute of Biochemistry (MPIB; Munich, Germany). She also serves as honorary professor for the Faculty of Chemistry and Pharmacy at the Ludwig Maximilian University (Munich, Germany). She is leading the project Visualizing the Messenger: Deciphering the Architecture of Neuronal mRNA Particles at the Atomic Level.
Director of the Department of Structural Cell Biology
Max Planck Institute of Biochemistry
Whitney Davis is a 2024 NOMIS Awardee and professor of the Graduate School in the History of Art department at the University of California, Berkeley (US), as well as honorary professor of art history at the University of York (UK). He is leading the project Depictured Worlds: The Perceptual Power of Pictures.
Professor of art history
University of California, Berkeley
About David Autor David Autor is a 2023 NOMIS Awardee, Ford Professor of Economics and a Margaret MacVicar Faculty Fellow at MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology; Cambridge, US), as well as codirector of the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) Labor Studies Program and the MIT Shaping the Future of Work Initiative. He is leading […]
Ford Professor of Economics
Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)
About Anne Brunet Anne Brunet is a 2023 NOMIS Awardee, the Michele and Timothy Barakett Professor of Genetics at Stanford Medicine and codirector of the Paul F. Glenn Center for the Biology of Aging at Stanford University (US). She is leading the Organ Synchronization in Aging and Suspended Animation project. Born in France, Brunet obtained […]
Michele and Timothy Barakett Professor of Genetics
Stanford Medicine
About Thomas A. Rando Thomas A. Rando is a 2022 NOMIS Awardee and is the director of the Eli and Edythe Broad Center of Regenerative Medicine and Stem Cell Research at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). At UCLA, he is a professor of neurology at the David Geffen School of Medicine and of […]
Director of the Eli and Edythe Broad Center of Regenerative Medicine and Stem Cell Research
University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA)
12 of 27 Awardees
NOMIS Distinguished Scientist and Scholar Award
The NOMIS Distinguished Scientist and Scholar Award recognizes exceptional scientists and scholars whose innovative ideas and broad-ranging approaches build bridges between the sciences and humanities.
