What do transitions have to do with pioneering research? In a sponsored feature in Science, the 2024 NOMIS Distinguished Scientist and Scholar Awardees — Andrea Ablasser, Elena Conti and Whitney Davis — address this question, enumerating the ways transitions have and continue to influence their research. An excerpt follows.
A shift from a clinical perspective to a fundamental one. A scientific journey that wound through different countries as well as different disciplines. An unexpected passion for a field that barely exists. The range of transitions that can shape a scientific career is as varied as scientists themselves. The three recipients of the 2024 NOMIS Distinguished Scientist and Scholar Award came by way of diverse and winding research experiences, but they have all forged their own paths.
Beginning in 2016, the NOMIS Award has celebrated exceptional scientists who are innovative, collaborative, and unconventional, furthering the Foundation’s mission to support pioneering, blue-sky research that can better humanity and the world. Each awardee receives funding support for their NOMIS project, research initiatives that are so inventive and high-risk that they may not easily find support through more conventional funding approaches.
The vision for the NOMIS Foundation is to “create a spark” through its support of scientists who are bold and inspiring. Research funding often favors applied science that makes incremental progress along well-worn lines of inquiry. NOMIS seeks to color outside those lines, rewarding scientists with outside-the-box ideas that could reshape our understanding of the world. Furthermore, NOMIS looks for researchers with interdisciplinary pursuits and a collaborative approach. “Sparks arise through friction: It is often at the points of overlap between different scientific disciplines where new insights emerge and fundamental questions can be answered,” says Markus Reinhard, NOMIS’s managing director.
Continue reading the Science feature: Transitions in scientific research: A conversation with the 2024 NOMIS Awardees
