Grant winners – 26 November 2015

Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council

Research grants

• Award winner: Robert Poole
• Institution: University of Sheffield
• Value: £674,947

Novel antimicrobial agents for bacterial pathogens of livestock: light-activated CO-releasing molecules

• Award winner: Kislon Voitchovsky
• Institution: Durham University
• Value: £427,608

A new tool for quantifying the nanoscale dynamics of liquids at the interface with fluid biological membranes

• Award winner: Bonnie Wallace
• Institution: Birkbeck, University of London
• Value: £35,426

Biophysical studies of the structure/function of antimicrobial peptides and enzymes isolated from extremophile organisms

Leverhulme Trust

International Networks
Humanities

• Award winner: Alexandra Shepard
• Institution: University of Glasgow
• Value: £106,012

Producing change: gender and work in early modern Europe

Social sciences

• Award winner: Martha Mundy
• Institution: London School of Economics
• Value: £123,780

Agricultural transformation and agrarian questions in the Arab world

Arts and Humanities Research Council

Research grants

• Award winner: Anna Barker
• Institution: University of Bradford
• Value: £195,703

The future prospects of urban parks: the life, times and social order of Victorian public parks as places of social mixing

• Award winner: Peter Lamont
• Institution: University of Edinburgh
• Value: £23,529

Magical thinking: the history and theory of magic

• Award winner: Marion Schmid
• Institution: University of Edinburgh
• Value: £24,840

Film and the other arts: intermediality, medium specificity, creativity

• Award winner: Ian Russell
• Institution: University of Aberdeen
• Value: £35,375

Memory, music and movement: inspiring and facilitating innovative research in north Atlantic fiddle and dance studies

In detail

Award winners: Philippa Hoskin (PI, left) and Elizabeth New
Institutions: University of Lincoln and Aberystwyth University
Value: £626,679

Imprint: a forensic and historical investigation of fingerprints on medieval seals

This project, the first of its kind, will merge cutting-edge forensic techniques with traditional, historical investigation to analyse finger- and palm prints found on the back of medieval wax seals. A total of 1,500 seals from Westminster Abbey, the cathedrals of Lincoln, Exeter and Hereford and the National Library of Wales will be explored and logged on an online database. The research hopes to reveal more about medieval social networks and the bureaucracies and protocols behind authentication and security in medieval England. It will also contribute important information to current debates in forensics, such as fingerprints’ uniqueness. Through comparisons of fingerprints in different demographics from medieval and modern society, statistical information can be gleaned, which can be built into data regarding the likelihood ratios of finding the same prints on two different people to help advance fingermark identification as a science.