Personal Chairs for Vicky Cowling and Sonia Rocha October 17, 2016 As part of the 2016 Annual Review process for academic staff two members of GRE, Vicky Cowling and Sonia Rocha, have been promoted to Personal Chair (Professor). “Congratulations to Victoria Cowling and Sonia Rocha on promotion to personal chairs,” said Head of Division Tom Owen-Hughes. “Vicky and Sonia’s research has flourished within GRE. Both are inspirational scientists and we are delighted that the hard work that has enabled them to become established leaders in their fields of research has been recognised.” Vicky came to Dundee in 2007 as a research group leader and during her time here has been awarded the prestigious Lister Institute Prize Fellowship in 2011, an EMBO Young Investigator Award and an MRC Senior Fellowship, both in 2013. The following year, Vicky was presented with the inaugural Women in Cell Biology Early Career Award Medal by the British Society for Cell Biology. Her research is focussed on investigating the regulation, function and therapeutic potential of the mRNA cap. Her departmental colleague Sonia who is Deputy Head of GRE and a CRUK Senior Research Fellow, investigates the mechanisms controlling gene expression in hypoxia. Sonia arrived in Dundee to work in Neil Perkins Group at the then Biochemistry Department in the University. Unusually in life sciences research, she started her own group in the same institution with funding from RCUK. In 2013, she was made a Fellow of the Society for Biology.
