Researcher Realities - Navigating the Arc of the Academic Research Career

Researchers uncover the realities of academic research careers sharing how they’ve navigated the arc, what choices they’ve made, and how they have progressed, from the Research Realities event in March 2025

Dr Giulia De Togni, Chancellor's Fellow, Usher Institute, CMVM

I am an experienced ethnographer and an interdisciplinary social scientist specialising in Science and Technology Studies, holding degrees in Social Anthropology (PhD, MSc), Japanese Studies (MSt, MPhil), and Legal Studies (BA). Currently, I am a Wellcome Trust Research Fellow, Chancellor’s Fellow at The University of Edinburgh, and Turing Fellow at The Alan Turing Institute. My work focuses on responsible research and innovation for AI and robotics applications in the health and care sectors.

Through my work, I aim to enable different stakeholders to become part of the co-production of healthcare technologies to inform and shape innovation together. I have been based at Edinburgh Medical School since 2019, first as the Postdoctoral Research Fellow appointed on the Wellcome Trust-funded project AI and Health; and then, since 2022, as the Principal Investigator on my Wellcome Trust Postdoctoral Research Fellowship in Humanities and Social Science, ‘Caring Machines.’

 

Professor Gabi Hegerl, Personal Chair - Climate System Science, School of GeoSciences, College of Science and Engineering

Prof Hegerl's research focuses on the causes of climate change and the causes and consequences of extreme events. She has also been involved in IPCC reports on climate change and work with the world climate research programme on setting priorities for climate research. She is also a fellow of the Royal Society and Royal Society of Edinburgh.

 

Dr Sandy Hetherington, UKRI Future Leaders Fellow, Institute for Molecular Plant Sciences 

Dr Alexander (Sandy) J. Hetherington is an evolutionary palaeobiologist interested in how plants evolved and transformed the Earth. He works at the interface between the Life and Earth Sciences taking an interdisciplinary ‘Molecular Palaeobotany’ approach, combining studies of fossil plants with investigation of developmental and genetic networks in living species. It is this interdisciplinary approach that distinguishes his research and why his lab group is termed the “The Molecular Palaeobotany and Evolution Group”.

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