Mentoring
Nature Awards for Mentoring in Science 2024 : WEST AFRICA (as defined by the UN)
Nature Award for Mentoring in Science 2024 celebrates individuals in West Africia who contribute significantly to guiding and shaping the careers of emerging researchers
Celebrating outstanding support and mentorship in science, the 2024 Nature Award for Mentoring in Science has been awarded to Andrew Major Prentice, Adesola Ogunniyi and Oluwatoyin Adepeju Odeku. The 2024 award focused on mentors in West Africa, with the recipients being honoured at a ceremony in Abuja, Nigeria.
The award for lifetime achievement was awarded jointly to:
Adesola Ogunniyi, professor at the University of Ibadan, Nigeria. Through his mentorship, for example, he encouraged a former mentee to pursue a successful research career, which has seen them win the 2021 World Stroke Organization Global Award for Outstanding Contributions to Clinical Stroke Research.
Andrew Prentice, Theme Leader for Nutrition & Planetary Health at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine,The Gambia. His mentorship inspired a former mentee to devise and manage a research programme focused on nutrition-related chronic diseases, particularly focusing on hypertension, diabetes, obesity and multimorbidity.
The award from mid-career achievement was awarded to:
Oluwatoyin Adepeju Odeku, Professor of Pharmaceutics at the University of Ibadan, Nigeria. As a result of her mentorship, one of her mentees has gone on to win several academic awards including: The Postdoctoral fellowship of the American Association of University Women (AAUW), and The Association of Commonwealth Universities Early Career Academic Grants Award.
The country for the 2025 Awards will be available soon.
Previous Awards winners
The 2023 Awards â France
Lifetime award winner : Daniel E. Shulz, Ph.D. Director of Research 1st class CNRS, Laboratory of Sensory-motor integration and Plasticity, Principal Investigator, Head of the Department of Integrative and Computational Neuroscience, Paris-Saclay Institute of Neuroscience.
Mid Career co-winners :
Marie- Emilie Terret, Ph.D Group leader, Tenured Senior Research Scientist (DR2 INSERM), CIRB - Collège de France
Fabien Lotte, Ph.D Research Director at Inria (DR2), Inria Center at the University of Bordeaux
The 2022 Awards â Singapore
Lifetime achievement award : Lim Chwee Teck - NUS Society (NUSS)
Mid-career achievement awards : Woon Puay Koh National University of Singapore and E Shyong Tai, National University of Singapore.
The 2021 Awards - Brazil
Lifetime achievement award: Carlos F. M. Menck (University of Sao Paulo).
Mid-career achievement award: Alessandra DâAlmeida Filardy (Federal University of Rio de Janeiro) and Waldiceu Aparecido Verri (State University of Londrina)
The 2020 Awards - Israel
Lifetime achievement award: Hanah Margalit (Hebrew University of Jerusalem)
Mid-career achievement award: Neta Erez (Sackler School of Medicine, Tel Aviv University) and Tal Pupko (The Shmunis School of Biomedicine and Cancer Research, Tel Aviv University).
The 2019 Awards â India
Lifetime achievement award: Roddam Narasimha (Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced Scientific Research (JNCASR); University of Hyderabad)
Mid-career award: Vidita Vaidya (Tata Institute of fundamental Research (TIFR), Mumbai)
The 2018 awards â Southern U.S.
Joint-recipients of the lifetime achievement award: Jorge Alberto López (University of Texas at El Paso) & Isiah Warner (Louisiana State University)
Joint-recipients of the mid-career achievement award: Kjersti Aagaard (Baylor College of Medicine) & Anita Corbett (Emory University)
Nature coverage
The 2017 awards â Spain
ANNOUNCEMENT
Nature is withdrawing a 2017 mentoring prize awarded to Carlos López-OtÃn, a molecular biologist at the University of Oviedo in Spain. Following concerns reported to Nature after the announcement of the 2017 Nature Awards for Mentoring in Science, an assessment of papers co-authored by López-OtÃn has identified image-integrity issues. The withdrawal of the award is a reflection of the judgesâ opinion that high-quality mentorship in a laboratory should not lead to such significant issues. It is not a judgement of the overall calibre of López-OtÃnâs research.
Joint-recipients of the lifetime achievement award: Carlos Belmonte (founding Director of the Institute of Neuroscience of Alicante) & Margarita Salas (former Director of the CSIC Centre for Molecular Biology Severo Ochoa)
Joint-recipients of the mid-career achievement award: Carlos López-OtÃn (University of Oviedo) & LluÃs Torner (founding Director of the Institute of Photonic Sciences in Barcelona)
Nature coverage
The 2016 awards â US West Coast (Washington, Oregon and California)
Lifetime achievement award: Julie Overbaugh (Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center)
Mid-career award: Susan L. Forsburg (The University of Southern California)
2016 award page
Nature coverage
The 2015 awards â China
Northern China
Lifetime achievement award (joint winners): Xuetao Cao (Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences) & Xingwang Deng (Peking University)
Mid-career award: Yigong Shi (Tsinghua University)
Southern China
Lifetime achievement award: Hongyuan Chen (Institute of Analytical Science and Nanjing University)
Mid-career award: Hongbing Shu (Wuhan University)
2015 award page
Nature coverage
2014 awards â Ireland and Northern Ireland
Lifetime achievement (joint winners): Cliona O'Farrelly (Trinity College Dublin) & Martin Clynes (Dublin City University)
Mid-career award: Cormac Taylor (University College Dublin)
2014 award page
Nature coverage
2013 awards â Italy
Lifetime achievement (joint winners): Giorgio Parisi (University of Rome I, La Sapienza) & Vincenzo Balzani (University of Bologna)
Mid-career award: Michela Matteoli (University of Milan)
2013 award page
2012 awards â Nordic Countries
Lifetime achievement: Staffan Normark (The Royal Swedish Academy of Science)
Mid-career award (joint winners): Jens Nielsen (Chalmers University of Technology, Sweden) & Anders Hagfeldt (Uppsala Universitet)
2012 award page
Nature coverage
The 2011 awards â France
Lifetime achievement: Jean Rossier (ESPCI ParisTech, Paris) & Moshe Yaniv (Pasteur Institute, Paris)
Mid-career award: Barbara Demeneix (UMR CNRS Evolution des Régulations Endocriniennes, Paris)
2011 award page
Nature coverage
The 2010 awards â Canada
Lifetime achievement: Chris Wood (McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario)
Mid-career award: John Smol (Queen's University, Kingston, Ontario)
2010 award page
Nature coverage
2009 Awards â Japan
Lifetime achievement: Fumio Oosawa (Aiichi Institute of Technology)
Mid-career award: Hiroaki Kitano (Sony Computer Science Laboratories Inc.)
2009 award page
Nature coverage
2008 Awards â Germany
Lifetime achievement (joint winners): Klaas Bergmann (Technical University of Kaiserslautern) and Heinrich Betz (Max Planck Institute for Brain Research, Frankfurt)
Mid-career award: Peer Bork (European Molecular Biology Laboratory, Heidelberg)
2008 award page
Nature coverage
2007 Awards â South Africa
Lifetime achievement: Professor Barry Fabian (University of the Witwatersrand)
Mid-career award: Professor Charles de Koning (University of the Witwatersrand)
2007 award page
Nature coverage
2006 Awards â United Kingdom and Australasia
United Kingdom
Lifetime achievement (joint winners): Andrew McMichael (Wetherall Institute of Molecular Medicine, University of Oxford) and Godfrey Hewitt (University of East Anglia)
Mid-career award: Steve Watson (University of Birmingham)
2006 (UK) award page
Nature coverage
Australasia
Lifetime achievement: Professor Tom Healy (University of Melbourne)
Mid-career award: Professor Rachel Webster (University of Melbourne)
2006 (Australasia) award page
Nature coverage
2005 Awards â United Kingdom
Lifetime achievement: Tom Kibble (Imperial College, London)
Mid-career award: Innes Cuthill (University of Bristol)
2005 award page
Nature coverage
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Nature's guide for mentors
In search of the superâmentor
Mentoring mismatch
Learning to mentor
Related links
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