Chancellor’s Rising Star Award

Congratulations to Dr Sally Shaw who has been awarded the 2025 Chancellor’s Award: Rising Star.

Chancellor’s Awards

The Chancellor’s Awards are one of the most important ways in which the University recognises current members of the University community who have made outstanding contributions to teaching or research, achieved national and international recognition for their work, or made an outstanding contribution to the University's work in general.

The awards were presented by the Chancellor, Her Royal Highness The Princess Royal, during a gala dinner held this week at the Palace of Holyroodhouse. The Lord Provost, Councillor Robert Aldridge, joined in congratulating the winners.

Rising Star Award

The Rising Star Award honours an early career colleague who has made a significant contribution in their role.

Dr Sally Shaw is a Lecturer in Experimental Particle Physics in the School of Physics and Astronomy. Sally received the Rising Star Chancellor’s Award in recognition of her outstanding reputation in the field of dark matter detection, and her outstanding leadership in both research and in public outreach programmes.

Dark Matter

Sally’s research focusses on the direct detection of dark matter - an elusive substance that comprises 80% of the matter in the universe but remains one of the biggest mysteries in modern science. She is a recognised leader in the field, having delivered world-leading results as the LZ experiment’s Physics Coordinator. Furthermore, she is leading delivery of the largest component of LZ’s scaled-up successor, XLZD, and is one of the UK academics driving the effort to host XLZD in the UK at the Boulby Underground Laboratory. 

Championing inclusion and opportunities in physics

As one of a small number of female academics in her discipline and a first-generation university graduate, Sally has been a driving force in public engagement and equity, diversity and inclusion within the particle physics community and at Edinburgh, with a particular focus on encouraging under-represented groups into physics and engaging schools in remote and deprived areas.

Dr Sally Shaw said:

I feel extremely honoured to have been recognised through this award after a very busy start to my career at the University of Edinburgh. My work would not have been possible without being surrounded by the world-class physicists and amazing professional services staff who have been nothing but welcoming and supportive since I got here.