Marthe Walvoort receives NWO Athena Award

Prof. Marthe Walvoort has received the Athena Award, one of the five science awards of the Dutch Research Council (NWO). This award is specifically for outstanding female researchers. Besides Walvoort, Prof. Adriana Creatore (TU Eindhoven) also received the award. They will each receive €50,000, intended to be used for their research.

From 29 November to 3 December, the second edition of the five science awards of the NWO Domain Science (ENW) were presented. The jury considers the winners to be inspirational in the area of societal impact, team science, excellent research, diversity, and communication. The aim of the awards is to reward researchers who are committed to this domain and who inspire others to this end as well. Eleven winners received a total of €350,000.

Marthe Walvoort researches the complex structures of sugars, which play a key role in health and sickness. The jury considers Walvoort to be a natural role model: she is quite young for an academic and conducts excellent and prestigious interdisciplinary research. In addition, she has an impressive track record in outreach activities, besides her fantastic research. Walvoort has already achieved a lot, such as winning prestigious awards and launching the Young Academy Groningen. The jury positively pointed out that Walvoort was the chair of the Diversity and Inclusion working group and that she is currently involved in the University's Dual-Career Support Office. The jury admires how she insists on making structural changes in the workplace by defining rules and regulations aimed at increasing diversity and inclusion.