UCL early career researchers selected as 2025 Schmidt Science Fellows

Dr Noora Almarri (UCL Electronic & Electrical Engineering) and Dr Julie Fabre (UCL Queen Square Institute of Neurology) will become part of the prestigious fellowship programme, which enables the world’s best emerging scientists to pivot from their PhD discipline and pursue their goals though bold interdisciplinary research.

Fellows will discover new skills and perspectives to develop novel solutions to society’s challenges, become scientific and societal thought leaders, and accelerate groundbreaking discoveries.

Dr Noora Almarri

Dr Almarri is a postdoctoral researcher in UCL’s Department of Electronic & Electrical Engineering and serves as the entrepreneurial lead with Innovate UK.

Dr Almarri received her PhD in Bioelectronics from UCL in 2024, where she developed self-powered implantable medical devices designed to diagnose and treat cardiovascular diseases.

As a UCL Institute of Healthcare Engineering Impact Fellow, she pioneered research in bioelectronic medicine and went on to found BioHARV, a company developing patent-pending battery-free medical patches – with the aim of improving patient outcomes in intensive care.

Beyond her research, Dr Almarri has combined her expertise in biomedical engineering with creative storytelling. In 2024, she wrote and produced Heartbeats and Footprint, a play performed at the Bloomsbury Theatre.

Dr Almarri said: “I am honoured to be selected as a Schmidt Science Fellow. This fellowship offers a unique opportunity to explore ideas at the intersection of science, technology, and the human experience - the space where my work has always felt most alive.

“I’m excited to keep building connections across disciplines and contribute to solutions that are not only innovative but deeply meaningful.”

Dr Julie Fabre

Dr Fabre studied medicine in France before joining UCL as part of a four-year Wellcome funded PhD programme in neuroscience. Working under the supervision of Professors Kenneth Harris and Matteo Carandini, and Dr Andy Peters, her doctoral research focused on visual processing in the basal ganglia (a group of structures in the brain that help control movement).

Dr Fabre’s Science Fellowship project will unite immunology and neuroscience to investigate some aspects of the placebo effect. Dr Fabre aims to apply cutting-edge neuroscience techniques to immunology.

By understanding how the brain acts on the immune system and which immune pathways can be modulated, she hopes to pave the way for groundbreaking new therapies for allergies, asthma, and auto-immune diseases.

This interdisciplinary approach requires the rare combination of expertise in both neuroscience and immunology that she has been cultivating throughout her academic career.

Dr Fabre said: “Being awarded the Schmist Science Fellowship is both a tremendous honour and an incredible opportunity.

“This fellowship will allow me to expand my research beyond traditional boundaries and explore new interdisciplinary approaches at the intersection of neuroscience and immunology.”

The Schmidt Science Fellowship is an initiative of Schmidt Sciences, a philanthropic organisation founded by Eric and Wendy Schmidt to advance exploration and discovery that deepen our understanding of the natural world and develop solutions to global issues.

Every year, the Schmidt Science Fellows work in partnership with nearly 100 of the world’s leading science and engineering institutions to identify the best, brightest, and highest potential candidates to join the Fellowship.

Links

• UCL Electronic & Electrical Engineering
• UCL Queen Square Institute of Neurology
• UCL Engineering
• UCL Brain Sciences
• Schmidt Sciences website

Image

• L-R: Dr Julie Fabre and Dr Noora Almarri

Media contact 

Poppy Tombs

E: p.tombs [at] ucl.ac.uk