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St Hugh’s Fellow receives prestigious research award

Congratulations to St Hugh’s Tutorial Fellow in Experimental Psychology, Professor Asifa Majid  FBA, who has been awarded the Humboldt Research Award by the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation. The Humboldt Research Award is given to internationally renowned researchers in recognition of their entire academic record to date. In addition to receiving personal award money in the amount of EUR 80,000, award winners are invited to carry out research projects of their own choice in cooperation with specialist colleagues in Germany. The award includes research visits and exchanges to support collaboration.

Professor Majid said, ‘I intend to collaborate with Prof Dr Rasha Abdel Rahman – Department of Psychology at Humboldt University in Berlin. We will collaborate to study how language and culture shape the way people imagine sensory experiences, going beyond the usual focus on vision to include the other senses. This will include both cross-cultural research and neuroimaging to explore how different languages and cultural backgrounds influence the nature of mental imagery.’

The Alexander von Humboldt Foundation sponsors distinguished international scientists and scholars irrespective of their academic discipline or nationality and maintains an international network of academic cooperation and trust. The research awards have been a central pillar of the Foundation’s sponsorship activities since 1972. Numerous prizewinners were later awarded a Nobel Prize.