Posted: 30th January 2026

Professor Sara Bernardini on the right

Professor Sara Bernardini has been named as one of the winners of the Suffrage Science Awards in Maths and Computing. 

The Suffrage Science Awards honour pioneering women in science, with the March 2026 awards focusing on Maths and Computing. 

The 10 recipients received their awards at the ceremony hosted in the Dorothy Crowfoot Hodgkin Building at the heart of the University Science Area, on the evening of Monday 26 January 2026. 

Professor Sara Bernardini was nominated for this year’s award by Professor Nobuko Yoshida who said:

At the heart of Sara’s research is the desire to combine theoretical and technical advancements in AI with the demands of the real world. She has worked closely with industry and stakeholders, ensuring her solutions are crucial to tackling end users’ practical problems. She has worked in several domains, such as space mission operations, nuclear decommissioning, mining, underwater missions, and offshore energy, leading several projects funded by Innovate UK, EPSRC, NERC, the Turing Institute, and the Leverhulme Trust. She is also active as an EDI champion. Professor Nobuko Yoshida

Whitley Professor of Biochemistry Dame Amanda Fisher founded the Suffrage Science Scheme in 2011 with Vivienne Parry OBE to honour pioneering women in science and create a self-perpetuating cohort of talent that encourages others to enter science and reach senior leadership roles. Both founders hosted the event along with Professor Marta Kwiatkowska. 

Each awardee receives a piece of Suffrage Science heirloom jewellery, and then nominates who they wish to pass on their award to every two years. This recognition from peers who want to give recognition for their work is extremely meaningful to award recipients. Each heirloom creates its own 'family tree' as the award gets handed from one awardee to the next, creating an international network of inspiring female role models across all the Suffrage Science branches. 

Since the Suffrage Science awards started, there have now been 172 holders of the heirlooms creating a network of inspirational women from across the globe. 

The other 2026 awardees included: 

Professor Susanne Bødker – University of York 

Professor Vanessa Didelez - University of Bremen and Leibniz Institute for Prevention Research and Epidemiology (BIPS) 

Professor Claudia Garetto – Queen Mary University of London 

Professor Anne Gégout-Petit - Université de Lorraine 

Professor Els Goetghebeur – Ghent University 

Dr Azalea Raad – Imperial College London 

Professor Judy Robertson – University of Edinburgh 

Professor Anja Schlömerkemper – Würzburg University 

Professor Abigail Sellen – Microsoft Research