Tamara Swaab

Tamara Swaab is a neuroscientist who studies the neuroscience of language, and who left the University of California, Davis, after more than three decades to join the University of Birmingham in the United Kingdom alongside her husband and research partner, Ron Mangun.

Swaab earned her PhD in the Netherlands and originally moved to the US because, early in her career, Europe offered fewer opportunities for women scientists. "What I always loved about science in the United States was how open it was and how people saw opportunities and would work for them," she said, adding that this kind of optimism now feels more present in British and European science than in the US.

The couple's move was aided by a grant from the UK's Global Talent Fund, a $70 million initiative created to attract researchers from other nations to the UK. Swaab and Mangun are maintaining emeritus positions at UC Davis while beginning new research programmes at Birmingham.