Mark McCarthy

In the 1930s, US President Franklin D. Roosevelt proposed a “New Deal” policy to overcome the Great Depression. Less than 100 years later, the world is facing an even more global challenge: the climate crisis. In this Falling Walls Plenary Table, our international panelists ask whether this requires an equally…

Research shows that computer games can be used as an effective educational tool and can promote prosocial behavior. I teamed up with French game designer Martin Jacob to create a free online computer game that encouraged social distancing, and increased understanding of exponential distributions, during the Covid-19 pandemic. The game…

Nominated by: Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS) Presented by: Dr. Théau Peronnin

The nominating institution Curriki on the breakthrough: The challenge facing education worldwide is the lack of high quality easy to use tools for educators to create truly engaging digital learning experiences. For too long, the technologies required to build and publish Next Generation learning experiences have been out of reach…

There is currently no known drug treatment for preventing the onset or progression of diabetes mellitus. However, with my team, we have recently discovered a new potential drug receptor, the insulin inhibitory receptor, a breakthrough with the potential to revolutionize diabetes mellitus care. The discovery promises new, clinically-relevant treatments to…

Tejesvi Patel is addressing the issue of bacterial and fungal infections in wounds, particularly affecting diabetic patients with weakened immune systems. His proposed solution involves the development and testing of biocompatible PVP/TA hydrogels loaded with an antifungal drug, creating topical patches that can simultaneously release antibacterial and antifungal agents for…

Each year, thousands of people lose the ability to speak due to strokes, accidents, or disease. While there have been various attempts to restore speech to humans, science still has a long way to go. Edward Chang is a leading neurosurgeon and Weill Chair of Neurological Surgery at the University…

The nominating institution GEOMAR on the breakthrough: Dr. Micallef’s work highlights the important role that offshore groundwater systems play for the geological and biological processes at the seafloor. The work in MARCAN quickly documented the abundance of freshwater below the seafloor. Recent estimates suggest that there is as much as…

How Micro- and Optoelectronics Lead to Transparent and Paper Transistors If you are happy that your mobile phone does not weigh 1 kilogram and cost $4000 like the first handheld model from 1973, you will appreciate the efforts of Elvira Fortunato, who is working on making technology as cheap and…

Zhu is a pioneer in bringing AI and data science together with earth observation for retrieving valuable geoinformation from satellite remote sensing and other data sources. Her big geodata analytics algorithms enable breakthroughs in geoscientific and environmental research. Her current endeavor is the fusion of petabytes of data from satellites…