Professor Benjamin Mills wins Blavatnik Young Scientist award
Professor Mills has been recognised as the 2025 Blavatnik Awards for Young Scientists in the UK Laureate in Physical Sciences & Engineering, for his accomplishments in Earth System Modelling.
Professor Mills’s research has helped us to understand how Earth became habitable for intelligent life and how this could happen on other planets.
These are big, complicated questions, and developing tools to simulate Earth’s life support systems over our planet’s long history has been difficult.
Professor Mills used mathematical and machine learning approaches to develop a computer model of the Earth that can capture its evolution over billions of years, which was not previously possible.
He said: “With help from the talented early career researchers in my group, we have developed a new type of model that can answer these important questions about life and our planet.
“Using this, and our earlier prototypes, we have managed to make some really significant contributions.”
His and his group’s new approach has led to major breakthroughs in understanding processes like the oxygenation of the atmosphere and the role of early organisms in making the Earth habitable for more complex lifeforms.
His research is answering fundamental questions
Through his work, Professor Mills has established the new field of Earth Evolution Modelling – and has started a yearly conference for specialists to drive innovation in the study of the co-evolution of life and the Earth.
He has recently received an ERC Consolidator Grant to build the next generation of Earth Evolution Models, with which he will explore the possibility of life on other planets.
Professor Tim Wright, Director of Research and Innovation at the School of Earth and Environment, said: “It is fantastic to see Ben's research recognised with a Blavatnik award. Ben has built the world's only 3D environment in which he can simulate planetary evolution over billions of years – his research is answering fundamental questions about how planets become and remain habitable for complex life.”
Solutions to complex scientific questions
The award was given by the Blavatnik Family Foundation and The New York Academy of Sciences.
The Blavatnik Awards are given to promising young scientists to support innovative research efforts that find solutions to complex scientific questions.
Sir Leonard Blavatnik, Founder of Access Industries and Head of the Blavatnik Family Foundation, said:
“We created the Blavatnik Awards to support the creative and novel research of promising scientists early in their careers, recognising their achievements and accelerating the trajectories of beneficial scientific breakthroughs and innovations.”
Professor Mills was presented with the award at a gala dinner and awards ceremony in March 2025, at Kensington Palace and the Royal Society of Medicine.
Professor Shitij Kapur, Vice-Chancellor and President of King’s College London, presented the awards.
He said: “As pioneers in your fields – your voices count. And in your own way, taking your own steps, as King’s graduate Bishop Desmond Tutu says, 'you can change the world.' And that is what we will hear about tonight – how your science is changing the world.”
Professor Mills said: “Receiving this award is a great honour and it gives me confidence that the new area of research we are building in ‘Earth Evolution science’ is gaining momentum around the world.
“I hope to use this recognition to help us to lead the expansion of this field, and ultimately to learn as much as we can about how our planet has become hospitable to life, what the longer term future of the Earth is, and what we might expect to find on planets outside of our solar system.
“The University of Leeds is one of the top institutions in the world for conducting this research and I have benefitted greatly from their University Academic Fellowship scheme, which afforded me the time and freedom to develop this research field, as well as the close friendships and support networks across the School of Earth and Environment.”
The Foundation will host a free, public symposium to share the work of the Laureates and Finalists. Imagining the Impossible: UK Scientists Changing Our World will take place at the Royal Academy of Medicine on 5 March 2025, from 11:00 to 16:00 GMT, and online.
