The Royal Society of Edinburgh, Scotland’s National Academy, has announced its 2025 cohort of new Fellows, celebrating leading minds from across science, the arts, business, public life, and academia. This year’s intake includes outstanding individuals whose contributions are shaping society in Scotland and beyond, including comic creator Kate Charlesworth.
The RSE Fellowship comprises around 1800 leading experts in the sciences, arts, business, professions and the third and public sectors, with links to Scotland. This range of expertise within the Fellowship places us in a unique position to provide an informed, interdisciplinary response to issues facing Scotland and internationally.
Cartoonist and illustrator Kate Charlesworth‘s early work was published in LGBTQ+ newspapers like The Pink Paper and Gay News, and in 2019 she published Sensible Footwear: A Girl’s Guide, an autobiographical chronicle of British LGBTQ+ life.
A Patron of the Lakes International Comic Art Festival alongside Charlie Adlard, , Yomi Ayeni, Sean Phillips and Bryan and Mary Talbot, she has also worked as an artist for world famous Aardman Animations, had commissions from a range of newspapers like The Scotsman and The Guardian, and has produced educational materials for a variety of groups in the UK and internationally, and her work has featured heavily in New Scientist.
Of her Fellowship, Yorkshire-born Kate said: “I was absolutely delighted – thrilled, in fact – and more honoured than I can say to hear about my RSE Fellowship. For over half my working life I’ve lived in Scotland – constantly inspiring, always surprising – as this Fellowship splendidly demonstrates.
“An adopted Scot, a Leither, and now an FRSE. What riches.”
Others in the 2025 cohort of Fellows include Professor Asad Madni, a pioneer of space technology; His Royal Highness the Duke of Edinburgh, joining the Society’s patron, His Majesty King Charles III, The Prince of Wales and The Princess Royal; Professor Patricia Findlay, a professor of work and employment relations at the University of Strathclyde, as well as being the Director of the Scottish Centre for Employment Relations, which aims to inform academic, policy and practice debates on work and employment; and David Field, Chief Executive of the Royal Zoological Society of Scotland, who run both Edinburgh Zoo and the Highland Wildlife Park.
The full list of RSE Fellows 2025 is here on the RSE Official Site
Professor Madni led the development of the control system for the Hubble Space Telescope’s star selector. The star selector forms part of Hubble’s Fine Guidance Sensor (FGS) system, enabling it to track objects in space more accurately.
The Hubble Telescope was launched by NASA on 24th April 1990 with the ongoing mission to understand the universe. Hubble has transmitted images from deep space ever since – among them some of the most famous images of the cosmos such as the Hubble Ultra-Deep Field and the Pillars of Creation.
President of the RSE, Professor Sir John Ball PRSE, said: “It is my sincere pleasure to welcome each of our new Fellows – from the worlds of academia, public service, business, and the arts – to Scotland’s National Academy.
“They represent excellence in their fields and will reinforce our ability to tackle the challenges that Scotland, and indeed the wider world, faces now and in the future.
“Across a range of disciplines, they have each shown an unshakeable commitment to their research, work or craft, and it is exactly this superlative level of accomplishment that makes them belong as Fellows of the RSE.
“I would like to extend my heartfelt congratulations to all of our new Fellows, and I hope they will avail themselves of all that our great National Academy has to offer them.”
• Kate Charlesworth is online at katecharlesworth.com
• The full list of RSE Fellows 2025 is here on the RSE Official Site
• More about the RSE Fellows: rse.org.uk/fellowship
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John is the founder of downthetubes, launched in 1998. He is a comics and magazine editor, writer, and Press Officer for the Lakes International Comic Art Festival. He also runs Crucible Comic Press.
Working in British comics publishing since the 1980s, his credits include editor of titles such as Doctor Who Magazine and Overkill for Marvel UK, Babylon 5 Magazine, Star Trek Magazine, and its successor, Star Trek Explorer, and more. He also edited the comics anthology STRIP Magazine and edited several audio comics for ROK Comics; and has edited several comic collections and graphic novels, including volumes of “Charley’s War” and “Dan Dare”, and Hancock: The Lad Himself, by Stephen Walsh and Keith Page.
He’s the writer of comics such as Pilgrim: Secrets and Lies for B7 Comics; “Crucible”, a creator-owned project with 2000AD artist Smuzz; and “Death Duty” and “Skow Dogs”, with Dave Hailwood.
Categories: British Comics, Comics, Creating Comics, downthetubes Comics News, downthetubes News
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