Engineering innovation is essential to solving the challenges that will define our future, from climate change and healthcare to AI and national security. Through these fellowships, the Academy is supporting early-career researchers to develop the technologies and leadership that will help shape the UK's future prosperity, global competitiveness and to build up the UK’s next generation of researchers.
Awardees this year include:
Dr Aoife McDonald-Bowyer, University College London, who is developing a revolutionary robotics tool for women’s health that could make cervical screening and imaging speculum-free. Cervical cancer is one of the most preventable forms of cancer, yet it remains a major global health challenge as access to screening and treatment is uneven, particularly in low- and middle-income countries. Current examinations rely on specialist equipment and trained healthcare professionals. To overcome these challenges, Aoife is developing a soft robotic device to replace the speculum and create a more comfortable, accessible and intelligent approach to cervical screening that could improve uptake in the UK and enable earlier detection and diagnosis in low- and middle-income countries.
Dr Elizabeth Ashton, Loughborough University, who is using modified batteries to store energy and produce hydrogen, preventing the waste of renewable energy. Renewable energy sources like wind and solar are central to achieving net zero, but their intermittent nature means that excess energy is often generated that cannot always be transported to where demand exists. Elizabeth is developing innovative battery-electrolyser systems that can store renewable electricity and produce green hydrogen, a zero-carbon energy source. By combining energy storage and hydrogen production within a single system, the cost of green hydrogen could be reduced, renewable energy curtailment prevented, and energy security improved. The technology also offers access to affordable, reliable energy in regions where grid infrastructure is limited, helping communities make better use of locally generated renewable energy
Dr Jacob Webber, University of Edinburgh, who is using the physical and linguistic properties of real, human speech to help identify audio deepfakes. Audio deepfakes are AI-generated speech samples that can be used to mislead, commit fraud or spread misinformation. Existing methods for deepfake detection are limited to identifying previously encountered forms of deepfake speech, reducing their overall effectiveness for new types of audio deepfakes. Jacob’s approach uses the known attributes of human speech, like consistent accents, to build an AI model that can identify new forms of audio deepfakes by contrasting them against the rules of authentic human speech, so audio deepfake identification can be done without relying on known examples.
The Research Fellowships, which are funded by the Department of Business, Innovation, Science and Trade (BIST), support outstanding early-career researchers to become future research leaders by providing funding for an ambitious five-year programme of independent research. Co-funded for the first time by UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) alongside the Government Office for Science, which has supported the programme for ten years, the ICRF is designed to promote unclassified basic research over a two-year period in areas of interest to the intelligence, security and defence communities. So far, the ICRF programme has awarded £13.7 million over 10 years supporting 62 researchers, and since 1999, the Research Fellowships have awarded £133.1 million, supporting almost 300 early-career researchers.
Professor Charlotte Deane, UKRI Senior Responsible Owner for IS8 National Security and Defence, said:
"These fellowships support outstanding early-career researchers to pursue ambitious fundamental research while working closely with partners across the national security community.
Through our partnership with the Royal Academy of Engineering and the Government Office for Science, the programme creates valuable connections between researchers and technical experts. Together, we are helping to build the talent and research capability needed to address future national security challenges and strengthen the UK's research and innovation ecosystem."
Dr Christina Guindy, Associate Director of Research Programmes, Royal Academy of Engineering, said:
“This year’s incredible awardees embody the Academy’s mission of Engineering a Better Future. From addressing long-overlooked challenges in women’s healthcare to advancing pioneering research in areas like AI and clean energy, these researchers are pushing the boundaries of engineering innovation. Supporting early-career researchers is essential to strengthening the UK’s global competitiveness and economic growth, while helping to develop the next generation of research leaders whose work will shape our future.”
Research Fellowship awardees (in alphabetical order):
- Dr Elizabeth Ashton, AIM-Hy: Advanced Imaging and Materials development for Hydrogen production from battery electrolyser systems, Loughborough University
- Dr Jack Aspinall, Strong, stainless, thixocast magnesium alloys for zero emission automotive applications, University of Oxford
- Dr Carla Comadran Casas, Novel integration of microbial biotechnology to achieve Bioremediation Beyond NetZero, University of Glasgow
- Dr Emma Edwards, Hydrodynamic optimisation of next-generation deep-water offshore wind turbine platforms, University of Oxford
- Dr Lottie Harding, Behaviour of Uranium TRISO Ternaries for Energy Research (BUTTER), University of Bristol
- Dr Aoife McDonald-Bowyer, Soft robotics for cervical screening and imaging, University College London
- Dr Preethi Rajendram Soundararajan, Towards decarbonising aviation: plasma-based active combustion control, University of Southampton
- Dr Dominic Spencer-Jolly, Engineering electrolytes for failure-free, safe, high energy density batteries (FAIL-SAFE), University of Birmingham
- Dr Ilda Tole, Engineering the next generation of carbon-neutral electrified cements via mechanochemistry, University of Bath
- Dr Haopeng Wang, Prefabricated rollable pavement systems for modular road construction, University of Liverpool
- Dr Meiqi Wang, Bearingless electrical drives for next-generation medical actuation, University of Nottingham
- Dr Mengnan Wang, Engineering Scalable acidic CO₂ electrolysers for sustainable chemical manufacturing, University of Exeter
- Dr Maha Yusuf (Associate RF), Engineering electrochemical ammonia reactors for a net-zero fertiliser, fuel and energy future, University of Oxford
UK Intelligence Community Postdoctoral Research Fellowships awardees (in alphabetical order):
- Dr Gianmarco Convertino, SOURCE: Securing Optimal Understanding and Recall in Cognitive Elicitation, University of Portsmouth
- Dr Megan Garner-Smith, A portable, highly stable and precise cold atom clock for advancing real-world technologies, University of Birmingham
- Dr Victoria Hann, Room fingerprinting: indoor geolocalisation to help map child sexual offences, University of Nottingham
- Dr Blair Kennedy, Next generation thermoelectric generators to power IoT sensors, University of St Andrews
- Dr Benjamin Krarup, Instinct in the Loop: Enhancing human-AI collaboration by recognising, questioning and utilising expert human intuition, University of Lincoln
- Dr Bradley Mee, Optically transparent transmission metasurfaces for 6G mm-wave network enhancement through wavefront shaping, University of Oxford
- Dr Marcin Szymon Mrozowski, Ultra-stable, next generation quantum magnetometry for detection of femto-tesla level fields within Earth’s field, University of Strathclyde
- Dr Sebastiaan Van Dyck, Tracing chemical origin from reaction-conserved fragments by magnetic resonance isotope analysis, University of Southampton
- Dr Jacob Webber, Explainable acoustic profiles of speech deepfakes, University of Edinburgh
- Dr Robert Zakrzewski, Scene characterisation using an underdetermined RF model for internal structure inference, enhanced with auxiliary information, University of Bristol
- Dr Jake Zipfel, Engineering atomic spin gyroscopes for deployable quantum inertial navigation, National Physical Laboratory
Learn more about the work of the Research Awardees.
Notes for editors
- The Royal Academy of Engineering creates and leads a community of outstanding experts and innovators to engineer better lives. As a charity and a Fellowship, we deliver public benefit from excellence in engineering and technology and convene leading businesspeople, entrepreneurs, innovators and academics across the profession. As a National Academy, we provide leadership for engineering and technology, and independent, expert advice to policymakers in the UK and beyond.
Our work is enabled by funding from the Department for Business, Innovation, Science and Trade, corporate and university partners, charitable trusts and foundations, and individual donors. - UK Intelligence Community (IC) Postdoctoral Research Fellowships are offered by the Government Office for Science to outstanding early career researchers. These Fellowships are designed to promote unclassified basic research in areas of interest to the intelligence, security and defence community. Each fellowship is capped at a maximum grant of £250,000 over a two-year period.Submissions for the UK Intelligence Community Postdoctoral Research Fellowships 2027 will open in December.
- The Research Fellowships support early-career researchers to establish successful research careers and become future research leaders in their fields. The scheme provides funding for five years to allow awardees the freedom to concentrate on basic research in any field of engineering and establish a track record in the field. Funding for the Royal Academy of Engineering Research Fellowships is provided by the Department for Business, Innovation, Science and Trade (BIST). Fellowships can be hosted at any UK university or any UK research organisation that is eligible to receive UKRI funding.
For more information please contact: Kunashe Gonye at the Royal Academy of Engineering Tel. +44 203 839 3433; email: [email protected]