Seven outstanding engineering researchers working on a wide variety of engineering challenges have been awarded Leverhulme Trust Research Fellowships.
The research being funded ranges from the use of 3D bioprinting to repair damaged skeletal muscle tissue to improving building design to reduce the risk of structural failure in the event of a fire. Awardees are also improving disease diagnosis using low-dose X-ray computed tomography, monitoring wear and tear in offshore wave energy converters, and improving the resilience of road networks to flooding. Others are developing next-generation shape-memory materials for use in everything from aerospace to sport, and new antioxidant biomaterials to aid recovery from cancer.
The Fellowships, which are supported by the Leverhulme Trust, allow awardees to focus on full-time research for up to a year by covering the costs of a replacement academic to take over their teaching and administrative duties. This allows mid-career engineers to reinvigorate their research interests and also gives other junior academics the opportunity to gain valuable teaching and administrative experience by stepping in during the duration of the award.
Professor Anne Trefethen FREng, Chair of the RAEng / Leverhulme Trust Research Fellowships panel said: “This year’s awardees amply demonstrate just how wide-ranging and potentially impactful UK engineering research is. I am pleased that with the continued support of the Leverhulme Trust we are able to help more talented individuals and whose research projects I hope will deliver substantial benefits to society here and elsewhere in the world."
The full list of 2024/25 RAEng/Leverhulme Trust Research Fellows is:
Dr Mahdi Bodaghi, Nottingham Trent University
4D multi-physics modelling and printing of Shape-memory Meta-bio-comPosites (4DSMP)
Dr Anthony Callanan, University of Edinburgh
3D fluidic platforms for testing antioxidant ‘environment repair’ biomaterials functionality
Dr Zhiwei Gao, University of Northumbria at Newcastle
Real-time diagnosis and health management for wave energy conversion systems
Dr Alessandro Perelli, University of Dundee
Physics-guided deep learning for automatic material decomposition in photon counting computed tomography
Dr Darren Player, University College London
Engineering the hierarchical structure of skeletal muscle using 3D-bioprinting: clinical and food security applications
Dr Qiuchen Lu, University College London
Resilience of flood-disrupted road networks with dynamic people-centric digital twin
Dr Xu Dai, University of Liverpool
Over-ventilated versus under-ventilated ‘travelling fires’, which one is right?
More information about the awardees’ research can be found here.
Notes for editors
The Leverhulme Trust was established by the Will of William Hesketh Lever, the founder of Lever Brothers. Since 1925, the Trust has supported grants and scholarships for research and education. Today, The Leverhulme Trust is one of the largest all-subject providers of research funding in the UK, distributing over £60m a year. The Trust provides funding across a range of academic disciplines such as arts, sciences, engineering and social sciences, with an aim of supporting talented individuals to realise their personal vision in research and professional training.