Fellowships granted for “challenging issues”

The Fellowships have been awarded in an effort to tackle challenging engineering issues within medical science and mechanical engineering, the RAE said.

Chairman of the RAE's Research and Secondments Committee Ric Parker said: “Continued innovation is key to making the important steps from scientific ideas to fully functioning technology that we can see used in our homes, hospitals, laboratories, computers, and across our communication networks.”

Parker said the Fellowships will build on existing work to take the “important next steps” to bring products such as diagnostics tools and personal electronics to fruition.

The eight Fellows are as follows:

Mark Batty, University of Kent – supported by Lloyd’s Register Foundation

• The project will develop new technology in computing languages similar to C, to remove bugs and improve the specifications in systems where computation is shared between a central processing unit and a graphics processing unit.

Martynas Beresna, University of Southampton

• Beresna will develop a manufacturing platform that uses laser-assisted engineering technology to restructure the glass in optical fibres. Combined with the flexibility of fibre optics, this will enable the production of new types of all-fibre optical devices for next generation of telecom networks, high power light sources, low cost sensors and high resolution imaging systems.

Trung Duong, Queen’s University Belfast

• Duong will bring together advances in signal processing to help develop a two-tier network system for wireless traffic. A two-tier system has been proposed to increase the capacity of the available wireless spectrum, as the number of wireless devices increases exponentially.

Marco Endrizzi, University College London

• Endrizzi will develop powerful new laboratory-based x-ray imaging tools for use in medicine, energy and materials science. The tools will specifically examine the phase as well as the amplitude of x-rays, which will provide three-dimensional information at the micron-scale and below.

Amanda Foust, Imperial College London

• Foust will develop solutions to problems such as hardware integration and image processing involved in using light to control neurons. The work builds on the recent development of tools to enable neuroscientists to control and monitor multiple neurons one at a time using optical technology.

Luca Magri, University of Cambridge

• Magri will use fluid dynamic simulations and mathematical modelling to help prevent and control instabilities in gas turbines. The instabilities are strong oscillations that can cause structural vibration, fatigue, and noise. By better understanding these factors, Dr Magri’s research will help engineers design quieter, safer aeronautical engines.

Pola Goldberg Oppenheimer, University of Birmingham

• Goldberg will develop reliable diagnostic technology to detect biomarkers at miniscule concentrations from blood or urine. Although the highly sensitive Surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) spectroscopic technique to detect these markers has been established, there is currently no technology with sufficient sensitivity and speed to be used at the point of care.

David Phillips, University of Glasgow

• Phillips will develop new imaging, force measurement and manipulation techniques to explore forces in single-cell biological systems. This will be an important step towards new methods to understand and combat antibiotic-resistant pathogens such as methicillin-resistant staphylococcus aureus (MRSA).