Four Imperial experts elected Fellows of the Royal Academy of Engineering

Four @ImperialCollege academics are among 69 experts to have been elected as new Fellows of the Royal Academy of Engineering.

Imperial College London Professors Aimee Morgans, Yanghua Wang, Daniele Dini, and Peter Haynes have been formally elected to the Fellowship. The new elections take the number of Imperial Fellows of the Royal Academy of Engineering – one of the highest honours an engineer can receive in the UK – to 101.

Professor Nigel Brandon OBE FREng FRS, Dean of Imperial’s Faculty of Engineering, said: “I am delighted that Daniele, Peter, Aimee, and Yanghua have received this recognition which is a testament to the quality and impact of their work over many years.”

Professor Aimee Morgans

Aimee Morgans is Professor of Thermofluids at Imperial’s Department of Mechanical Engineering.

Her research focuses on aeroacoustics, aerodynamics and flames, and is aimed at making energy generation and transport more environmentally friendly.

She currently holds a €2M European Research Council (ERC) Consolidator Grant (2018-23) on how sound and flow interact in combustors, and previously held a €1.5M ERC Starting Grant (2013-18) and a Royal Academy of Engineering Research Fellowship (2004-09) on thermoacoustic instabilities.

Professor Morgans said: “It is a huge honour to be elected to the Fellowship of the Royal Academy of Engineering. I am grateful to all my collaborators, past and present, and those who have supported me. As both a woman and someone who came through the UK state school system, I look forward to promoting diversity and inclusion and progressive leadership in Engineering, alongside excellence, creativity and collaboration.”

Professor Yanghua Wang

Yanghua Wang is Professor of Geophysics in the Department of Earth Science and Engineering and the principal of the Resource Geophysics Academy at Imperial.

His research focuses on geophysics and engineering for subsurface imaging and resource discovery, which includes inventing technologies that predict and characterise hydrocarbon reservoirs. Professor Wang also develops fundamental geophysics theory and practical implementations on the full industrial scale.

His excellence in science and leadership in geophysics has been recognised recently by the European Association of Geoscientists and Engineers (EAGE) with the prestigious Conrad Schlumberger Award (2021).

Professor Wang said: “I feel truly privileged and humbled to be elected as Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering. I am grateful to the Academy for this tremendous recognition and would like to dedicate this ultimate accolade to everyone who has supported me throughout my career from industry all the way to academia. Particularly, I very much appreciate my students, my colleagues and my family who have always been very supportive.”

Professor Daniele Dini

Daniele Dini is Professor of Tribology in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at Imperial and an EPSRC Established Career Fellow.

His research in applied mechanics and tribology focuses on surfaces and interfaces, which range from solid mechanics, lubrication and mechanics of materials to multi-scale modelling, soft matter physics, and biomechanics. His group performs fundamental research, often through collaborating with leading international institutions, while successfully supporting the application of tribology in industry.

Professor Dini said: “I am delighted to be elected as Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering. I will do my absolute best to champion the Academy’s values of engineering excellence, progressive leadership, diversity and inclusion, collaboration, and innovation. I am grateful to the Academy, and to the fantastic people I have had the fortune to work with over the years, for this recognition. A special thank you to my students and research staff, who work with me untiringly to advance science and enable the development of new technology for a better world.”

Professor Peter Haynes

Peter Haynes is Professor of Theory and Simulation of Materials at the Departments of Materials and Physics and Head of the Department of Materials at Imperial.

His research focuses on computational materials science, in particular the development of new simulation tools that solve the equations of quantum mechanics for large numbers of atoms. These have been implemented in the ONETEP software that is marketed to industry by Dassault Systèmes BIOVIA.

Professor Haynes said: “I am honoured and delighted to have been elected to the Fellowship of the Royal Academy of Engineering. I am hugely grateful to the current and former members of my research group, to my longstanding collaborators and to my colleagues in the Department of Materials and across the College. I look forward to participating in the Academy’s efforts to encourage young people to become engineers and support those at an early stage of their careers.”

Fit for the Future

This year’s new Fellows are the first to reflect the Academy’s Fellowship Fit for the Future initiative announced in July 2020, to drive more nominations of outstanding engineers from underrepresented groups ahead of its 50th anniversary in 2026. This initiative will see the Academy strive for increased representation from women, disabled and LGBTQ+ engineers, those from minority ethnic backgrounds, non-traditional education pathways and emerging industries, and those who have achieved excellence at an earlier career stage than normal.

Sir Jim McDonald FREng FRSE, President of the Royal Academy of Engineering, said: “Our Fellows represent the best of the best in the engineering world, and we welcome these 69 excellent and talented professionals to our community of businesspeople, entrepreneurs, innovators and academics.

The new Fellows will be admitted to the Academy, which comprises nearly 1,700 distinguished engineers, at its AGM on 22 September. In joining the Fellowship, they will add their capabilities to the Academy’s mission to create a sustainable society and an inclusive economy for all.

Sir Jim added: “This year’s new Fellows are the most diverse group elected in the history of our institution. The engineering profession has long suffered from a diversity shortfall and the Academy is committed to changing that, including by ensuring that our own Fellowship community is as inclusive as it can be. It is well established that diverse organisations tend to be more agile and more innovative, and as the UK’s National Academy for engineering and technology, we have a responsibility to reflect the society we serve in addressing the shared challenges of our future.”