SES Academics Shine Among 2025 Philip Leverhulme Prize Winners
Researchers from Science and Engineering South (SES) universities are among this year’s recipients of the prestigious Philip Leverhulme Prizes, recognising exceptional academic talent and innovation across the UK.
The Leverhulme Trust
The Leverhulme Trust, a UK‐based independent charitable organisation which provides funding in the form of grants, fellowships, scholarships and prizes across all academic fields, has announced the recipients of the 2025 Philip Leverhulme Prizes. Selected from more than 350 nominations, 30 outstanding researchers from across the UK will share £3 million in awards recognising work that has achieved international recognition and whose future careers show exceptional promise.
The Trust offered five prizes in each of the following subject areas: Archaeology, Chemistry, Economics, Engineering, Geography, and Languages and Literatures.
SES Prize Winners by Category
Archaeology:
Dr Georgia Andreou, Department of Archaeology, University of Southampton – recognised for their work on landscape archaeology, heritage, sustainability and climate change, archaeology of the Middle East and North Africa, and the intellectual history of archaeology.
Dr John Rowan, Department of Archaeology, University of Cambridge – for their research into palaeoanthropology, hominin evolution, palaeobiology and palaeoecology, faunal analysis, zooarchaeology, and anthropogenic impacts.
Chemistry:
Professor Alexander Forse, Yusuf Hamied Department of Chemistry, University of Cambridge – for their research on electrochemical energy storage and carbon dioxide capture.
Professor Meera Mehta, Department of Chemistry, University of Oxford – for their work on the fundamental chemistry of earth-abundant, non-toxic elements and their applications in synthetic and materials science.
Economics:
Professor Felipe González, Department of Economics, King’s College London – recognised for their influential research in political economy, economic history, development economics, and public economics.
Professor Attila Lindner, Department of Economics, UCL – for their work in applied microeconomics, specialising in labour markets and public finance.
Dr Ludvig Sinander, Department of Economics, University of Oxford – for their research in economic theory.
Professor Constantine Yannelis, Faculty of Economics, University of Cambridge – for their work on financial economics, human capital investment, corporate finance, applied microeconomics, and student loans.
Engineering:
Dr Letizia Gionfrida, Department of Informatics, King’s College London – for their pioneering research in vision-guided control models for adaptable wearable robotics, advancing real-time adaptability, personalisation, and safety in assistive technologies.
Professor Emilio Martínez-Pañeda, Department of Engineering Science, University of Oxford – for their contributions to solid mechanics.
Professor Noa Zilberman, Department of Engineering Science, University of Oxford – for their work on computing infrastructure and digital chip architectures for large-scale networked systems.
Dr Jun Jiang, Department of Mechanical Engineering, Imperial College London – for their research into sustainable metal manufacturing, solid-state dissimilar-metal bonding, and interfacial micromechanical engineering.
Geography:
Dr Sydney Calkin, Department of Geography and Environmental Science, Queen Mary University of London – recognised for their research in feminist political geography, political geography, and health geography.
Languages and Literatures:
Dr Callan Davies, Department of English, University of Southampton – for their work on sixteenth- and seventeenth-century writing, drama, and spaces of entertainment and performance.
Dr Mathelinda Nabugodi, School of European Languages, Culture and Society, UCL – for their research on Romanticism, the Black Atlantic, and the cultural impacts and legacies of the transatlantic slave economy.
A Milestone Year for the Leverhulme Trust
2025 marks the centenary of the Leverhulme Trust, one of the UK’s largest independent research funders. In July, the Leverhulme Trust marked its anniversary with the launch of the Leverhulme Centenary Awards, a landmark £100 million investment aimed at strengthening the UK’s research base, supporting outstanding academic talent, and driving exceptional interdisciplinary innovation.
Find Out More
For more information and related stories:
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