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IET Achievement Medals 2024

Prestige Medal winners

Mountbatten Medal

Alan Weinberg

Alan Weinberg is awarded the Mountbatten Medal for his significant contribution to space power systems.

Alan spent 23 years working as a senior power electronics engineer at the European Space Agency. During this period, he invented many new concepts in power electronics, the most important being conductance control voltage regulation and the sequential switching shunt regulator for the control of solar cell arrays.

He is also the inventor of the Weinberg converter, which is used in many space applications including the International Space Station.

J J Thomson Medal

Professor Ron Hui

Professor Ron Hui has been awarded the J J Thomson Medal for his outstanding contributions to both academia and industry. His inventions on the modern planar wireless charging technologies underpin key dimensions of the world's first wireless charging standard "Qi" which was launched in 2010 by the Wireless Power Consortium and has been used globally for a decade.

All mobile phones from major manufacturers are Qi-compatible, with wireless charging pads now commonplace. The Qi standard is being expanded into higher-power applications such as notebook computers, e-bikes, drones, mobile robots and kitchen electrical appliances. 

IET Achievement Medals winners

Professor Mike E Davies

Professor Mike E Davies is a winner of an IET Achievement Medal in Signal Processing. He is recognised internationally for his technical advances in signal processing, applied mathematics and machine learning. His time series analysis of nonlinear dynamical systems, independent component analysis and sparse approximation in compressed sensing and machine learning has advanced performance of synthetic aperture Radar, Lidar and medical imaging systems. Davies is a Professor of Signal and Image Processing at the University of Edinburgh.

Professor Rob Deaves

Professor Rob Deaves is a winner of an IET Achievement Medal in Robotics. He has made outstanding global contributions spanning more than 20 years through autonomous robotics research, consumer product development, and industry-academia collaborations. In the early 1990s, Rob’s pioneering work on SLAM established a foundational technology that has underpinned robotics for a generation. Through his vast industrial experience, he provides unprecedented support for academia-industry ventures. Deaves is a Senior Principal Engineer at Dyson and an Honorary Professor at the University of Birmingham.

Richard Harris

Richard Harris is a winner of an IET Achievement Medal in Education Technology. He is an inspirational teacher who has made outstanding contributions in education. Through his commitment and dedication to design and technology, he has had a measurable impact on young people, educators, and technology-related companies, he creatively uses AR and VR technology in school to ignite students' curiosity. Outside the classroom, he has inspired his students by presenting at the BAFTA Young Game Awards, working with the Warhammer Fest team, and hosting an international design competition in connection with Hasbro. He has also worked with the Stemettes to introduce girls to STEM careers. Harris is a Design and Technology teacher at Raynes Park High School, London.

Professor Muhammad Ali Imran

Professor Muhammad Ali Imran is a winner of an IET Achievement Medal in Wireless Communications. He is a leading figure within wireless communications and digital technologies. He is shaping UK's 5G/6G Research. Imran’s design of energy-efficient machine communication techniques has led to significant contributions to 3GPP eMTC specifications, globally impacting deployments in regions such as the US/Canada, Europe, Australia, and Japan. He is Professor of Communication Systems and Dean of Transnational Engineering Education (Autonomous Systems & Connectivity) at James Watt School of Engineering, University of Glasgow.

Professor Kun Yang

Professor Kun Yang is a winner of an IET Achievement Medal in Communications. He is contributing significantly to radio resource management. In 2008 he introduced computation offloading into mobile communications, in contrast to then-mainstream computation offloading to the centralized, and more powerful, internet. This helped the mobile edge computing that is widely embraced by industries. He is Chair Professor in the School of Computer Science and Electronic Engineering (CSEE), University of Essex, leading the Network Convergence Laboratory.

Finalists

Professor Jose Alfonso Antonino-Daviu MIET is a finalist for an IET Achievement Medal in Power and Energy for the development of innovative techniques for the condition monitoring of electric motors based on the advanced analysis of electrical quantities. He is known for his methods for electric motor diagnosis based on the advanced analysis of motor currents that include sophisticated techniques, that can reliably diagnose motor health. He is a Professor in the Electrical Engineering Department of Universitat Politècnica de València.

Professor Saurabh Bagchi is a finalist for an IET Achievement Medal in Computer Engineering. Bagchi is a pioneer in data-driven dependability and security. He demonstrated learning from data to build resilient software systems, even when data is incomplete or partially compromised. He overturned the long-held dogma of purely rule-based systems. Bagchi is a Professor in the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering and the Department of Computer Science at Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana.

Professor João Paulo Davim is a finalist for an IET Achievement Medal in Mechanical Engineering. He has made significant contributions to manufacturing, with an emphasis in machining, tribology and more recently, in sustainable and intelligent manufacturing. He is the founder and head of MACTRIB Research Group, where he has developed pioneering research on machining and tribology of composites and other advanced materials, with high potential to application in industry: biomedical, aerospace, aeronautical and automotive products. Davim is Chair Professor at the Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Aveiro, Portugal.

IET Achievement Medal for Volunteering winner

Ruth Watterson

Ruth Watterson is the winner of the IET Volunteer Medal. She is the first IET Education Officer for the Isle of Man and has been a lynchpin for connecting the islands schools with IET resources. This includes bringing IET activities and materials to STEMfest, a STEM event for 800 school children, and manning the IET stand. Ruth worked hard to get the Swagelok apprenticeship accredited by IET, the first on the Isle of Man. To date, Swagelok remain the only IET accredited apprenticeship on the Isle of Man. Ruth at promotes STEM at Swagelok, inviting local schools, and groups to participate in STEM sessions at on site. During these sessions she utilises the IET kits to make gliders and torches and runs hands on STEM workshops.

Finalists

Morgan Bonici is a finalist for the IET Volunteer Medal. Morgan first volunteered with the IET through his Local Network in Singapore. He joined the Young Professionals Committee and volunteered as a Life Skills Trainer and supported the Present Around the World competition, as well as working with IET On Campus Groups. Morgan has since held various roles including Secretary and Acting Chair with the Local Network. During the Covid pandemic he established a liaison with IET Brunei and IET Malaysia to run online events. Morgan moved to France where he assisted to reignite the IET France Local Network, as well as taking on the role of Finance Lead for the Communities Committee EMEA.

EUR ING. Ir. Nagesparan Ainarappan (Victor) is a finalist for the IET Volunteer Medal. He is an active member of both his local network in Malaysia and the IET in general, he has played a crucial role in driving the professionalism of engineers through his work as a Professional Registration Advisor and a Professional Registration Interviewer. His commitment has helped guide over 350 engineers and technical managers toward achieving Chartered Engineer status in Malaysia and internationally, elevating the overall recognition of engineering practice. His recent collaboration with the IETs Professional Registration Team and PETRONAS Malaysia, where he supported 40 senior engineers and managers to successfully apply for Chartered Engineer status, showcases his support to promoting professional recognition within one of Malaysia’s leading engineering firms.

Tan Teck Lee is a finalist for the IET Volunteer Medal. He is the Chair of Power and Energy Section of the IET Singapore Network and Chair of IET Singapore Network. He is passionate in developing the next generations of young engineers.  He has made exceptional contributions to the advancement of engineering by organising technical seminars, visits, symposiums and conferences that raised awareness of the latest technologies and provided opportunities for networking and professional development. Through his leadership, IET Singapore Network has enhanced stakeholder engagement through collaboration with other technical and engineering organisations

Early Career Professional Medals

Sir Henry Royce Award winner

Mike Sargeant Award winner

Paul Fletcher Award winner

Dr Fragkoulis Kanavaris

Dr Fragkoulis Kanavaris is the winner of the Sir Henry Royce Medal. He is a senior chartered engineer and concrete materials and decarbonisation lead at Arup and an internationally recognised authority on low-carbon concrete, concrete decarbonisation, durability, cracking and technology. His approach to materials design, has resulted in 30-60% carbon reduction in concrete quantities (approx. 3 billion tonnes). He has conceived, planned and carried out an innovative method for converting London Clay spoil excavated in HS2’s tunnelling works into a supplementary cementitious material, and designed the first on-site production facility to do this.

Tejaswi Agarwal

Tejaswi Agarwal is the winner of the Mike Sargeant Career Achievement Award for his work in designing and building Zanzibar, Uber’s open-source API Gateway. He has contributed significantly to this open-source project and migrated over 1500+ internal APIs to the new system. This system today handles 100% of Uber’s global traffic to its datacentres. This has been instrumental in modernizing Uber’s tech stack as well as scaling the system to millions of new drivers and riders which would otherwise have not been possible. Tejaswi has been a mentor at Hackbright Academy, a prominent coding boot camp focused on gender equity. In this role, he helped to guide and support aspiring women developers on their journey into the tech industry.

Vimal Rammilan Chaubey

Vimal Rammilan Chaubey is the winner of the Paul Fletcher Award for his volunteering roles with the Mumbai Local Network. Vimal joined the IET as a student member in 2013 and quickly rose to become the Organizing Head of the first IET Student Chapter in Established Mumbai. Since then, he has embarked on an illustrious volunteering journey with IET Mumbai, assuming various roles such as Young Professionals (YP) Secretary and is currently serving as Chair. He was a founding member of the Young Professionals community of South Asia, where he delivered a presentation to Communities Committee South Asia on supporting start-ups of young professionals. Under his tenure, the Mumbai YP Team organised "Present Across the Net," a pioneering event that laid the foundation for the Presentin10 competition which was taken on globally.

Finalists

Nikita Shetti is a finalist for the Sir Henry Royce Medal for her contributions towards building a stronger and more diverse UK space workforce by presenting her research on UK's space industry via the International Astronautical Congress. Outside her day job, Nikita is an advocate for Women in Space/STEM by speaking at schools and universities to raise awareness on space, diversity and inclusion. She is co-organising the first Space Generation Advisory Council regional event in the UK on a Roundtable topic of Future of Space Applications. She is a multi-award-winning Satellite Payload Systems Engineer at Airbus Defence & Space and has been working in the space industry for nearly 3 years.

Professor Jiankun Wang is a finalist for the Sir Henry Royce Medal for his remarkable contributions to robotics and automation. Wang has demonstrated technical excellence through his research on real-time motion planning, human-robot interaction, and robotic systems integration. His work on the Neural RRT* algorithm has achieved world-leading robot motion planning performance. He also excels in leadership and promotion of engineering through his role as an editor for various journals and his organisation of a series of international conferences.

Finalists

Samuel Elegbede is a finalist for the Mike Sargeant Career Achievement Award for his role commitment to his role as a regional lead for the Microsoft Telecoms Cloud Operations + Innovation (CO+I) team. Samuel leads the design efforts across several data centres infrastructure across the Nordics region. Specifically, his focus is on spearheading quality telecoms designs from scope definition to designing in compliance with Microsoft standards and supporting deliverables for construction. As the technical design lead, he oversees the entire lifecycle of projects, from acquisition and planning to designing and construction administration.

Athul Jayaram is a finalist for the Mike Sargeant Career Achievement Award for discovering a critical privacy flaw in WhatsApp, which affected over 300,000 users. His findings significantly enhanced user privacy and data protection. He also enhanced the security posture of Harvard University, which further showcases his ability to implement effective security measures in complex organizational environments, as well as uncovering a critical vulnerability in the Oracle Business Process Management Suite. He has been recognised by the National Cyber Security Centre, UK government, which exemplifies his significant impact on the cybersecurity landscape.

Finalists

Dr Robert Mayall is a finalist for the Paul Fletcher Award for his dedication to the IET through his work with the Young Professionals community. Robert joined the Communities Committee-Americas (CC-A) and has sat on the Young Professionals Committee (YPC) throughout his time on CC-A. More recently, he became Vice Chair and now Chair of the YPC, where he sits on the Volunteer Engagement Board to represent this audience. Robert has lead integral projects as a member of the YPC, the most celebrated being the Career Mentoring Project, an initiative that was is now in the stages of becoming a membership-wide benefit.

Thathsara Nanayakkara is a finalist for the Paul Fletcher Award for his work with the IET Young Professionals in Sri Lankan. Thathsara's remarkable commitment to advancing engineering and technology is exemplified by his leadership in establishing several IET On Campus groups, including the University of Jaffna and the University of Sri Jaywardenapura, boosting IET membership. He is the youngest IET Registered Chartered Engineer and the youngest IET International Professional Registration Advisor in Sri Lanka, where he acts as a mentor to aspiring engineers. His dynamic leadership and advocacy epitomize impactful contributions to the IET community