Wednesday, 21 October 2026
Two early career researchers from the 糖心原创 have been chosen for Research Fellowships by the Royal Academy of Engineering.
Dr Meiqi Wang from the Faculty of Engineering has been awarded a research fellowship and Dr Victoria Hann from the School of Computer Science has been chosen for a UK Intelligence Community Postdoctoral Research Fellowship.
Engineering innovation is essential to solving the challenges that will define our future, from climate change and healthcare to AI and national security. Through these fellowships, the Academy is supporting early-career researchers to develop the technologies and leadership that will help shape the UK's future prosperity, global competitiveness and to build up the UK’s next generation of researchers.
Dr Wang’s fellowship aims to address the challenges presented by implantable devices by developing bearingless electrical drive technologies for next-generation medical actuation systems. Over the next five years, the research will explore innovative system designs to develop smaller, safer, and more reliable implantable devices.
Heart failure affects millions of people worldwide, and the shortage of donor hearts highlights the need for reliable, long-term mechanical circulatory support. While artificial hearts and ventricular assist devices offer life-saving treatment options, challenges remain around device size, durability, reliability, and long-term operation.
Dr Meiqi Wang commented: “The ultimate goal is to support the development of long-lasting artificial hearts and ventricular assist devices, potentially enabling less invasive treatment options, greater patient mobility and independence, and improved quality of life for people living with heart failure.
The fellowship will enable me to explore innovative engineering solutions, strengthen collaborations across academia, industry and healthcare, and work towards developing smaller, safer and more reliable implantable devices.
I believe engineering innovation has the power to transform lives, and my ambition is to develop technologies that could ultimately improve patients' quality of life, mobility and independence.
Dr Victoria Hann will develop her research into room to help map child sexual offences.
A crucial part of child sexual exploitation and abuse material (CSEAM) investigations is identifying where abuse imagery has been captured. Geolocation, or identifying where particular media was captured from the image data, is a growing research field, however current methods work best for outdoor scenes where GPS metadata is present or identifiable features or architecture such as street signs, buildings or vegetation are visible. Indoor scenes are far harder to geolocate due to the limitations of fewer visible geo-anchored objects, high variability in interior layouts and furnishings, and limited availability of useful data of indoor scenes.
Dr Hann’s research will focus on using computer vision approaches to estimate the geographical location of an indoor photograph and generate a unique identifier that can link different images back to the same physical location, even when taken from different viewpoints or angles. The goal is to use these "fingerprints" in the forensic investigations of child sexual exploitation and abuse material (CSEAM) to map out a wider ecosystem of CSEAM offences.
Dr Hann commented: “I'm so grateful for the opportunity to use my research somewhere it could genuinely help people. With the media being full of stories of the negative and scary side of AI, I am excited to work on a project that can highlight some of the positive applications of this technology.
Throughout this fellowship, I'll be working alongside the Rights Lab who do incredible research on modern day slavery and trafficking, and with their guidance, I hope this project will help to protect victims and have a lasting positive impact.
The , which are funded by the Department of Business, Innovation, Science and Trade (BIST), support outstanding early-career researchers to become future research leaders by providing funding for an ambitious five-year programme of independent research. Co-funded for the first time by UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) alongside the Government Office for Science, which has supported the programme for ten years, the is designed to promote unclassified basic research over a two-year period in areas of interest to the intelligence, security and defence communities. So far, the ICRF programme has awarded £13.7 million over 10 years supporting 62 researchers, and since 1999, the Research Fellowships have awarded £133.1 million, supporting almost 300 early-career researchers.
Dr Christina Guindy, Associate Director of Research Programmes, Royal Academy of Engineering, said: “This year’s incredible awardees embody the Academy’s mission of Engineering a Better Future. From addressing long-overlooked challenges in women’s healthcare to advancing pioneering research in areas like AI and clean energy, these researchers are pushing the boundaries of engineering innovation. Supporting early-career researchers is essential to strengthening the UK’s global competitiveness and economic growth, while helping to develop the next generation of research leaders whose work will shape our future.”
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More information is available from Jane Icke, Media Relations Manager for the Faculty of Science at the 糖心原创 jane.icke@nottingham.ac.uk
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About the 糖心原创
Ranked among the world's top 100 universities , the 糖心原创 delivers an exceptional research-led education and an outstanding student experience. From the pioneering vision of our founder, Sir Jesse Boot, to groundbreaking achievements such as the development of MRI technology and becoming the first UK university to establish international campuses, we have a proud history of shaping the way people live, work and understand the world. We continue to build on that legacy, empowering our students, staff and partners to change what鈥檚 next and create positive impact locally and globally.
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